... aka: Highest Bidder, The
... aka: Women for Sale
Directed by:
Eddie Romero
An exploitation twist on Richard
Connell's famous and oft-filmed short story "The Most Dangerous Game,"
this Filipino-lensed turkey misses the fun mark by a wide, wide margin.
Working on behalf of wealthy sadist Spyros (Eddie Garcia), a trio
of thugs are given the task of kidnapping five beautiful women for use in
their shady employer's brothel. Lured onto a boat, naive blonde stewardess
Lori (Laurie Rose) and her friend become the latest abductees... except one of the kidnappers gets a little too rough with the friend
trying to silence her. Oops, make that four women. Lori is taken aboard
another boat and thrown into a bamboo cage, where she joins the sexy,
short-haired McGee (Pat Woodell), black Billie (Charlene Jones)
and Filipino Rita (Liza Belmonte). The ladies are all taken to a
remote island, where they're blindfolded, have their arms tied behind
their back and then are thrown into a truck and driven out into the
jungle. From there, they're transferred into a cage being pulled by a cow
for the rest of the trip. After a botched (and extremely pathetic) escape
attempt that night, they finally make it to their destination the
following day.
Upon arrival, the women are each given their own room and some sexy
evening wear for a "dinner party" they're to attend later that evening.
Little do they realize, but Spyros has other plans in store for them other
than sexual slavery: namely letting them loose in the jungle, hunting
them down and then killing them. He even forces some of his reluctant
millionaire clients to take part. Before any of that can happen, some of the thugs decide to
try make a move on the ladies; or as one so eloquently puts it: "Sure is a
lot of pussy going to waste over there." Some of the girls attempt to
comply in hopes that they'll be spared, but when McGee gets her top off
for the mean Karp (Ken Metcalfe), he just throws her on the ground,
spits on her and calls her a pig, and when Billie gets drunk Silas (Sid
Haig) into the sack, he just passes out on her. Looks like their
destiny is pretty much set in stone... unless they can escape. Thankfully,
the conscientious Tony (top-billed John Ashley; also one of the
producers) is having no part in the "hunt" and helps the ladies get out of
the house, but they still have miles of dangerous jungle to navigate as
well as Spyros, his guests and his goons to evade, if they're going to
reach safety.
Combining elements of numerous tried-and-true exploitation subgenres:
jungle-action, women-in-prison, hunting humans, etc., probably sounded
great on paper, but unfortunately the execution is extremely bland and the
film pretty much flat lines right out of the gate. Part of the blame falls
on the director for his inability to generate any excitement or fun at any
point in the film. Perhaps even more of the blame falls on the writers (it
was scripted by David Hoover based on a story he co-wrote with Jack
Hill), for doing a poor job rehashing an already tired plot, for
refusing to give any of the characters even the slightest glimmer of
personality and for pussy-footing around with various boring nonsense
before allowing the action to finally kick in. Hell, our heroines aren't
even actually in the jungle until the final 20 minutes, and even then
we're not given much in the way of action or violence. Certainly not
enough to justify the first boring hour of this 72-minute film.
I also have a bone to pick with the cast. With the possible exception of
Haig, the performances are uniformly terrible and lifeless and most of
these people behave as though they'd rather be somewhere else doing
something else. This isn't fun, spirited, over-the-top bad acting from an
enthusiastic cast, it's just bland, bored bad acting. In low-budget
exploitation films, a game cast goes a long, long way. Roger Corman
(the uncredited executive producer) knows this himself because many of his
own super-low-budget films were elevated tremendously by talented,
memorable actors like Dick Miller and Beverly Garland. Sadly, this one
lacks anyone with the charisma and talent of, say, Pam Grier or Roberta
Collins; both mainstays of Corman productions from around this same time.
Perhaps the worst offender of all is the painfully wooden Lisa Todd
(later of Hee Haw fame), who's handed a camp movie dream role as
Spyros' black-clad lesbian assistant and does absolutely nothing memorable
with the part.
Best one can say for this one is that there's breasts (all of the female
leads aside from Todd lose their top at least once) and a bit of blood
toward the end (including a spike trap hitting a stomach, a head being
blown off and a real cobra getting hacked up with a machete).
Romero also made The Beast of the Yellow Night (1971), The
Twilight People (1972) and Black Mama, White Mama (1973) for
Corman's New World Pictures. IMDb claims this was released in 1973, but it
actually first hit theaters November 1972.
★1/2
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