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1:00

Welcome to another episode

1:03

of the

1:27

Welcome to another episode

1:29

of You Must Remember This,

1:33

the podcast dedicated to exploring

1:35

the secret and or forgotten

1:38

histories of Hollywood's

1:40

first century. I'm

1:43

your host, Karina Longworth, And

1:46

this is part three

1:48

of our ongoing series,

1:50

Erotic 90s. My

2:00

love really is sex saving. Just

2:02

sex, not love, just sex. And sex

2:05

just isn't cool without condom for protection.

2:07

A rod. You're a hooker. Sex.

2:09

He talked about pornographic materials.

2:12

I call this sex you up. Sex.

2:15

You gave me a lot of pleasure. So

2:17

we can show the sex act

2:20

all over the place. Sex

2:22

is in the night.

2:25

I have seen one or two things in my

2:28

life, But never, never

2:31

anything like this. Last

2:36

week, we talked about Pretty

2:39

Woman, a movie that has been

2:41

considered problematic for as long

2:43

as it's been popular. In

2:46

the early 90s, some worried

2:48

its fantasy portrayal of a rich guy

2:50

falling in love with a street prostitute

2:53

sent the wrong message to impressionable

2:56

girls. Due to

2:58

films like Pretty Woman, many

3:01

troubled teens believe they can run

3:03

away to Beverly Hills, engage

3:06

in prostitution, meet

3:08

a prince, and live happily ever

3:11

after. That's

3:12

from a statement issued by Children

3:14

of the Night, an organization

3:17

dedicated to rescuing

3:19

children and young people from prostitution

3:23

and sexual exploitation. This

3:26

statement didn't include any details

3:28

on those troubled runaways, but

3:31

another piece of media from the same time

3:33

suggested that rich kids born and

3:35

raised in Beverly Hills could

3:38

be just as susceptible to pretty

3:40

woman's fantasies. So

3:42

what do you guys want to do now? Let's

3:45

rent pretty woman. Donnie, you've seen that 300 times.

3:48

It's dependable. You

3:50

know, sometimes I

3:52

think about running away and becoming a

3:54

hooker on Hollywood Boulevard

3:56

just so I

3:58

can meet Richard Gere. There's

4:01

only one problem. What?

4:04

You're not Julia Roberts. What? I'm

4:07

just being honest. I

4:10

wouldn't want you to go and ruin your whole life. That's

4:13

a clip from an episode of Beverly

4:15

Hills, 90210, which

4:17

aired three months after Pretty Woman

4:20

was released on VHS. The

4:22

character who says she dreams of

4:25

becoming a hooker is

4:27

dumb blonde Donna Martin, played

4:29

by Tori Spelling, the

4:32

daughter of the show's mega-producer,

4:34

Erin Spelling. As

4:36

you heard in the clip, 90210

4:39

was smart enough to deflate this fantasy

4:41

as soon as it was presented.

4:43

A funnier deflation came from an essay

4:46

published in The Village Voice in December 1990. Amy

4:50

Tauban, noting that her lesbian

4:52

friends loved Pretty Woman, dismissed

4:55

the feminists who

4:58

knee-jurked and fell for the prostitution

5:01

MacGuffin. Yes, the

5:03

film glamorizes prostitution.

5:05

Like 99% of all films, glamorize everything. Nevertheless,

5:14

I refuse to worry about whether Pretty

5:16

Woman is going to cause some young woman to

5:18

become a hooker in order to meet

5:20

Richard Gere. I mean,

5:23

the first time she has to go down

5:25

on some guy she doesn't like and who's

5:27

got hate in his eye,

5:29

she'll figure it out. Was

5:32

it condescending to the audience who loved

5:35

Pretty Woman to suggest that they were blinded

5:37

by the fantasy the movie presented, to

5:40

the point that they didn't understand

5:42

that Hollywood Boulevard hooking

5:44

probably wouldn't lure

5:46

a Richard Gere? Could

5:49

the children only be saved

5:52

by a movie that presented street walking

5:54

in a more realistic way,

5:57

we will never know because we

5:59

are not alone. movie was made to serve that

6:02

purpose, the MPAA

6:04

deemed that teens who idolized

6:07

Pretty Woman should never

6:09

see it.

6:14

Today we're going to talk about a film

6:16

that was marketed as a gritty answer

6:18

to Pretty Woman showing the truth

6:21

about Los Angeles street prostitution.

6:25

That movie, called, Horror,

6:27

starred Teresa Russell, an

6:30

actress who never quite became

6:32

a movie star,

6:34

despite having an incredible and

6:36

inimitable blend of sex appeal, intelligence,

6:40

and raw emotional power on

6:42

screen.

6:44

Today we're going to track Russell

6:47

from her own precocious youth in which

6:49

older men sought to take advantage advantage of her sexuality,

6:52

through her evolution as the star

6:54

of a number of movies, exploring

6:57

the darker and more diffuse

6:59

aspects of adult desire.

7:03

We're going to focus on two films in particular

7:06

that she made in the early 90s. Before the aforementioned

7:11

horror, there was Impulse,

7:14

which also had Russell, quote-unquote,

7:17

playing the the horror in

7:19

a different context.

7:22

Impulse was directed by Sandra Locke,

7:25

best known as a beautiful blonde actress

7:28

and as the longtime consort

7:30

of Clint Eastwood. Locke

7:33

made and released Impulse while

7:35

suing Eastwood for a palimony.

7:37

The movie and

7:40

Locke's potential future career

7:42

would be swallowed up by the couple's

7:45

very public breakup and

7:47

her daring attempt to reveal

7:50

Eastwood's abuse of power. Join

7:53

us, won't you, for

7:56

the next chapter of

7:58

Erotic 90s.

8:00

the New York Times as a valley girl at heart with the

8:02

mouth of a sailor and the

8:04

street smarts to match.

8:07

Teresa Russell had the 70s version of the Lana

8:10

Turner discovery story. In Russell's case,

8:12

it happened when the 12-year-old mall rat was

8:15

shoplifting in Burbank. I

8:18

hung out. I was in the middle of the night,

8:21

and I was

8:22

in the middle of the night. I

8:25

was in the middle of the night,

8:27

and bank.

8:28

I hung out,

8:30

Russell confirmed,

8:31

and eventually what she called a

8:33

horny photographer came

8:35

along.

8:37

Thanks to the horny photographer, she

8:39

began modeling.

8:41

Somewhere along the line, she started taking

8:43

classes with Lee Strasburg

8:45

and then met legendary independent

8:47

producer Sam Spiegel,

8:49

the man behind Lawrence of Arabia

8:51

on the waterfront,

8:53

the African Queen.

8:56

Sam loved to be seen

8:58

with child girls on his arm, Russell

9:01

said of the then 70 something Spiegel.

9:04

I was 16 years old and still living at home.

9:07

And he took me to the bistro and tried to

9:09

stick his tongue down my throat.

9:11

He thought he could buy and sell people.

9:14

And what got to him was that when I came

9:16

to see him, I was always dropped

9:18

off by my boyfriend and his Rolls

9:20

Royce.

9:22

Russell's boyfriend was a primal scream

9:24

therapist in his late 20s.

9:27

Soon she'd drop out of high school and

9:29

move in with him on his horse ranch in

9:31

Chatsworth. Spiegel

9:34

was producing Elia Kazan's film

9:36

adaptation of The Last Tycoon.

9:39

And he encouraged Kazan to cast

9:41

Russell as Cecilia Brady, the

9:44

precocious college-aged daughter of

9:46

Robert Mitchum's studio chief,

9:48

who has a crush on the genius producer

9:51

Monroe Starr,

9:53

to be played by Robert De Niro.

9:55

I like The Last Tycoon,

9:58

but the movie kind of falls apart. when it becomes

10:00

a romance because the actress

10:03

cast in the role of De Niro's love interest,

10:05

Kathleen,

10:07

is just a black hole of

10:09

charisma. Watching

10:11

it, you feel frustrated that Teresa

10:14

Russell hadn't been given that part because

10:17

as the teenage Cecilia, she

10:19

has a kind of sexual mystery

10:22

that the Kathleen part needed and didn't

10:25

have.

10:27

And then you do a little bit of math

10:29

and realize that when she was cast,

10:32

Teresa Russell was actually

10:34

a teenager.

10:36

Being the unrequited object

10:38

of Sam Spiegel's affection got

10:40

her the role in The Last Tycoon,

10:43

but Russell refused to provide

10:46

the quo for his quid.

10:48

Spiegel, she said, never

10:51

got inside Meinekers.

10:54

When he tried to sign her to a long term contract,

10:57

quote,

10:58

I asked him, if I sign

11:00

your contract, what if I

11:02

wanna do some role in some other picture?

11:05

He said, you'll have to come to

11:07

my boat in the south of France.

11:10

Yeah, and what happens then? A

11:13

furious beagle, according to Russell,

11:16

punished her by excluding her

11:18

from the movie's publicity.

11:21

Gressel is fascinating in interviews

11:23

because, while sometimes using

11:25

outdated verbiage like knickers,

11:28

she is never coy.

11:31

She's always saying things like, when

11:33

I wanted something, I'd use my

11:35

sexuality on men and not necessarily

11:37

by fucking them. I wouldn't

11:40

have to fuck them, just be around

11:42

them, going out and having

11:44

fun and making them feel real

11:47

smart.

