This is a very weird film that fails to land, being set in two time periods with the same cast of the present playing different characters in a different era to show how New Orleans had changed, and even with period costumes and lots of up hairdos on the women of loose morals, it doesn't really come off all that convincing. It's interesting to see Virginia Mayo playing a kindly barkeeep in the present, looking quite blowsy, then playing a Polly Adler style madame when the film unconcingly moves back to the turn of the century. Alisha Fontaine plays the dual role of the young exotic dancer in modern times and a prostitute who in the early 1900's sat in a giant bottle of champagne and girated to the delight of the brothel audience.
Then there's Vernel Bagneris as Jelly Roll Morton, the real life brothel piano player, seen as a cop in the modern sequences. Anna Filamento is creepy as a voodoo priestess who somehow turns Fontaine into a prostitute in the modern era, having been even creepier in the past, arranging for a ritual dance involving a giant python. The weird photography of the flashbacks is very weird to behold, and the focus on the perversion of the early 20th Century makes the modern era seen tame in comparison. This is a very weird movie, seemingly made with no point other than to show it's ensemble cast in wearing as little as possible, although the classy Mayo stays completely dressed. Bruce Davison plays characters in both errors that really have little development and could have been completely edited out. His only purpose in being there is to get Fontaine someone her own age to play off of. This seems like one of those period TV movies that obviously couldn't pass censorship to get on the tube so it had to be in the theater. Sets and costumes are great, but as a film, this serves no real purpose, even as a history lesson of New Orleans.
Then there's Vernel Bagneris as Jelly Roll Morton, the real life brothel piano player, seen as a cop in the modern sequences. Anna Filamento is creepy as a voodoo priestess who somehow turns Fontaine into a prostitute in the modern era, having been even creepier in the past, arranging for a ritual dance involving a giant python. The weird photography of the flashbacks is very weird to behold, and the focus on the perversion of the early 20th Century makes the modern era seen tame in comparison. This is a very weird movie, seemingly made with no point other than to show it's ensemble cast in wearing as little as possible, although the classy Mayo stays completely dressed. Bruce Davison plays characters in both errors that really have little development and could have been completely edited out. His only purpose in being there is to get Fontaine someone her own age to play off of. This seems like one of those period TV movies that obviously couldn't pass censorship to get on the tube so it had to be in the theater. Sets and costumes are great, but as a film, this serves no real purpose, even as a history lesson of New Orleans.