Not quite as jaw-droppingly bad as the fabled Kiss Her Goodbye, but damn close. It was on American Movie Classics this week, despite the fact that it wasn’t American, wasn’t a Classic and was barely a Movie: Dog Eat Dog (filmed in 1963, but held back from a terrified public till ‘66). It starred Jayne Mansfield, at her cheap-whoriest: all white lipstick, black eyeliner and bleached fright-wig hair. Now, I love Jaynie—she’s kinda like Divine and a seal cub had a baby, and weaned it on LSD. But yikes, this had to be a low point even for her!
The plot—such as it was—followed Jayne and her two cohorts as they steal a million dollars and try to make a getaway on some vaquely European island. Cohorts are played by washed-up B-actor Cameron Mitchell and some British guy who has to be the most repulsive person to ever step in front of a camera. The crooks and the British, Italian and German cast (one actress has the delightfully melodious name Elisabeth Flickenschildt) run around screaming and overacting and smarming all over the place, till they finally start getting killed off one by one (I’m pretty sure the audience was actually climbing up into the movie and mercifully polishing off the cast members in an act of mercy). I think I lost consciousness when Jayne started dancing around by herself for no apparent reason, going “lalalalalala” in a demented way while Cameron Mitchell was throwing furniture into mirrors, screaming, “NO MONEY NO GAS!!!”
Anyone else ever see this film, or did I just hallucinate the whole thing?
So that’s what that train wreck was called. I was flipping channels and saw a snippet (Jayne saying something about a woman making love to an elephant), but had missed a chunk. Apparently, it wouldn’t have matter as it sounds like the whole thing was craptacular.
Poor Jayne, reduced to making Euro-trash when she was so good in “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter.”
I really wanted to do a bio of her, but there’s no way her family would cooperate—Mickey Hargitay doesn’t want to rehash all this stuff, and Mariska is understandably antsy about admitting that her real father was Nelson Sardelli, not Mickey. A shame, as I think I could do a bio of Jayne that was both sympathetic and funny, but I wouldn’t even attempt it without her family’s cooperation.
Interestingly enough, Tom Ewell played in both “Seven Year Itch” (1955) with Marilyn Monroe AND “The Girl Can’t Help It” (1956) with Jayne Mansfield. The most memorable scene from “Itch” is Marilyn standing over the grate while her dress flies up around her, and th most memorable one from “The Girl Can’t Help It” is the opening sequence where Jayne’s figure causes the ice to melt. She ends up standing in front of Tom Ewell with two large bottles of milk in front of her ample bosom. You have to love the subtle juxtapostion (he said, with a William Buckley accent) of both sets of jugs.
I caught the last forty-five minutes or so of this mess. I didn’t even realize Mansfield was in the damn thing, I was so distracted by the goofy dubbing and that lackluster chase at the end. “That’s three, baby!”
Then I get home this morning, and AMC is repeating The Osterman Weekend. A bad book made into a worse movie. Lots of good actors and famous faces disgracing themselves with this one, including the late Sam Peckinpah. But they left the nudity and cursing in, very strange for AMC.
Yes, wasn’t that “chase” just . . . well, hallucinogenic in its awfulness?
As for the dish on Jaynie . . . she had an affair with Italian singer/director Nelson Sardelli when she was filming in Italy (it was in the press at the time), and nine months later little Mariska Hargitay was born. Mariska has admitted her parentage, but Mickey Hargitay was the man who acted (and still acts) as her father, so she doesn’t like to talk about it—especially now that she has a successful acting career. I have seen photos of Nelson Sardelli, and she is a dead ringer for him, though.
When it was on earlier, they were showing an edited version. I know that AMC is retooling itself, but it seemed strange to see the unedited version on that channel. Especially after they had shown it, edited, hours earlier.
