Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) is a Rainer Werner Fassbinder film made, or course, in West Germany, and originally titled Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte. It is set in Spain, where a production company from Munich is to make a film. Only two things are missing, film stock (and the money to buy it) and the director. When the director finally arrives, he berates everyone in the cast and crew. The board actors and crew fill their time having sex with anyone of any gender handy, drinking Cuba Libras, and fighting amongst themselves. This goes on for 103 minutes. The experts say this was based on Fassbinder's earlier experience filming in Spain, and is supposed to be about cruelty of people to one another. He succeeded on at least one point, by boring me to death. Fassbinder regular Hanna Schygulla has one nude scene, where she shows breasts and buns, and maybe the reflection of bush in a mirror. I suppose if I can't tell for sure, than it doesn't count.

The film is mostly in German, and has English sub-titles that can be turned off, but there are also snatches of Italian, Spanish, French and English here and there. IMDB readers have this at 6.1 of 10. This is supposed to be a self parody by Fassbinder, and is supposedly a comedy. The humor was entirely lost on me. The 4/3 transfer is very nice, but the rather long film left me cold. C-.

Baba Yaga (1973):

I will discuss this odd Italian film at length tomorrow. For tonight, the real cream of the DVD - a deleted scene featuring clear full-frontal nudity from the American actress Carroll Baker.

Ms Baker first became famous in 1956 for her sexy Lolitaesque turn in a film called Baby Doll, which was written by the esteemed playwright Tennessee Williams and directed by Elia Kazan, who was a major force in film and theater in the early 50s, having cofounded the Actor's Studio with Lee Strasberg, and having directed his famous pupil Marlon Brando to his two greatest performances in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. Warner Brothers also cast Ms Baker that same year in Giant, the last picture made by the legendary James Dean. In such company, Baker was on top of the word in 1956

She might have become a monster star if she had been a better team player, but she feuded constantly with Warner. She refused to act in a series of movies based on trashy books by Erskine Caldwell, and this caused Warner to punish her by refusing to lend her out for "The Three Faces of Eve" for 20th Century Fox, or for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Brothers Karamazov" for MGM. Later, when she refused to play a nymphomaniac in another sleazoid film called "Too Much, Too Soon", Warner wouldn't loan her out to work with  Laurence Olivier, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. in "The Devil's Disciple".

She reached the end of her Hollywood fame as one of the famous dueling Jean Harlows in 1965, when Hollywood released two biopics named "Harlow" within a couple of months. Jean Harlow was a famous platinum blonde 1930's screen vamp who was portrayed by  Baker in one version, Carol Lynley in the other. I haven't seen the Harlow biopics in years, but as I recall, neither was much good. Baker's version is rated 4.6 at IMDb, Lynley's 4.4.

Although Baker came from Kazan's legendary Actor's Studio, she was not one of their most distinguished graduates. Oh, let's not mince words. Despite the fact that she came close to major stardom, the woman couldn't act at all. Baker's interpretation of Harlow was so universally reviled that it proved to be the last straw for her Hollywood career, which was already teetering on the edge of oblivion because of her reputation for being uncooperative. The Hollywood job offers dried up almost immediately after Harlow and she had to spend the entire decade of the 70's making grade-B Eurocrap like Baba Yaga. It wasn't until the 80's that she was able to get another decent role in Hollywood, and by that time her vamp days were over and she was old enough to play moms. At age 52, for example, she played Dorothy Stratton's mom in 1983's Star 80, the film which featured Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts as the ill-fated Playmate and her sleazy boyfriend.

Baker continued to work quite steadily through the 80s and 90s. Now about seventy years old, she appeared as recently as 2000 in a TV film called Another Woman's Husband.

Baker was no actress, but there was a reason why she was once in big demand. She was definitely a major babe. In this film, even at age 42, she still looked absolutely terrific standing there stark naked, and the director said in the accompanying interview that the nude scene was her idea. Good for her!