11:50

This intoxicating sexuality would

11:52

be captured on screen in

11:54

bad timing. which

11:57

Russell would shoot in Vienna in 1979. Directed

12:01

by Nicholas Rogue, Bad

12:03

Timing stars Art Garfunkel

12:05

as an American psychology professor who

12:08

becomes sexually obsessed with Russell's

12:10

mysterious party girl.

12:13

At the beginning of the film, Russell

12:15

is rushed to the hospital after an overdose.

12:19

Harvey Keitel plays an investigator

12:21

who questions Garfunkel as to what happened,

12:24

and we see the couple's maddening relationship

12:27

in flashback.

12:30

At the core of the elliptical story

12:32

is the idea that the very things about

12:34

some women that make them attractive to some

12:36

men—aggressive, unashamed

12:39

desire, a

12:40

reckless disregard for propriety,

12:43

an

12:44

ability to turn any mundane

12:46

moment into high drama—can

12:49

become the things that these

12:51

same men tried to tame,

12:52

shame, control, or kill.

12:54

This

13:00

movie was released in 1980 and

13:02

while we definitely saw blunter and

13:05

less nuanced treatments of

13:07

similar themes in erotic

13:09

80s,

13:10

bad timing feels like a more direct

13:13

ancestor of a number of movies

13:15

that we're going to see in erotic 90s.

13:18

The dark truths of masculinity

13:21

that Rogue and Garfunkel give

13:23

such brutal treatment to would

13:26

get laundered into Hollywood programmers

13:29

that made these men heroes. But

13:32

we'll get to that later.

13:35

Bad timing established Russell as

13:37

a new generation screen vamp

13:40

to quote Roger Ebert, If

13:43

you think of Teresa Russell in the movies, chances

13:46

are you think, not long afterwards,

13:49

of sex. asked

13:52

how she felt about being seen this

13:54

way, Valley Girl Teresa

13:57

basically said, duh. I

14:00

think I've always been in touch with my

14:02

needs and desires," she

14:04

told The Hollywood Reporter. A

14:07

lot of youth is taken up figuring

14:09

out things. I never had

14:11

that dating thing. Whoever

14:13

it was, I zoned in. And

14:17

the men I did zone in on were

14:20

not intimidated.

14:23

On the set of Bad Timing, Russell

14:25

fell in love with director Rogue

14:28

and zoned in.

14:30

She was 22 and he was 51. She

14:34

said she seduced him by showing up

14:36

to his office naked under

14:38

her coat.

14:40

They got married in 1982, lived

14:43

in London, had two kids

14:45

and made six films together,

14:47

most of which weren't widely released

14:50

in the States, including Insignificance,

14:53

in which she played a version of Marilyn

14:56

Monroe.

14:57

The marriage and the collaboration with

14:59

Rogue kind of took Russell

15:02

out of the game of big Hollywood movies

15:05

for much of the 80s.

15:07

This meant that when she starred in Bob Raffleson's

15:10

Black Widow in 1987,

15:13

it was treated like a comeback.

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16:21

In Black Widow, Deborah Winger

16:23

plays Alex Barnes, an

16:26

FBI agent who becomes obsessed

16:29

a series of deaths of wealthy

16:31

men across the country.

16:33

Each of these men left a young

16:36

widow, and Alex becomes

16:38

convinced that all the wives are

16:40

actually the same woman, who

16:43

is assuming new identities to entrap

16:45

men,

16:46

kill them, and slink

16:48

away with their fortunes. It

16:52

may be a coincidence that Winger's character

16:54

has the same last name as Teddy

16:57

Barnes, the character played

16:59

by Glenn Close in Jagged Edge

17:01

from two years earlier.

17:03

But it's a fact that both characters

17:06

have traditionally masculine first names,

17:09

and perform traditionally masculine

17:12

jobs within narratives

17:14

that question their femininity.

17:17

Winger, who at that point in her career

17:20

was known for playing up her sexuality

17:23

In films like An Officer and a Gentleman,

17:26

here plays against type as

17:28

a workaholic who can barely dress

17:30

herself. Director

17:33

Raffleson called her, quote, this

17:36

frumpy figure who becomes

17:38

sexy from what she learns

17:40

from the other woman.

17:43

What she learns is how to

17:45

swan around in different varieties

17:48

of 80s glam,

17:49

when to withhold sex, and

17:52

when to deploy it strategically.

17:56

playing several distinct

17:58

identities. Russell brings

18:01

to each a cool sexual confidence

18:03

that Alex seems to be semi-blinded

18:06

by. The second

18:08

half of the film takes place in Hawaii,

18:11

where Alex has tracked her prey.

18:14

Previously a cosmopolitan society

18:16

bride named Catherine, Russell's

18:19

character is now rocking a golden tan

18:22

and calling herself Renny.

18:26

We know why Alex wants to get close to

18:28

her. But it's a surprise

18:30

when Renny seems to lure Alex

18:33

in. Why, after

18:35

she's already figured out that Alex is

18:37

a cop but is still playing

18:39

as though she's a dumb tourist, does

18:42

Renny offer this confession? Second

18:45

has been how many have you had?

18:47

Lots. That's

18:50

how I got rich. Once

18:53

wasn't enough to get rich. Rich

18:56

is hard. You

18:59

never really figure you're quite there.

19:03

That sounds pretty romantic.

19:04

Well...

19:10

I used to think of it as my job. making

19:14

myself appealing. I

19:18

was a professional. I

19:27

loved every one of them.

19:33

Deeply. Honestly.

19:41

Though the epitome of slow cinema

19:44

compared to more popular films of the same

19:46

year like Fatal Attraction and Dirty

19:48

Dancing,

19:50

Black Widow is exciting to watch

19:52

because of the chemistry between the two actresses.

19:56

as Raffleson put it,

19:57

if I had been making the film in France, though

20:00

two women would have been completely in love

20:02

with each other. As it

20:04

is, we got as close as we could to what would be acceptable

20:06

in an American movie.

20:09

That means that their attraction to one another

20:11

is channeled through Rennie's

20:14

next potential victim, a

20:16

long-haired hunk played

20:18

by Sammy Fry.

20:21

You can't tell exactly what

20:23

game either woman is playing with the

20:25

other until the the film's gotcha

20:28

ending, but

20:29

it's clear whatever it is,

20:32

the man is just a pawn in it.

20:35

According to Time magazine,

20:38

Black Widow made movie

20:40

history, a detective and

20:42

a villain, both women. Together,

20:46

they fuse as a feminist femme

20:48

fatale. For

20:52

Roger Ebert, Black Widow

20:54

proved that Russell had

20:56

the potential to be a big mainstream

20:59

star.

21:00

She seemed torn as to whether or not she

21:02

wanted that.

21:04

In one interview, she said,

21:06

I had my children in my twenties. Now

21:09

I've just passed 30. It's time

21:11

to make a more conscious effort to work

21:13

in more high-profile kinds of things.

21:16

In another interview around the same time,

21:19

she said,

21:20

"...it depresses me to think of movies

21:22

in industry terms. Most

21:25

of the films that are box office smashes

21:28

leave me thinking that no one will ever

21:30

like the kind of work I do.

21:32

Hollywood is notorious for exploiting

21:34

people who will do anything for fame and fortune."

21:38

Of course, having money is nice.

21:41

It gives you freedom. specifically,

21:43

the freedom to tell people to stuff

21:46

it.

21:48

Even in objectification, Russell

21:50

was an anomaly. After

21:52

Black Widow, Playboy called

21:55

her the thinking man's sex

21:57

symbol,

21:58

and when a journalist for a...

22:00

American film asked her about it,

22:02

she said she liked the idea of being

22:04

seen as, quote, "...not

22:07

just an easy lay, but

22:09

something you have to work for and try to figure

22:11

out." This was preferable

22:14

to what she described as the path of least

22:16

resistance in Hollywood

22:18

and to most men.

22:20

That image of totally contrived

22:23

sexuality with bleached hair,

22:25

pushed up tits and makeup an inch

22:28

thick. Still works. I

22:31

think men still like to see women

22:33

as objects. They

22:34

think that's safe. You don't

22:37

have to invest your emotions or real

22:39

feelings. You can just get

22:41

your dick up, stick it in, and then

22:43

say,

22:44

so long, sweetie. This

22:48

interview was done as Russell was about

22:51

to shoot Impulse.

22:53

It would be her first time I'm working

22:55

with a female director.

22:57

On the one hand, I hate the attitude

23:00

of, I'm looking forward to working with

23:02

a female director, she mused.

23:04

It's like, so what?

23:07

But in some areas of sensitivity,

23:10

it will be interesting to see how this mainstream

23:12

picture about an undercover cop with a

23:14

love interest is handled.

23:17

You always think that if a woman made a sex

23:19

scene, the bed would be covered

23:21

with rose petals and there'd be lace

23:23

curtains blowing in the breeze.

23:27

There is not a single rose

23:29

petal or lace curtain

23:32

in Impulse.

23:34

Released about a month after Pretty Woman,

23:37

Impulse begins with a startlingly

23:40

different image of sex work on Los

23:42

Angeles streets.

23:44

The boulevard in front of a rent by

23:46

the hour motel

23:48

is totally deserted, except

23:50

for a single woman in a gold

23:53

snake print mini. Finally,

23:55

a man in a car pulls over

23:58

and offers her $50. Hi.

