Incredibly absurd, extremely trashy melodrama is good for a couple of hoots along the way. It's unique for being a "hicksploitation" movie with a black lead. That person is popular singer Liz Wetherly (Leslie Uggams), who insists on a little R & R before her next gig. But car problems land her in the back of the beyond, in the domain of rednecks such as Bertha (Shelley Winters), a faded, overweight former burlesque star, her boy toy Eddie (Michael Christian), a nutty Elvis wannabe, and sullen giant Keno (Ted "Lurch" Cassidy). Liz finds that escape from these unsavoury people seems to be just about impossible.
All you really need to know about "Poor Pretty Eddie" is the centrepiece that it boasts: a key rape sequence inter-cut with shots of a crowd watching two mangy dogs getting it on. All set to a plaintive ballad, of course. The acting is appropriately broad from many concerned, the locations used are convincing, and the dialogue is pretty damned amusing at times. For example, sheriff Slim Pickens, treating the rape with as much delicacy as he can muster, asks Uggams if the man "bit her on her titties", all while sucking on tomatoes and doodling on a notepad. As played by the lovely Uggams, Liz isn't the most sympathetic protagonist one will ever see in this sort of thing. Winters basically does what she usually did during this period. Christian is a smarmy piece of work. Pickens and fellow character actor Dub Taylor are as blusterous and funny as they ever were.
Everything builds and builds to a delightfully over the top, grim as hell shoot-em-up ending. You take all of that and it adds up to an effective drive-in movie experience.
Seven out of 10.
All you really need to know about "Poor Pretty Eddie" is the centrepiece that it boasts: a key rape sequence inter-cut with shots of a crowd watching two mangy dogs getting it on. All set to a plaintive ballad, of course. The acting is appropriately broad from many concerned, the locations used are convincing, and the dialogue is pretty damned amusing at times. For example, sheriff Slim Pickens, treating the rape with as much delicacy as he can muster, asks Uggams if the man "bit her on her titties", all while sucking on tomatoes and doodling on a notepad. As played by the lovely Uggams, Liz isn't the most sympathetic protagonist one will ever see in this sort of thing. Winters basically does what she usually did during this period. Christian is a smarmy piece of work. Pickens and fellow character actor Dub Taylor are as blusterous and funny as they ever were.
Everything builds and builds to a delightfully over the top, grim as hell shoot-em-up ending. You take all of that and it adds up to an effective drive-in movie experience.
Seven out of 10.