Poor Pretty Eddie is one of those movies I picked up just because it seemed interesting - I do that way too often, that’s why I have a collection of +4000 discs and boxes here at home. But I have a fondness for twisted, small dramas - and this felt just like it, but with a regional exploitation twist. Also, it stars Shelley Winters - a lady I love more than my own mother. No, not really, but I do love her a little bit. My mother that is. No sorry, Shelley IS awesome, but my mom is more awesome. Some say she’s dealing with the fine art of over-acting, but I honestly think she acted more realistic than a lot of other people out there did.
Leslie Uggams is Liz Wetherly, a famous afro-american singer on her way from a gig. But unfortunately for her her car breaks down close to an old backwoods town where the big star is Bertha (Winters) and her young lover Eddie (Michael Christian) rules. Bertha is a former starlet, a singer and celebrities - far from her glory days. Eddie is a wannabe-singer (a bit Elvis-esque) who directly gets the hots for Liz...and rapes her. Now Liz is stuck in this little shithole and all the retards in it!
Poor Pretty Eddie is bascially a moral nightmare for Liz, not that she does something wrong - it’s like she stuck this hellhole of raping, unintelligent rednecks - where she’s forced to live their life after their rules. This film is also darkly comedic, like a send-up on countryside dramas mixed with the grittier, sleazier, 70’s cinema. Slim Pickens as the sheriff delivers both a very funny and disturbing performance, one of those characters you never can trust. The more I think of it, Poor Pretty Eddie feels more like a art film, trying to fuck your mind up where to put your support. Because Eddie on one hand is a rapist, an idiot, but still somehow cares for Liz and actually saves her from getting raped by half the village - but he’s also the typical abusive man, a person who wants to control his woman. And therefore despicable.
It’s so hard to define this film and I can fully understand how it was more or less impossible to find for a number of years. How could the distributors market this film? It’s not a thriller, it’s not sleaze, it’s still too sleazy for some people, it’s quite fun and it’s quite disturbing and still have that arthouse touch you only could find in 70’s exploitation cinema - but is it exploitation? I’m not sure you would call the Swedish black comedy classic Rötmånad for exploitation, even if it quite similar in atmosphere as this one. It all depends on the distribution I get. In drive-in’s it probably was exploitation, while it easily could come off as something else if it was shown at Sundance.
If you love wide angles lenses, slow-motion and some absurdly complex characters, Poor Pretty Eddie is something for you. I really liked it, but I don’t know how to describe it. It gets darker, more weird and odd the longer it goes, boarding to surrealism in the middle of the rural melodrama.
Poor Pretty Eddie is not for everyone, but it would fit like an absurd double feature together with The Klansman, which also have the same bizarre light-dread and misdirected serious melodrama and a spectacular killer ending. Not sure what to say more, but I liked it.
"Also, it stars Shelley Winters - a lady I love more than my own mother. No, not really, but I do love her a little bit. My mother that is. No sorry, Shelley IS awesome, but my mom is more awesome."
What the hell.....stop bashing Shelly Winters......SHE IS MY MOTHER!!!!!
hhahahhahahahha....kidding...or maybe not....
"Some say she’s dealing with the fine art of over-acting, but I honestly think she acted more realistic than a lot of other people out there did."
I always liked her, maybe she overacted at times...but what the hell....I can forgive her.
"Slim Pickens as the sheriff delivers both a very funny and disturbing performance, one of those characters you never can trust."
Pickens.....he did some great stuff over the years, his death scene in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) was something to behold.
"I’m not sure you would call the Swedish black comedy classic Rötmånad for exploitation, even if it quite similar in atmosphere as this one."
Hard to describe that film.....
"Poor Pretty Eddie is not for everyone, but it would fit like an absurd double feature together with The Klansman, which also have the same bizarre light-dread and misdirected serious melodrama and a spectacular killer ending. Not sure what to say more, but I liked it."
With The Klansman (1974)?
Samuel Fuller hated that one.....but I thought it was ok.
Good review and thanks, never seen it.
Posted by: Megatron | March 09, 2014 at 00:31