• Carroll Baker. The first five (full frontals) are from the deleted scenes. Number six is her only nudity in the theatrical cut, a see-through blouse. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Other crap:

• still more of our favorite mouseketeer
• Geri Halliwell decides to stop losing weight and rediscovers her breasts
• Bill Clinton does his famous party-stopping impersonation of Monica Lewinsky
• the enigmatic Keanu Reeves gives up his lucrative points on The Matrix sequels to the crew, and to fund additional F/X and costumes
• Lisa Marie once again is sharing WAY too much info about her sex life with Jacko. Nice picture though.
• URL says it all http://islamicsupremebody.com/
• Under a new ban on smoking in public places, Dutch coffee shops would be allowed to continue selling joints, but customers would have to go outside to smoke them
• the legend of Nathan Bitner - a kid who won a contest to design a Masters of the Universe toy. Well, so they say.
• fascinating article about training for the National Spelling Bee
• Here is the trailer for the third Matrix movie
• This is a fairly interesting article about the great gap between teen TV viewing habits and the tastes of the rest of the nation
• Great picture - a US submarine versus a polar bear.
• The Onion looks at life in a Christian rock band. I hate it when the groupies take a vow of chastity.
   

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Okay , I guess you all know that like my "Babes in Bondage", so we took all those girls from "Son of the Beach" from yesterdays edition and tied them up.

We give you Lila Arcieri, Jaime Bergman, and my favorite Kim Oja, all in their undies in various stages of distress.

I guess that's why I like this show, the women seem to get tied up a lot.

• Jaime Bergman (1, 2, 3)
• Kimberly Oja (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Leila Arcieri (1, 2)

A whole mess o' paparazzi pics.

• Alessia Mancini, the Italian babe sunbathing topless.

• Amy Nutta, more topless sunbathing.

• Anne Hathaway, a little cleavage.

• Antonietta Divizia, topless.

• Aysun Kayaci, a very nice upskirt view.

• Bai Ling, see-thru nipple sightings.

• Benedetta Massola, another Italian celeb caught nude at the beach. Breasts and bum this time around.

• Calista Flockhart, see-thru nipple sighting.

• Cat Deeley, the UK TV personality looking gorgeous showing some leg on the red carpet.

• Catherine Zeta-Jones, cleavage. (1, 2)

• Cerina Vincent, the "Not Another Teen Movie" co-star practically unrecognizable since she's dressed.

• Charlize Theron, a hint of pokies.

• Elena Maddalo, wearing the snake "dress" from "Femme Fatale".

• Francesca Piri, another Italian babe caught topless.

• Leelee Sobieski, very nice cleavage.

• Lil' Kim, barely dressed as usual. (1, 2)

• Lisa Rinna, see-thru nipple sightings from the "Melrose Place" co-star. (1, 2)

• Lorenza Mario, another great upskirt.

• Luisa Corna, topless.

• Monica Bellucci, the Italian mega-babe barely keeping the goods contained.

• Nikki Cox, two words...mega-cleavage.

• I can't reach my license unless you hold my beer.
• Sorry, Officer, I didn't realize my radar detector wasn't plugged in.
• Aren't you the guy from the Village People?
• Hey, you must've been doin' about 125 mph to keep up with me. Good job!
• Are You Andy or Barney?
• I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a police officer.
• You're not gonna check the trunk, are you?
• I pay your salary!
• Gee, Officer! That's terrific. The last officer only gave me a warning, too!
• Do you know why you pulled me over? Okay, just so one of us does.
• I was trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around. That's how far ahead of me they are.
• When the Officer says "Gee Son....Your eyes look red, have you been drinking?" You probably shouldn't respond with,"Gee Officer your eyes look glazed, have you been eating doughnuts?"

Saw the note regarding Liza Walker, so I dug up a couple of caps I have of some clips I did of her a while ago. The movie was released here as "Twisted Obsession"---bloody apt title.

I assume this is the bird under discussion.

-Aussie

• Liza Walker. #1 is a close up down below, #2 is a head only frame. (1, 2)