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Directed by Guerdon Trueblood
Written by Bryan Gindoff
Starring Tiffany Bolling, Ben Piazza, Vincent Martorano
R • 1973 • 94 minutes
by Deeky Wentworth
Jessie, Alan and Eddy aren’t very good criminals. They do okay with the
kidnapping portion, but when the rest of the plan starts to unravel, the gang
quickly implodes in a frenzy of infighting, second guessing, and double-cross.
It was a simple enough idea: kidnap Candy, daughter of a diamond merchant, and
hold her for ransom. When her father turns over the jewels, his daughter will be
safely returned. Candy is abducted on her way home from school, taken to a remote location,
and buried in a pine box, a makeshift coffin with only a small pipe leading
above ground providing her with fresh air. But instead of going to the drop
point, Candy’s father Avery spends the night with his mistress. The fate of his
daughter is obviously of no concern to him. The kidnappers are more than a little stunned when Avery fails to show up
with the diamonds. Jessie (Tiffany Bolling) thinks he’s calling their bluff, so she decides to up
the ante by sending him a piece of Candy. She wants Avery to know they’re not
dicking around. No one is too keen on cutting off her ear, so they resort to
buying a black market ear from a morgue attendant.
"If blood and love tastes so sweet..." Adding an odd, almost surreal element to the whole affair is the presence of
autistic little boy. He lives near the ramshackle house the gang is hiding in,
and he witnesses the burial of Candy. When she’s dug up, after her father fails
to pay the ransom, he watches as they drag her inside. And when the gang is
away, he sneaks in and tries to help Candy. Unfortunately his tiny hands cannot
unbind her. At home, his mother constantly abuses him, both verbally and physically. She
dopes him up with Quaaludes just to get him out of her hair, and even
contemplates doing him in forever by giving him the whole bottle. And when he is
taken to an important dinner, the boy’s condition costs his father a promotion.
With the ear in hand, and a tape recording of Candy being tortured, Eddy
visits Avery to convince him to hand over the jewels. But Avery has news for
Eddy. Candy is just his stepdaughter, and if she dies, Avery stands to inherit a
million dollars. He can’t wait for them to off poor Candy. While Eddy attempts to bargain with Avery, Alan decides Candy must be killed.
She’s seen all their faces, and thanks to talkative Eddy, knows all their names.
Before slitting her throat, Alan rapes her. “You didn’t want her to die a
virgin, did you?” he later asks Jessie. Returning home just in time, Eddy (Vincent Martorano) pulls
Alan off her and beats the crap out of him.
"...then we give em what they want." Let me point out that for a movie filled with fist fights, stabbings,
shootings, child abuse, rape, and kidnapping, there is a tone that is, not
exactly lighthearted, but not nearly as dark as one would assume from the
subject matter. It’s a credit to director Trueblood that he’s made a film with
violence and brutality as its central themes, but managed to keep it from being
emotionally exhausting. Tired of waiting on Avery (Ben Piazza) to change his mind, the gang heads to his house and
waits for him there, hoping to coax him into opening the safe. Avery arrives in
the wee hours of the morning, having again been out carousing with his mistress
when he should have been trying to rescue his stepdaughter. In the meantime,
Alan has murdered Avery’s wife, not that Avery seems to mind. In fact, only when Avery realizes his own life is in danger does he begin to
grow at all concerned. Of course, by then it is far too late for any of them. No
one in the gang trusts each other, Avery and his daughter are liabilities, and
there are far too many guns around. Once the shooting starts it’s anyone’s guess who’s gonna survive. I loved Ben Piazza in this movie. (In fact, I think between this and his role as the snooty restaurant-goer in
The Blues Brothers, I may just love him period. If I ever get my hands on his 1964 novel, I'll be a happy camper.) His turn here as the uncaring father is excellent. On a more grim note, Susan Sennett ("Candy") states in the DVD extras how much she loathed this film, and reveals her tears on screen are genuine. Tied up, blindfolded and dumped in a hole in the ground was too much for her to bear, even if only acting. This is a decent film, gruesome subject matter aside.
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