24:01

Hi yourself. Easy to talk

24:03

if you get in. I don't

24:05

get into cars. Thought maybe we could

24:07

just go back to my hotel

24:09

room? So what are we talking about here?

24:13

Say,

24:13

fifty bucks? What

24:16

for? I just want to fuck you, that's all. Nothing

24:19

weird. Pull around there

24:21

and park. I

24:24

got a room.

24:25

Pull around there and park. I

24:28

got a room. You got a room?

24:35

When he gets out of the car, he immediately

24:38

starts touching the merchandise, despite

24:41

her protests.

24:43

All of a sudden, the LAPD

24:45

shows up and arrests the John.

24:48

And the woman in the gold mini

24:50

slinks off, alone.

24:53

Her name is Lottie, and she's an

24:55

undercover LAPD narcotics

24:57

officer who has been moonlighting

24:59

for the vice department as a decoy

25:01

hooker.

25:02

She's on thin ice at work,

25:05

caught between internal affairs,

25:07

who have her going to mandated therapy

25:09

sessions while she's on probation for

25:12

shooting a suspect in the heat of the moment,

25:14

and her boss, whose constant

25:17

sexual harassment she's

25:19

learned to live with.

25:21

As she tells the shrink,

25:23

if she reports him,

25:25

she's the one who will face consequences.

25:28

The incident with Morgan, now why aren't you willing

25:31

to report it? Do you

25:33

want a dog flip on your brides?

25:36

You only say I encouraged it. Did

25:39

you? Morgan. Not

25:43

likely. Lately.

25:51

Sometimes working

25:54

with eyes. Strangers.

26:01

Maybe they look at you. Feel

26:05

all that power

26:07

over them. We

26:09

can pay. It

26:17

excites me. I

26:21

just... I

26:23

wonder what it would be like... just

26:26

to do it. He's...

26:31

he's control. Fantasies

26:36

can be normal, Lottie. Yeah,

26:41

well, my fantasy,

26:44

the guy's not handsome. He's

26:46

old and ugly and... He

26:51

wants me to do all these degrading things. and worse

26:54

it gets, the more excited I get.

26:58

What sort of things? Well, first

27:00

he, um... Ah,

27:05

shit, Doc. Sorry.

27:07

We're out of time. Very

27:10

funny. Next

27:12

week, same station.

27:17

Another actress might have made us believe

27:20

that Lottie really does fantasize

27:22

about losing control. But

27:25

Teresa Russell plays this scene with

27:27

her patented cool. She's

27:30

giving the shrink the pathology the doctor

27:33

expects to hear half

27:35

as a way to get off probation

27:37

and half just to troll her. When

27:40

Lottie later has a chance to lose

27:42

herself by having sex for money,

27:45

Russell's performance is much more

27:48

realistically conflicted.

27:51

I think impulse is interesting because,

27:54

for so much of the movie, Russell

27:56

plays Lottie's Detachment without

27:59

revealing

28:00

to the audience who she quote unquote

28:02

really is. Impulse

28:05

and Black Widow are both about women

28:07

who assume false identities,

28:10

using their sexuality not for

28:12

their own pleasure, but to

28:14

some other end. They're

28:16

about women who are expert at operating

28:18

in a world of men. In

28:21

Black Widow, a very pro-FBI

28:24

movie, we are meant to think

28:26

that Catherine slash Rennie is a bad

28:28

seed who could have kept her

28:30

cycle of deception going forever.

28:34

Impulse, which paints the LAPD

28:36

as toxic, is more

28:39

interested in what's going on psychologically

28:41

with its undercover artist, at

28:43

least to a point.

28:46

Impulse is also more of its moment

28:49

in the sense that it's asking the question,

28:51

what is sexual harassment? When

28:55

her cute coworker won't leave her

28:57

alone,

28:58

initially Lottie seems just as

29:00

annoyed as when her gross coworker

29:03

tried to blackmail her for sex.

29:06

When she mutters, inside

29:08

every guy is a pervert just waiting

29:11

to get out. You believe,

29:14

she believes that's true. through.

29:16

But she allows a relationship

29:18

to develop with the cute detective, played

29:20

by Jeff Fahey. It

29:23

feels like the movie is saying, the difference

29:25

between welcome and unwelcome advances

29:28

ultimately comes down to vibes.

29:32

And yeah, that might be confusing

29:34

for men, but

29:35

that doesn't give them the right to be a violent creep

29:38

about it.

29:39

For 1990, that feels incredibly

29:43

progressive.

29:46

I was surprised that some contemporary

29:49

reviews of Impulse

29:50

suggested that it was generic

29:53

to quote Karen James in the New York

29:55

Times

29:56

for the sheer reason that its center is an extremely

29:59

complicated

30:00

female protagonist

30:02

in an otherwise entirely male

30:04

milieu, which was novel enough

30:06

that inspired a trend story in the LA

30:08

Times,

30:10

lumping Impulse with Catherine Bigelow's

30:12

Blue Steel. But

30:14

most reviews were mixed. Impulse

30:18

tries to be a movie about an undercover

30:20

policewoman's psychosexual predicament.

30:23

And who better than Teresa

30:25

Russell, the actress everybody

30:28

wants to fuck, To play Lottie,

30:31

the cop, everybody wants

30:33

to fuck, wrote Helen

30:35

Nod in the LA Weekly. The

30:38

acting is really good, Nod

30:40

acknowledged, especially Russell,

30:43

who plays Lottie as smart and self-reliant,

30:45

but trashy and kind of confused.

30:49

Sandra Locke, though, directs like a myopic,

30:51

placing the camera two inches

30:54

from her subjects. I

30:56

didn't notice Locke's camera feeling

30:59

too close to any of her subjects, except

31:02

in the film's single sex scene, which

31:04

is composed largely of insert

31:07

shots of Russell and Fahey's hands

31:09

in motion.

31:11

This scene doesn't look anything like

31:13

the woman-directed sex scene that Russell

31:15

had derisively imagined,

31:18

and the rest of the movie defies gendered

31:20

expectations too.

31:22

Shooting in a grainy palette of high

31:24

contrast neons and blacks

31:27

that anticipates much in the noir

31:29

of the coming decade.

31:31

Locke also uses the tropes of

31:33

the previous decades erotic thrillers

31:36

in interesting ways.

31:38

At the moment when Lottie's self is

31:40

most divided, Russell

31:42

is filmed with her face illuminated

31:44

by the light of a pool coming

31:47

through Venetian lines,

31:49

which dissect her image into wavy,

31:51

trembling shards.

31:54

The most important critics in 1990 were

31:56

Siskel and Ebert.

32:00

And they both gave the movie thumbs up.

32:02

There are ways in which this film resembles

32:04

the French classic Pickpocket, in which the

32:06

psychological study is more important than the

32:08

plot, and it suggested that some cops

32:11

get into the job because they have an unhealthy fascination

32:13

with crime. The screenplay by John

32:16

DeMarco and Lee Chapman is ingeniously constructive,

32:18

but the real surprise here is the powerful

32:20

direction by Sondra Locke. This is

32:22

a very good thriller. I think so too,

32:25

and you know when I saw this picture, I thought of one other

32:27

film which has many of the same themes, we've just reviewed

32:29

it, and this film blows that film out of the water

32:31

completely, and that's

32:32

blue steel. I mean, it has the same

32:34

kind of a thing with a... If this

32:36

segment made at the movies viewers

32:38

interested in seeing Impulse,

32:41

most were out of luck, as

32:43

Warner Brothers

32:45

only put the film in limited theaters.

32:48

This was a disappointment for its star. "'I

32:51

Think Sondra Locke' did a brilliant job

32:53

with that piece, and I really love the film,"

32:56

Russell said. It isn't one of

32:58

those low-budget, do-it-for-love

33:00

films that I normally do that never get

33:02

any kind of proper release at all. This

33:05

one, I hoped, would get a wider release, but

33:08

they didn't do it.

33:11

Impulse

33:11

didn't get a wider release due

33:13

to its director's entanglement, personally

33:17

and professionally, with

33:20

one of its studio's most valued

33:22

stars.

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I just sold my car to them. I went online and Carvana

34:24

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34:26

car and gave me this.

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34:29

obviously you could put this towards your next car or

34:31

we could finally get that jacuzzi or

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I could start taking tuba lessons or I could

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34:51

An ethereal, wispy blonde,

34:54

Sandra Locke's first movie role was

34:57

in the 1968 film adaptation of

35:00

the Carson McCullers novel,

35:02

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

35:05

Though she was 21 and married,

35:08

she lied and said she was only 17 to

35:11

play the part of a 14-year-old.

35:14

She was nominated for an Oscar and

35:16

became the starlet of the moment.

35:19

For a brief moment,

35:21

Sondra's husband, Gordon Anderson,

35:24

had been her best friend since high

35:26

school. They

35:27

both knew he was gay before they

35:29

married, but

35:30

it was a different time.

35:33

They would never divorce,

35:34

but both would have relationships with men,

35:37

and they were totally transparent with

35:39

one another about it. Locke

35:42

first met Eastwood in 1972,

35:45

when she was considered for the role eventually

35:48

played by Kay Lenz in

35:50

Eastwood's film Breezy.

35:53

In Licorice Pizza, there's a scene in which

35:55

Alana Heim's character auditions for

35:57

that same movie, and then ends

36:00

up on a whirlwind night out with

36:02

Sean Penn's character, who

36:04

is essentially Breezy star William Holden.

