Yup, it’s bad. I missed the beginning and was therefore shocked when Ed (Beefy Boy) said Retarded Chick was his sister! (Oh, sure she is, buddy.) And when I realized it really WAS his sister and he was concerned about her sexuality, I wondered why he chose to dress her in such provocative clothing. (RC says something about picking out a dress (little girl voice)all by herself (/little girl voice) - so I figure BB was doing the shopping up til then).
I especially liked the addition of the cricket noises in one of the scenes outside the garage - so we’d know those long shadows were caused by a very bright and full moon, and not the sun at all, no.
I saw at the IMDB that the writer had only one previous writing credit and none after KHG. It’s also the one and only movie listed for the director. Good thing.
I am a little disappointed you don’t consider Sharon Farrell a star, Eve. I think she had a guest shot on every single TV show I watched in the early 70’s, so I actually recognized her.
How do you think they roped Elaine Stritch into this thing? Blackmail? Favor for an old friend?
I started taping after 25, or maybe it was 35 minutes, and finally watched it late last night. Based on what you guys were saying, I was hoping for some good old Hays-code-era titillation, but I was disappointed. When they got to the age old device of having her fall in the water, I thought, “Heeeeere we go!”. But the skinny guy did it ALL WRONG! First of all, when you save a girl’s from drowning (which wasn’t really necessary: that water came up to about her waist) you now have license to grope her. Secondly, when you offer to let her “dry off” at your house, you’re supposed to give her a shirt of yours, which she will look adorable in, then let her dry your hair with a towel, while cooing that you saved her life, and she guesses she belongs to you now. You do NOT go back already dry (continuity did suck!) and let Grandma preach Jesus at her and scare her away! At the very least, you go after her when she runs off!
I also have to ask: who the hell did the soundtrack? And I’m surprised that you all thought the housekeeper was hot. I thought she was Fez (from 70’s show) in drag!
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
I guess I’m the one with the housekeeper fetish. I may have misspoken – I didn’t think she was hot – she just stood out as an exceptionally unnecessary character in a largely unnecessary cast. My impression, though, was that the garage owner, her boss, thought she was hot – at least that she was taking care of more than the cooking!
However – I will never fault anyone for seeing something different than I did in this movie. Any coherence or intelligence would have to be supplied by the viewer, in any case, since there was none in the film.
p.s. I tried to add a comment to the listing for the film in the IMDB but it wouldn’t take it. I jumped through all the hoops (I’m a registered member) but it kept saying it couldn’t find the film even though it found it just fine during a regular search. Maybe the MIDB has an automatic block for this picture since no one has ever reviewed it without resorting to profanity.
“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen
Watching that craptacular film, i started perusing the dish for other bad movies. This weekend I happened upon a gem i saw once and forgot until I saw it again.
It’s called “Fear, Anxiety and Depression” and it was on the romance channel. it stars absolutely no one and the main character is the ugliest man i have ever seen. I mean really. He makes the girl in “Welcome to the Dollhouse” look like a supermodel.
It’s the story of this loser who writes bad plays and then moves to New York trying to get into the business. He writes all this awful poetry and these terrible songs … oh my, you just have to see it to believe it. Some older video stores still carry this piece of cinematic beauty.
If you feel that you must suffer, then plan your suffering carefully–as you choose your dreams, as you conceive your ancestors.
Aaah! Burn! Fear, Anxiety and Depression and Dollhouse were directed by the same guy: Todd Solondz! He looks like (in fact, I think he was) the lead guy in FAD.
I saw it years ago, too, when it was his only film. My friends and I didn’t hate it; we thought it was funny. It was so bad, and yet, it wasn’t quite MST material, because the one thing it wasn’t was cliched.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
Oh I stayed up for the entire movie. I just missed the first part of it. It seems like a lot of people missed the beginning of the movie.
I wasn’t too impressed with the cook/housekeeper either. I suppose her purpose was to say how she found the store (garage? whatever) owner. BTW, speaking of him, don’t you just love how he let that guy in to make a long distance phone call?
Oh, I am so happy that I have won over more fans to the Dark Side! I think we have to start a write-in campaign to get “Kiss Her Goodbye” put on that annual list of Film Treasures, to be safeguarded forever. Wouldn’t it be tragic if future generations were denied the chance to experience this little bon-bon?
Well. I am SORRY to pee on everyone’s Cheerios, but I beg to differ!
I see this film as a reasonable example of Southern Gothic with an undertone of creepy sexuality, very much in the vein of Flannery O’Connor and Erskine Caldwell. At the same time it casts a loving look backwards toward the great Grand Guignol-influenced Universal Studios monster films of the 1930s. By the final scene, Ed is safely in the arms of the powerfully unappealing female lead, and the Emily Monster is safely dead, just as sure as if she’d been set aflame in the old windmill.
Hey, did any of you notice the musicians’ credits at the opening? Not the soundtrack, which was jarring and inappropriate, but the molten jazz that poured out of the transistor radio every time Emily turned it on? Jimmy Cleveland on trombone, Ray Copeland on trumpet, Phil Woods on alto sax, and Charlie Persip on drums, among others. (The first three were regulars with Thelonious Monk’s group at the time, and Persip was Dizzy Gillespie’s drummer.) Clearly the director spent his screenwriting budget hiring musicians…
Well, I KNEW you would love the blaring, tawdry jazz score. I wonder if they ever released the soundtrack? “You hated the movie—now re-live the horror that was Kiss Her Goodbye with this long-playing vinyl disc!”
HEAR the sexy retarded chick’s hula-hoop theme!
HEAR Floyd the barber’s girl-watching sexy sax solo!
HEAR the unappealing horsey waitress sonata!
HEAR “the song of the beefy guy!”
All this and MORE nightmare fodder in the Kiss Her Goodbye soundtrack!