36:07

Sandra Locke's audition was nothing

36:09

like that. Instead, she

36:12

went to Eastwood's office,

36:14

which everyone called the Taco

36:16

Bell because the building had a similar Spanish

36:18

tiled roof.

36:20

There, Eastwood practiced putting

36:22

golf balls across the carpet the

36:25

entire time Locke was in

36:27

the room.

36:29

When Gordon later asked her how

36:31

it went, she said, I'm

36:33

not sure he ever actually paid

36:35

attention to me whatsoever.

36:39

Three years later, Locke was called

36:41

in for another meeting with Eastwood.

36:44

This time, Eastwood cast

36:46

her in his movie, The Outlaw Josie

36:48

Wales, which Clint planned

36:51

to star in and produce. Philip

36:54

Kaufman, 15 years before

36:56

he became the director of the first NC-17

36:59

movie was slated to

37:01

direct.

37:03

The first night on location in

37:05

Arizona, Locke had dinner

37:07

with Kaufman, who she claimed

37:10

made a move on her, which she

37:12

politely declined.

37:15

The next night, she had dinner

37:17

with Clint. "'Physically,

37:19

I thought he was the most gorgeous

37:21

man "'I had ever seen,' Locke

37:24

later wrote, recalling,

37:26

we made love that night, not

37:29

once, but several times.

37:32

It was truly magic.

37:36

Eastwood claimed he felt the magic too.

37:39

After that first night, he wanted lock

37:41

with him all the time. He

37:44

asked that she call him Daddy,

37:46

and he called her his

37:49

perfect little girl.

37:52

After observing Kaufman putting

37:54

his hands on Sandra's waist

37:56

to explain how he wanted her to move in front

37:58

of the camera,

38:00

Eastwood told Sandra, I

38:02

don't like the way he touches you. A

38:05

few days later, Eastwood

38:07

fired Kaufman and took

38:09

over directing himself,

38:11

an action that caused the

38:14

DGA to change their rules to

38:16

protect directors from

38:18

producers taking their jobs.

38:22

Sandra felt that she was in love, but

38:24

she also assumed she was in a

38:26

location romance. Clint

38:29

was married and was raising two kids

38:31

with his wife Maggie in Carmel, California.

38:35

And yet, when Eastwood went home

38:37

to edit the movie,

38:39

he invited Sondra to come up to Carmel

38:42

and be with him.

38:44

He cast Locke in his next directorial

38:46

effort, The Gauntlet, and

38:49

encouraged her to sign with his agent and

38:52

to not make any movies without him that

38:54

would take her away from him.

38:57

Wherever

38:57

Clint went, Locke

38:59

tagged along, and when he

39:02

occasionally went home to Carmel, she

39:04

would stay at Eastwood's house in Sherman

39:06

Oaks.

39:08

After a couple of years, Locke,

39:10

as she later wrote, no longer

39:13

thought about making even the most casual

39:15

plans of my own.

39:17

To promote the gauntlet, Locke

39:20

and Eastwood participated in a People

39:22

magazine cover story, which

39:25

semi-outed them as a couple,

39:28

much to the chagrin of Clint's wife,

39:31

who apparently had been kept in the dark

39:33

as to the identity of her husband's

39:36

near-constant companion.

39:39

In

39:39

the beginning, Locke wrote,

39:41

I guess I wanted Clint to be divorced

39:44

and marry me, but

39:47

I patiently waited for Clint to handle

39:49

things in the best way for everyone involved,

39:53

then before I knew it, years

39:55

had gone by.

40:00

Maggie Eastwood eventually divorced in 1984.

40:03

But even then,

40:05

Sandra, quote,

40:07

truly believed that Clint and I did

40:09

not need papers to validate

40:11

the commitments we had made to each other.

40:15

And she did not want to divorce Gordon,

40:18

because remaining married ensured that he,

40:20

who in her mind was her only

40:22

family,

40:23

would be financially protected if something

40:26

happened to her.

40:28

Plus Eastwood always told

40:30

her,

40:31

we'll always be on our honeymoon.

40:33

She felt he was sincere and that

40:36

they had an almost perfect

40:38

life together.

40:40

That's why when she became pregnant

40:43

and he told her,

40:44

if you have a child, our whole

40:47

life will change.

40:49

She agreed that she should get an abortion.

40:52

When she became pregnant again, a year

40:55

later,

40:56

She was less sure that abortion

40:59

was the right choice for her,

41:01

but she did it again.

41:05

Still, it had become clear that

41:07

Eastwood's preferred birth control, the

41:10

rhythm method, wasn't

41:12

working.

41:13

He didn't like the feel of an

41:16

IUD

41:17

and didn't want her to get on the pill.

41:19

He mentioned one day that a female

41:22

friend of theirs had had her tubes tied,

41:24

And maybe that was something Sandra

41:26

should try.

41:28

So she did.

41:31

After terminating two pregnancies and

41:33

putting a surgical end to her fertility,

41:37

Locke had one request.

41:39

She asked Clint if they could get a

41:41

new house in Los Angeles,

41:43

as they were still living in the place that had been decorated

41:46

by his wife Maggie.

41:48

Clint agreed, saying, go

41:50

find a house you love, and

41:52

I'll buy it for you.

41:55

Lock

41:55

did just that, selecting

41:58

a home in Bel Air.

42:00

and painstakingly remodeling

42:02

it. This home,

42:04

she decided, would be my

42:06

baby. Clint

42:08

also agreed to buy a smaller

42:10

house for Gordon to live in.

42:12

Eastwood claimed he was happy to

42:14

invest in this real estate on behalf of Locke,

42:17

because as she recalled him

42:19

saying,

42:20

you don't spend a lot of money on

42:22

jewelry and stupid stuff

42:25

like some women.

42:27

Eastwood and Locke starred together

42:30

in the Monkey Movie, Every Which Way

42:32

But Loose, Bronco Billy,

42:35

and the Monkey Movie sequel, Any

42:37

Which Way You Can.

42:40

Their last film together would be Sudden

42:42

Impact, Eastwood's fourth

42:44

as the character Dirty Harry Callahan.

42:48

The film began as a rape-revenge

42:51

story that Sondra hoped to develop

42:53

as a vehicle that she could make without

42:56

Clint and thus make a

42:58

name for herself apart from

43:00

Eastwood.

43:02

But then Clint bought the material,

43:05

hired his own writer, and

43:08

transformed it into a Dirty

43:10

Harry movie.

43:13

A couple of years later,

43:15

Locke found a script called Ratboy.

43:19

To her surprise, Eastwood was supportive

43:21

of her trying to direct it,

43:23

and got her a deal to do so

43:26

at his home studio,

43:28

Warner Brothers.

43:30

But despite this easy green light,

43:32

later, Sandra would feel that

43:35

the project was doomed from the start,

43:38

and that it doomed her relationship, because,

43:41

quote, As a director,

43:43

I could not be daddy's

43:46

perfect little girl.

43:49

Not that he gave her much of a chance to strike

43:51

out on her own.

43:53

According to Locke,

43:54

Eastwood overpowered her every

43:56

step of the way,

43:58

vetoing her casting in the future.

44:00

throwing out a rewrite which Gordon

44:02

had contributed to,

44:04

and overseeing the editing process.

44:07

They fought constantly over the

44:09

movie,

44:10

and these fights soured a personal

44:13

relationship that

44:14

had otherwise been relatively

44:16

smooth for a decade.

44:19

Their romance began to deteriorate,

44:22

and Eastwood started spending a lot of time

44:24

without her in Carmel, where

44:26

he had been elected mayor.

44:29

She caught him in lies and manipulations.

44:32

Before gaslighting was

44:35

common slang, she told

44:37

a friend that she felt like Ingrid Bergman

44:39

in that film.

44:42

One thing that's kind of shocking about

44:44

Eastwood and Locke's entanglement, especially

44:47

considering how he tried to spin it once it

44:49

had ended,

44:50

was that the media reported on it with

44:53

almost total transparency.

44:56

magazines openly discussed their

44:58

relationship,

44:59

even while both were married to other people.

45:03

A Vogue story on Ratboy was headlined,

45:06

Eastwood's Mole Shoots a Movie.

45:08

While the LA Times used the headline,

45:11

Locke turns to Ratboy to escape

45:13

Clint's maze.

45:16

Bladently

45:16

suggesting that Eastwood

45:18

was someone Locke

45:19

needed to escape, at least

45:22

professionally.

45:24

The same article noted that Locke

45:26

had long fought off the perception

45:28

that

45:29

she only worked primarily

45:31

in Eastwood's movies

45:33

because she was his mistress.

45:37

Locke got another chance to direct

45:39

her way out of that maze when Al Reddy, a

45:43

friend of Clint's and the producer of The Godfather

45:45

played by Miles Teller on the recent series

45:47

The Offer,

45:49

approached her about directing the script

45:52

that became impulse. Production

45:55

was set for early 1989, a couple of weeks before.

46:00

at Christmas, Sandra

46:02

and Clint had a blowout fight

46:04

at his house in Idaho, which

46:07

resulted in Sandra returning to Bel

46:09

Air by herself.

46:11

For the first time in their relationship,

46:14

Eastwood and Locke didn't

46:17

speak for weeks.

46:19

Clint was a stranger to me after

46:22

all, she later wrote. I

46:24

had trusted completely in our relationship

46:27

and let it consume my entire

46:30

adult life.

46:31

Now it seemed nothing but a joke. Somehow

46:35

I had to keep it together so that I could

46:37

direct this film and go

46:40

on. In

46:42

the middle of the shoot, Clint showed

46:45

up at the Bel Air house and,

46:47

awkwardly, passive-aggressively,

46:51

did that lock move out?

46:53

She recalls that she said,

46:56

I want you to tell me that you don't love

46:58

me anymore, Clint. Can you say

47:01

it?

47:02

She says that he stammered,

47:05

well,

47:06

maybe you could just put it on the back burner

47:08

until you finish your film. Even

47:11

if they were going to break up, she thought

47:14

it had been very clear that he

47:16

had purchased this house for her,

47:19

that it was her baby. And

47:22

then a week later, while

47:24

she was on set,

47:26

Eastwood had the locks changed

47:28

at the house. He had

47:30

her clothes packed up into 14

47:32

boxes and tried

47:35

to deliver them to the house where her husband,

47:37

Gordon, was living.

47:39

Gordon pretended not to be home because

47:42

he had an instinct that something

47:44

rotten was going on.

47:47

He was right.

47:48

Eastwood was going to try to prove that

47:50

Locke didn't really live with

47:52

him, but with her husband

47:55

by

47:55

saying that all of her clothes were

47:57

at Gordon's house and not in the

47:59

house. in

48:00

Bel-Air.

48:02

From the set of impulse on

48:05

the phone between shots, Sandra

48:08

tearfully told her lawyer to file

48:11

a lawsuit. She just wanted

48:13

her house back.

48:15

Then she went back to directing the movie.

48:19

My split with Clint was personally

48:21

devastating, she later wrote,

48:24

but it was also about my ability to continue

48:26

working in my profession. I

48:28

had to complete impulse and hope

48:31

it would keep my career going.

48:33

For the moment, it was all I had."

48:36

Later in a ruling against her, a judge

48:39

would claim that Locke

48:41

couldn't have suffered emotional distress

48:43

from her breakup, because if she

48:46

had, she wouldn't have been able to complete the film.

48:50

Luke sued Eastwood for

48:52

palimony, a

48:54

term that had entered the lexicon

48:56

in 1977, when Lee

48:58

Marvin's longtime girlfriend

49:00

Michelle sued him,

49:02

claiming that California's community

49:04

property laws entitled her

49:06

to one half of everything he earned

49:09

while they were cohabitating.

49:11

When a judge agreed that she had a case

49:13

that could go to trial, it

49:15

set a major legal precedent.

49:18

She lost her case against

49:21

Marvin on appeal.

49:22

And to some in Hollywood, Michelle

49:25

became something between a cautionary

49:27

tale and

49:28

a joke.

49:30

Eastwood was counting on following

49:32

in the footsteps of Lee Marvin, and

49:34

he used the specter of

49:37

Marvin's accuser to intimidate

49:39

Sandra.

49:41

She claimed he told their mutual

49:43

friend Lily Zanuck

49:45

that Locke could either become

49:47

a director or become Michelle

49:49

Marvin. And vowed

49:51

to drag her ass through court

49:54

until there's nothing left. I'll

49:56

never settle with her. I paid

49:58

her for her jobs in Mu- Now

50:01

she wants to be paid for love.

50:04

When Locke tried to meet with him about a settlement,

50:07

Eastwood stopped just short

50:10

of calling her a whore to her

50:12

face, sneering, how much

50:15

do you want for each time we did

50:17

it?

50:20

This conversation happened after

50:22

the release of Impulse,

50:24

in which the heroine's boyfriend drunkenly

50:27

suggests that that the worst thing

50:29

she could have done

50:31

was trade sex for money.

50:55

Prone?

50:59

He bought me a drink, I thought. Then

51:02

you buy something else, Lottie. Did

51:04

he put some money on the bar and buy

51:07

something else? Did he buy you? You took

51:09

the money because that's all you're worried about and

51:12

concerned about as a big fat bankroll,

51:14

right? And then you went with him. And

51:17

you fucked him. You

51:19

fucked him for money!

51:21

Then you fucked him!

51:24

I

51:24

don't know why I went with him. All

51:26

I knew was I didn't fuck him, I didn't.

51:29

It didn't want to suck you, Lottie. Was maybe

51:31

you looked at him and saw my face,

51:33

is that what you did? No, so

51:35

if you wanna hear.

51:38

Impulse's happy ending, complete

51:41

with freeze frame and end credits

51:43

plot song,

51:45

rings false. Because

51:46

that earlier scene is so raw.

51:50

And also because Teresa Russell feels wasted

51:52

as a woman who wants to be redeemed by

51:54

the love of a boring man.

52:00

he and Locke had was love.

52:03

In a deposition, he said Sandra had

52:05

been his

52:06

part-time roommate

52:08

for approximately 10 years,

52:11

but that her real place of residence

52:13

had been with her husband.

52:16

He also acknowledged that he had tapped

52:18

the phones at the Bel Air house,

52:20

but claimed that the purpose was not to

52:22

listen in on Sandra's calls, but

52:25

to prove that Gordon was

52:27

a threat to him.

52:29

Clint claimed he had received a threatening

52:32

phone call from a man who said he

52:34

was going to fuck him and kill

52:36

him.

52:37

And he believed the caller was Sandra's

52:39

husband, Gordon.

52:43

Over the course of the long, drawn

52:46

out legal battle,

52:48

Locke learned that around the time

52:50

she started making Ratboy,

52:52

Eastwood had started a family with

52:55

a woman in Carmel,

52:56

siring two children,

52:59

including future actor Scott

53:01

Eastwood.

53:03

Then Sondra was diagnosed with breast

53:05

cancer and had a double

53:07

mastectomy, chemo and radiation

53:10

before she went into remission.

53:13

Still, Clint refused to

53:15

settle.

53:17

Finally, in November 1990, Al

53:20

Reddy approached Locke

53:23

with a proposal.

53:25

A judge had already determined that

53:27

Locke had no right to the Bel Air house.

53:30

The only other thing she really cared about

53:33

was making movies. What if, by

53:35

way of a settlement, Eastwood

53:37

used his clout to

53:40

get her a deal to direct films for his

53:42

studio,

53:43

Warner Brothers?

53:46

Lock thought this sounded

53:48

like a dream come true. She

53:51

figured that it was the best of both worlds.

53:54

The studio would take her seriously because

53:56

of Eastwood's power, but

53:58

because he didn't actually want to. spend

54:00

any time with her anymore. She

54:02

would be left alone to make the movies

54:05

she wanted to make

54:06

without his interference.

54:10

According to Locke, she willingly

54:12

gave up her rights to many things

54:15

she believed were rightly hers

54:18

because

54:18

she believed the three-year $1.5 million

54:20

deal that Warner Bros. had signed her

54:24

to

54:25

would be worth it.

54:27

She had already made two movies

54:29

for the studio.

54:31

She had no reason to think they would never

54:33

greenlight another.

54:36

But that is exactly what

54:38

happened. In three years,

54:41

Warner Bros. rejected 30 scripts

54:44

that Locke pitched herself to direct,

54:47

including the material that would become the

54:49

pregnant man comedy, Jr.,

54:51

to which Locke had already

54:54

attached Arnold Schwarzenegger to star.

54:57

When Warner Brothers passed, Arnold

55:00

ended up giving the script to Ivan Reitman,

55:02

who directed the film for Universal.

55:05

She started to suspect that Clint hadn't

55:08

guaranteed her a deal to make movies,

55:10

but

55:11

had made an under-the-table arrangement

55:13

to ensure that she would never make

55:16

another movie.

55:18

She got a new agent who

55:20

confirmed her suspicions. The

55:23

word was on the street that Warders

55:26

was never going to make a film with her.

55:30

She had her lawyer appeal to the top

55:32

brass at the studio, who

55:34

told him, we can give

55:36

her a $25,000 settlement, but that's it. This,

55:40

she assessed, was some sort

55:43

of tip for being a good girl

55:45

and going away quietly. I

55:47

had done that before, and this time,

55:50

I

55:50

wasn't interested. In 1994,

55:54

Locke sued Eastwood again. time

55:59

for fraud. She alleged

56:02

that Eastwood had arranged a sham

56:04

deal to get her to drop

56:06

her previous lawsuit. She

56:09

had discovered that her WB salary

56:12

was being billed as expenses

56:14

on Eastwood's film Unforgiven,

56:17

which seemed like evidence that

56:19

he was essentially paying the studio

56:21

to

56:22

make sure they wouldn't work with Locke.

56:26

This deal had been a cheap way to

56:28

get rid of Sondra, much

56:30

cheaper than if the Palomone case had gone

56:32

to trial, and she had been awarded

56:35

anything close to half of Eastwood's

56:37

earnings since 1976. It had also given him revenge.

56:40

"'Clint

56:44

did not want me to work,' Locke

56:47

said, because in 1989 I had fought him when he

56:50

had expected me to just go away with

56:52

nothing.

56:53

For her, the

56:55

bottom line was that she had given up her

56:57

house, most of her belongings,

57:00

and even her pet parrot which Clint

57:02

had refused to return to her, in

57:05

exchange for the chance to work as a director.

57:08

But she hadn't worked since Impulse.

57:13

The big difference between the Palomone

57:15

case and the Fraud case

57:17

was that the latter went to trial,

57:20

allowing for more media coverage of

57:23

both sides,

57:24

and the media seemed

57:27

to take Sandra's side. The

57:30

fraud case was in the hands of the jury

57:32

when Eastwood asked to settle

57:35

and lock accepted.

57:37

Several of the jurors then spoke

57:40

to the media and said they had

57:42

voted in favor of Sandra. They

57:44

were only debating how many

57:46

millions to award her.

57:49

Locke never disclosed the amount

57:51

of the settlement. She directed

57:54

one more feature film.

57:55

Her breast cancer came back and

57:58

when she died in 2008. the

58:01

headlines of several of her

58:03

obituaries

58:05

omitted her name, but

58:07

included Clint's.

58:12

The Sandra Locke story is about

58:15

a powerful man who is

58:17

used to using money and power to

58:19

get what he wants and to make problems

58:22

go away. Who assumes

58:24

that women are just like any other problem.

58:27

The only question is how cheaply

58:30

you can get them to disappear.

58:33

A transactional relationship

58:35

only functions if both parties

58:37

participate

58:38

in setting the terms of the transaction.

58:41

As you know, if you listened

58:43

to last week's episode,

58:45

this is exactly what I think Pretty Woman

58:48

is about. And if you look at it

58:50

that way, it makes perfect sense

58:52

that that movie was such a huge hit in 1990,

58:55

at

58:55

the same time as Locke's palimony

58:58

suit,

58:59

and at the same time that the culture at large

59:01

was convulsing,

59:03

of course not for the first time,

59:05

over how to deal with women who

59:08

wouldn't allow men to get away with

59:10

robbing them of agency.

59:13

Of course, because Pretty Woman uses

59:15

prostitution as what Amy

59:17

Taubin astutely called its McGuffin,

59:21

meaning it's an excuse to set the story in

59:23

motion and not the real subject of the movie.

59:26

There were many people who felt there needed

59:28

to be a corrective in terms

59:31

of a film that quote unquote, told

59:34

the truth

59:35

about street walking. Was

59:38

Ken Russell the right person to direct

59:41

that corrective? After

59:44

the break, horror.

59:49

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59:51

know, Ump. Well, unlike that nasty curveball,

59:53

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59:55

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1:00:22

In

1:00:22

his review of horror for the

1:00:24

New York Times, Vincent Canby

1:00:27

commented that the movie, quote,

1:00:30

looks sort of cheap.

1:00:33

He's taking advantage of the double meaning

1:00:35

of that word in the context of describing

1:00:37

a woman who does sex work, but

1:00:39

unfortunately it's impossible not

1:00:42

to notice from the opening credits on that

1:00:45

horror feels unusually

1:00:47

visually limited for a Ken Russell

1:00:50

film.

1:00:51

Part of this has to do with the fact that it was shot

1:00:54

in downtown Los Angeles during

1:00:56

a period in which the area had essentially

1:00:58

been left to burn out

1:01:00

before the next revitalization cycle.

1:01:04

In his autobiography, which was published

1:01:06

after or was shot, but before

1:01:09

it was released, Russell

1:01:11

alluded vaguely to quote unquote

1:01:13

bloodshed in the streets during

1:01:15

production and cracked. If

1:01:18

it hadn't been for iced champagne

1:01:21

and our police escort, we never

1:01:23

would have come out alive.

1:01:25

Whore takes place during a day in the

1:01:27

life of Teresa Russell's Liz,

1:01:31

a streetwalker whose monologues to

1:01:33

the camera set up flashbacks

1:01:35

that show us how she got here. The

1:01:38

first scene is pretty much the same

1:01:41

as the first scene of Impulse,

1:01:43

except this one takes place in

1:01:45

broad daylight

1:01:47

and is much more vulgar. How

1:01:50

you doing? Fine.

1:01:54

You a cop? No.

1:01:58

Why are you? No.

1:02:01

You want a day? How

1:02:04

much? How

1:02:07

much you got spent? It

1:02:09

depends on what you do.

1:02:12

I have sex. I

1:02:14

give head half and half. And

1:02:17

I do domination. Is

1:02:21

that all? What

1:02:24

do you mean is that all? What the hell, you want a hand

1:02:26

job? I

1:02:29

wanna fuck you up the ass. You

1:02:31

could stick it up your own asshole. I

1:02:35

would if I could, bitch.

1:02:39

Busted. Fucking jerk off.

1:02:43

Liz is sexually assaulted seven

1:02:46

minutes into this movie in a scene that

1:02:48

is maybe supposed to be comic.

1:02:51

And two minutes later, in a

1:02:53

flashback, she's gang-raped

1:02:56

offscreen and left for dead.

1:02:59

Unlike Lottie in Impulse,

1:03:01

Liz doesn't have the protection of the

1:03:03

cops who surveil and pay her.

1:03:06

And Hoare suggests the Johns

1:03:09

of Los Angeles are so endemically,

1:03:12

sadistically violent

1:03:14

that the girl boss self-sufficiency

1:03:17

of Viv and Kit in Pretty Woman

1:03:19

would

1:03:20

get a working girl killed pretty

1:03:22

quickly.

1:03:24

Instead, Liz has a pimp

1:03:26

named Blake, who, with

1:03:29

his ivory skin and flame

1:03:31

red hair,

1:03:32

looks hilariously like a recurring

1:03:35

baddie on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

1:03:39

Though it ends up feeling like a frustratingly

1:03:41

diffused plot device,

1:03:43

the best stuff in horror has to

1:03:45

do with Blake, particularly

1:03:48

his soliloquy in which he justifies

1:03:50

treating prostitutes

1:03:52

as less than

1:03:53

human beings.

1:04:00

moment that they came into this world. All they

1:04:03

have to offer is their bodies so they might as well get

1:04:05

paid for it. They're

1:04:07

born with a price tag. If

1:04:11

somebody gave a million bucks, they'd be back in the streets

1:04:13

in a week. They can't help themselves. There's

1:04:16

nothing you can do about it.

1:04:20

It's like being born black or white. It's

1:04:23

just the way they are.

1:04:26

Blake takes Liz out to dinner at

1:04:28

a fancy restaurant in a scene

1:04:30

that feels like it It must be a hastily

1:04:33

written spoof on the similar scene

1:04:36

in Pretty Woman.

1:04:39

I

1:05:02

scream

1:05:02

on it. Yeah, well, forget it. What would you say? What

1:05:04

are you going to death by saying forget it? You're as fat as

1:05:06

a fucking pig. I'm...

1:05:12

I am?

1:05:14

I'm not interested in being the appendage

1:05:17

of the main male actor, Russell

1:05:19

said shortly after Impulse was

1:05:21

released. How fucking boring.

1:05:25

In the dinner scene of Pretty Woman, Vivian

1:05:28

is absolutely an appendage. in

1:05:30

Hoare's update,

1:05:32

Liz is certainly the protagonist.

1:05:36

But is this really a meaningful upgrade?

1:05:38

The

1:05:40

high pitch of the dinner scene is typical

1:05:42

of the tone of Hoare,

1:05:44

and of Russell's performance, which

1:05:47

never coalesces.

1:05:49

The movie is constantly making fun

1:05:51

of Liz's lack of education and sophistication,

1:05:55

which Russell plays at such a high

1:05:57

register

1:05:58

that it sometimes feels is cruel,

1:06:01

that the character is disassociating

1:06:04

is clear. Even as she

1:06:06

is constantly addressing the camera,

1:06:09

her most traumatic moments are presented

1:06:11

through distancing devices,

1:06:13

including a scene in which her pimp

1:06:16

violently kidnaps her from a safe

1:06:18

and nurturing situation. I

1:06:21

get it, it's Brechtian, but

1:06:24

it's also annoying.

1:06:26

Any woman is not a reliable

1:06:28

depiction of street prostitution because it distorts

1:06:31

everything into a fairy tale.

1:06:33

Horror isn't a reliable depiction

1:06:35

of street prostitution

1:06:36

because it distorts everything into a grotesque

1:06:39

cartoon in a way that,

1:06:42

as Vincent Canby put it,

1:06:44

confirms one's suspicions without

1:06:47

adding to one's understanding. The

1:06:49

difference is that the former film

1:06:52

allows for an emotional connection

1:06:54

and the latter doesn't.

1:06:57

Like it or not,

1:06:58

roll your eyes at it or not,

1:07:00

Pretty Woman humanizes

1:07:03

its hookers.

1:07:04

Horror mocks the very idea

1:07:06

that there could be any dignity to that life

1:07:09

by literally spelling out the word

1:07:12

dignity on a Scrabble

1:07:14

board and later having

1:07:17

Liz laugh at the concept while

1:07:19

hiding out in a public restroom

1:07:22

where another working girl is

1:07:25

hard at work.

1:07:28

Russell had never before seemed

1:07:31

to parrot a party line in interviews,

1:07:34

but looking at the wealth of press

1:07:36

she did for horror,

1:07:38

most of it revolves around her claiming

1:07:40

that she and the other Russell had

1:07:43

shown an authentic experience

1:07:46

in defiance of pretty woman's

1:07:49

fantasy.

1:07:50

Not to put pretty woman down, but

1:07:53

it was a caramelized view of prostitution.

1:07:55

Teresa told the conservatively

1:07:58

bent time. which

1:08:00

added that making the movie

1:08:02

reinforced Russell's belief that prostitution

1:08:05

should be legalized.

1:08:07

Many pieces repeated an anecdote

1:08:09

about an actual stabbing that

1:08:11

occurred while they were shooting on location

1:08:14

in downtown Los Angeles.

1:08:16

There's a scene in horror in which porn

1:08:19

star Ginger Lynn Allen, playing

1:08:21

a hooker, ambles into a shot

1:08:23

staged in front of the cameo theater

1:08:26

with a fake knife wound in her stomach.

1:08:29

Apparently, on set,

1:08:32

Alan was followed into the shot

1:08:35

by a non-actor who

1:08:37

had really just been stabbed.

1:08:40

This anecdote seems to have originated in

1:08:43

a set-visit report published in the LA

1:08:45

Weekly a year before the movie came out.

1:08:48

Remember Pretty Woman? Well,

1:08:51

this is un-Pretty Woman,

1:08:53

wrote Samir Hashim.

1:08:55

It's the dirt, the smut, the

1:08:58

abuse, the sexual politics, the

1:09:00

kink and humiliation, the brutal

1:09:03

deceit, the heart and true

1:09:05

tongue of street prostitution over the span

1:09:07

of 24 hours.

1:09:10

It's the grim flip side to pretty woman's romantic

1:09:12

fantasy, a look at the sordid

1:09:14

realities of a prostitute's life.

1:09:17

And it's meant to shock in fine Ken

1:09:19

Russell tradition,

1:09:21

wrote Joshua Mooney in Movie Line.

1:09:23

He also quoted the actress as saying,

1:09:26

I

1:09:26

think the film should be shown to the same

1:09:29

eighth graders who are seeing Pretty Woman three

1:09:31

or four times.

1:09:33

Because in some ways, Pretty Woman glamorized

1:09:35

that life. Richard Gere is

1:09:37

not going to pick you up in his Ferrari

1:09:39

on Hollywood Boulevard. Horror

1:09:42

is the non-fairy tale version of the same story.

1:09:45

It says, this is not a

1:09:47

wise career move. In

1:09:50

his story, Mooney used that aforementioned

1:09:53

episode of 90210, which

1:09:55

he called an insipid teen comedy,

1:09:59

as evidence that the- fairy tale had

1:10:01

to be punctured.

1:10:03

Teresa Russell is saving teen girls

1:10:05

from her own worst instincts, exactly

1:10:07

the ones exploited by Hollywood men,

1:10:10

Mooney mused, while Julia

1:10:13

Roberts is getting Oscar nominations.

1:10:17

Prepped by the advanced publicity for some

1:10:20

impossible hybrid of pseudo-documentary,

1:10:23

searing political statement and skin

1:10:25

flick, critics were understandably

1:10:28

disappointed by horror. Feminist

1:10:32

manifesto or soft porn? Well,

1:10:34

the Theresa Russell starrer horror, up close

1:10:37

and in tight about the day-to-day tribulations

1:10:40

of one toiler in the world's oldest

1:10:42

profession, is actually

1:10:44

neither. Confirmed The Hollywood

1:10:46

Reporter when the film debuted at

1:10:49

Sundance in January 1991.

1:10:52

Variety claimed about the movie's quote-unquote,

1:10:55

utter inauthenticity as

1:10:57

well as the fact that it just wasn't

1:11:00

sexy. Director Russell

1:11:02

quote, is in restrained

1:11:04

form, offering negligible

1:11:07

treats in both these stylistic

1:11:09

and sexual areas. Sex

1:11:11

scenes are emphatically unerotic

1:11:15

and mostly perfunctory, befitting

1:11:17

the subject, but display none

1:11:19

of the outrageous imagination Russell

1:11:21

has brought to bear on the innumerable such

1:11:24

encounters he has created over the years.

1:11:28

Not everyone agreed that the

1:11:30

Russell touch was missing entirely.

1:11:33

After I saw horror, wrote Joshua Mooney

1:11:35

in Movie Line, I went home feeling

1:11:38

guilty about being a white male or

1:11:40

a male period,

1:11:42

which is a politically correct if impractical

1:11:45

sentiment. I began to

1:11:47

ponder Ken Russell's shock tactics.

1:11:51

Twice in this film, men vomit

1:11:53

in the general direction of Teresa's character.

1:11:56

Once would just be Ken Russell excess.

1:11:59

twice That's him saying

1:12:02

something heavy. He must

1:12:04

mean that men are loathsome, sorry

1:12:06

creatures. Men are pigs.

1:12:10

Yes.

1:12:11

As facetious

1:12:13

as this might be, Mooney was not

1:12:16

the only writer who suggested that Hoare's

1:12:19

claims to realism were

1:12:21

undercut by its depiction of all

1:12:23

sex customers as violent. magazine

1:12:27

solicited a review from Zaviera

1:12:30

Hollander, better known as

1:12:32

the madam-turned-advice-columnist,

1:12:35

The Happy Hooker. "...almost

1:12:38

all of the women in horror are good-hearted

1:12:41

and

1:12:41

kind, while the men are a

1:12:43

bunch of psychopathic losers,"

1:12:46

Hollander wrote. It's as though

1:12:48

Ken Russell directed the film, while

1:12:51

held at gunpoint by a group of fundamental

1:12:54

feminists. We're supposed to believe

1:12:56

that Teresa Russell's character, Liz,

1:12:59

is an honest hooker who's only into

1:13:01

safe sex, is not interested

1:13:03

in anything filthy, doesn't do

1:13:06

any drugs, and that when a man actually

1:13:08

helps her by saving her life and giving her $20 in the

1:13:10

blood-soaked handkerchief he

1:13:13

used to wipe her wounds, she

1:13:16

returns the cash to him with a new hankie. You

1:13:18

can bet your life there's no hooker

1:13:21

in the world who'd give a man

1:13:23

his money back.

1:13:26

A Ken Russell film wouldn't be

1:13:28

a Ken Russell film if it didn't provoke

1:13:31

politicized criticism,

1:13:33

but given its mass aspirations,

1:13:36

horror feels like a miscalculation

1:13:39

for its moment.

1:13:41

Men were demonstrably tired

1:13:43

of feeling blamed for every misfortune

1:13:45

to befall women,

1:13:47

and meant they didn't want to think about undeniable

1:13:50

gendered power imbalances,

1:13:53

such as that between the pimp and his

1:13:55

female chattel.

1:13:57

The Russells wanted to capitalize on

1:13:59

the success.

1:14:00

of pretty woman,

1:14:01

but they failed to understand that the pretty

1:14:03

woman audience didn't want

1:14:06

to think about prostitution as a real

1:14:08

business, problematic or otherwise.

1:14:12

As third wave, sex-positive

1:14:14

feminism increasingly found

1:14:16

its way into popular culture, and with

1:14:19

it an emphasis on a woman's

1:14:21

personal responsibility

1:14:23

to prevent herself from getting

1:14:25

into situations in which men took

1:14:28

advantage of them,

1:14:30

no one wanted to think about the situations

1:14:32

in which personal responsibility

1:14:34

wasn't a possibility.

1:14:37

In all the reviews of horror that

1:14:40

I read, and I read a lot,

1:14:42

only Manilla Dargas, writing in

1:14:44

The Village Voice, was

1:14:46

able to contextualize the misogyny

1:14:48

depicted in horror

1:14:50

as something non-horrors

1:14:52

should be concerned about.

1:14:55

Here, she wrote, a whore

1:14:57

is just another name for

1:14:59

being female. This

1:15:02

was unfortunately not the way the people

1:15:04

who made whore talked about the

1:15:07

movie. In a New York Times profile,

1:15:09

Teresa Russell claimed her eight-year-old

1:15:12

son had asked her what a whore was.

1:15:15

And she told him, whore is

1:15:17

a bad word for prostitution. When

1:15:20

he asked her to define prostitution,

1:15:23

she said,

1:15:25

well, it's when women sell sex

1:15:27

for money.

1:15:28

She said that he said, mommy,

1:15:31

that's disgusting. To

1:15:34

which she responded, for women

1:15:36

who have to do it, it's very sad. The

1:15:40

problem is that the movie itself doesn't

1:15:43

speak with more nuance than

1:15:46

this exchange with an eight year old boy.

1:15:49

And still, what Hoare was trying

1:15:51

to say and do was incendiary

1:15:54

enough in 1991 that it was hobbled

1:15:57

in the Hollywood marketplace by the MP.

1:16:00

Ken Russell,

1:16:02

who was contractually obligated by studio

1:16:05

Trimark to deliver an R,

1:16:07

had thought Hor would get that rating

1:16:09

without a problem. There's

1:16:11

no nudity, he told Variety

1:16:13

in September 1990.

1:16:15

Most shots are from the neck up.

1:16:18

At that point, the studio was asking the director

1:16:21

to rush his final cut, to

1:16:23

qualify for the Oscars. Which

1:16:26

if you've seen horror or have ever

1:16:29

seen the Oscars

1:16:31

is pretty funny.

1:16:33

And yet, a year later, after

1:16:35

many reviews were in from Sundance,

1:16:38

the MPAA's verdict

1:16:40

landed, NC-17. Ken

1:16:44

Russell, Teresa Russell, and producer

1:16:46

Dan Ireland signed an open letter

1:16:49

to the MPAA

1:16:50

that appeared as a full page ad

1:16:52

in the Hollywood Reporter, which

1:16:55

read in part, before

1:16:57

we made our film, it was decided that we

1:16:59

did not want an NC-17 rating. It

1:17:02

would defeat the entire purpose of what

1:17:04

we were trying to do. When queried

1:17:07

as to why horror received this rating,

1:17:10

the MPAA did not provide us with a definitive

1:17:12

answer.

1:17:13

Rather, the response was for, quote, cumulative

1:17:17

effect. The whole theme of the

1:17:19

movie is the reason for the NC-17.

1:17:23

The MPAA's charter states that its

1:17:25

mission is to offer to parents

1:17:28

some advanced information about movies

1:17:30

so that parents can decide what movies

1:17:32

they want their children to see or not see.

1:17:35

What kind of advanced information are

1:17:37

you providing to parents when you give

1:17:40

an R rating to a movie like Pretty

1:17:42

Woman, which portrays

1:17:44

a romantic, fun, and glamorized

1:17:47

view of prostitution, however

1:17:49

fictitious that may be, thereby

1:17:51

giving the message to parents that their teenagers

1:17:54

can see this film while

1:17:56

giving an NC-17 rating to

1:17:58

a film like Horror, which

1:18:00

portrays a very realistic,

1:18:02

honest,

1:18:03

and therefore unpleasant view

1:18:05

of prostitution.

1:18:08

After publishing this letter, the filmmakers

1:18:11

appealed the rating,

1:18:12

and their appeal was denied.

1:18:16

Richard Hefner of the Ratings Board specifically

1:18:19

cited the filmmakers' habit of defining

1:18:22

themselves against Pretty Woman

1:18:24

as, quote,

1:18:25

An enormously cynical but

1:18:28

obviously successful technique in gaining

1:18:30

press attention. But it's ridiculous.

1:18:33

When a film is chock full of graphic violence,

1:18:35

it has to be off limits to children.

1:18:40

Horror does depict almost every

1:18:42

human interaction as ending in some

1:18:44

kind of violence, although I would

1:18:47

only call two of its scenes graphic.

1:18:49

Still, the movie, which is purposely,

1:18:52

excessively vulgar in nearly every

1:18:55

scene, probably deserves

1:18:57

an NC-17 if the point of

1:18:59

the rating is, as we've discussed,

1:19:02

two ghettoized films about sexual

1:19:04

aberrants.

1:19:06

I think you can argue that Pretty Woman

1:19:08

is not entirely about aberrant sex.

1:19:11

It's also about dead dads and shopping.

1:19:15

Of course, the

1:19:16

other thing Pretty Woman had going for

1:19:18

it when it went before the MPAA was

1:19:21

that it was clearly

1:19:22

extremely commercial. By

1:19:25

the fall of 1991, it was

1:19:27

evident that the function, if not

1:19:30

the purpose, of the NC-17 was

1:19:33

to further marginalize movies

1:19:35

that spoke to an already marginalized

1:19:38

audience.

1:19:40

was thus most widely seen

1:19:42

on VHS, a market Trimark

1:19:45

capitalized on

1:19:47

by releasing four versions.

1:19:50

An unrated director's cut, the

1:19:52

NC-17 theatrical cut,

1:19:55

an R-rated cut for stores that wouldn't

1:19:57

carry NC-17 movies and an ar-

1:19:59

The

1:20:00

star-rated version with the slogan,

1:20:02

if you can't say it, just

1:20:04

see it, plastered over the movie's

1:20:07

actual title for blockbuster.

1:20:10

In the 90s, my local video

1:20:12

store carried one of the versions called Horror

1:20:15

with an image of Russell in lingerie

1:20:18

on a bed above the title,

1:20:20

and it stayed on the new release shelf

1:20:23

for literal years.

1:20:25

Thus, at least a decade

1:20:28

before I saw any Teresa Russell

1:20:30

movie,

1:20:31

I associated her name and

1:20:33

image

1:20:34

with the title, Horror.

1:20:36

So

1:20:39

did Hollywood, apparently.

1:20:41

Not that it's a surprise that the industry

1:20:43

circa 1992

1:20:45

failed to think with more sophistication than

1:20:47

a 12-year-old girl.

1:20:49

It may be too easy to say that horror

1:20:52

put an end to Teresa Russell's momentum

1:20:54

as a a possible future movie star,

1:20:57

but

1:20:57

only because Russell seemed at odds

1:20:59

with where that momentum could have taken her anyway.

1:21:02

Talking about the state

1:21:05

of her career circa horror, she

1:21:07

could seem a little wearied. She

1:21:10

was still rarely getting offers

1:21:12

to play anything other than girlfriends or wives.

1:21:16

I don't want to have anything to do with that

1:21:18

sort of misogynistic crap and shitty

1:21:20

writing that's going on right now,

1:21:22

she said. So that eliminates 90%

1:21:24

of the choices. I'd

1:21:27

love to do a sort of pioneer woman,

1:21:29

real strong, out there in a

1:21:31

get off my land sort of thing, but

1:21:34

they don't do them for women. So I

1:21:36

play deranged sexual women.

1:21:40

She did play a version of a pioneer

1:21:42

woman in The Proposition in 1996,

1:21:45

and would pop up two years later

1:21:47

in a film we'll discuss later this season,

1:21:50

Wild Things.

1:21:52

By the early 2000s, she

1:21:54

was in her mid-40s, divorced

1:21:57

from rogue,

1:21:58

living in California.

1:22:00

and looking for work from a mainstream

1:22:02

industry that

1:22:03

had never embraced her as a commercial

1:22:05

prospect.

1:22:07

In an interview to promote her role

1:22:09

in the Sundance-winning neo-Nazi drama

1:22:12

The Believer, she dryly commented,

1:22:15

I'll do anything for a regular paycheck, you know?

1:22:18

Anything for the next decade

1:22:20

plus would mean the last Sam

1:22:23

Raimi Spider-Man film

1:22:25

and a lot of TV.

1:22:27

She said in 2011,

1:22:29

there's a certain type of television acting

1:22:32

where they don't want ego-lessness, they really

1:22:34

don't. They want it to be a certain way

1:22:36

with your ego up front.

1:22:38

To me, that's difficult to do.

1:22:40

It's like another technique that I had to learn.

1:22:43

Now that I'm 54, I just feel like, ugh,

1:22:46

who wants to play that game anymore?

1:22:48

At the time, she was promoting

1:22:51

a new career as a jazz singer.

1:22:53

She was performing in tiny venues, including

1:22:56

the bar at Fatello's, the

1:22:58

Italian restaurant in Studio City where my

1:23:01

family ate biweekly in the

1:23:03

80s, and where Robert Blake ate with

1:23:05

his wife, Bonnie Lee Blakely, on the night

1:23:07

she was murdered in his car.

1:23:10

Russell was asked by interviewer

1:23:12

Sam Lawson if singing had

1:23:14

taught her anything about acting.

1:23:17

Yeah, in some ways it has, she

1:23:19

acknowledged,

1:23:20

but I won't be able to ever get a role

1:23:22

again where I can utilize it.

1:23:24

Here in the US, there are very few

1:23:26

of those meaty, wonderful leads for a

1:23:28

woman of my age. They

1:23:30

just don't write them. But

1:23:32

I'm never bored.

1:23:34

I don't miss acting a shit. I really

1:23:36

don't.

1:23:37

I miss acting doing something wonderful,

1:23:40

but if it's not coming my way,

1:23:42

then I don't sit around moping about it, that's

1:23:45

for sure. That

1:23:47

interview ended by plugging Russell's upcoming

1:23:50

tour dates,

1:23:51

which were listed on her websites.

1:23:54

As of this writing, 11 years later,

1:23:57

That website is dead.

1:24:01

In a erratic 80s, I ended

1:24:03

an episode about Phoebe Cates by saying

1:24:05

that I miss her. And I miss

1:24:07

Teresa Russell, too, even

1:24:09

though I feel like she wouldn't give a shit about

1:24:11

such sentimentality.

1:24:14

In her best roles, she got to play a kind

1:24:16

of woman rarely seen

1:24:18

on screen then or since, whose

1:24:21

tough shell and sexual bravado

1:24:24

masks a bottomless pit of

1:24:26

need, which she reveals to

1:24:28

her detriment. She can take

1:24:30

care of herself, and usually does,

1:24:34

and because of that, maybe she can never

1:24:36

really connect with a man. As

1:24:38

long as men are primarily looking

1:24:41

for the kind of malleability and submission

1:24:44

that Clint Eastwood expected

1:24:46

from Sandra Locke. There

1:24:49

is an immense power projected

1:24:51

by the lady lone wolf, but

1:24:55

also loneliness.

1:24:57

As Theresa Russell and Sondra Locke

1:24:59

both learned, Hollywood

1:25:01

and America preferred

1:25:04

a pretty woman to

1:25:06

a beautiful woman who thought to be something

1:25:09

other than an accessory to a man.

1:25:10

This

1:25:12

will become abundantly clear

1:25:15

next week as we discuss

1:25:17

the film that was supposed to change everything for

1:25:19

women in Hollywood, and of course,

1:25:22

didn't.

1:25:24

us then, won't you?

1:25:35

Thanks for listening to You Must Remember This.

1:25:38

The show is written, produced, and

1:25:41

narrated by Karina Longworth.

1:25:44

That's me. This

1:25:47

season is edited and mixed

1:25:49

by Evan Viola. Our

1:25:52

research and production assistant

1:25:54

is Lindsay D. Schoenholz.

1:25:57

Our social media assistant is Brendan

1:25:59

Whales.

1:26:00

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