User Reviews

What if Ray Dennis Steckler made a gumshoe movie?

What if he starred in it - using his real name and not Cash Flagg - as private eye Charlie Smith?

And what if he were hired by Big Mack, who is played by Bernard Fein who created Hogan's Heroes, to find a heroin-stealing cat burglar named Carrie Erskine who is, of course, played by Carolyn Brandt, Steckler's wife?

Also known as Deadlocked and Super Cool, this has all of the Steckler players in it, like Gary Kent, Joseph Brado, Herb Robins and Ron Haydock. But I loved seeing Steckler acting like a tough guy and getting all sorts of women when he's not fighting various bad guys. It was almost called The Last Original "B" Movie which is a funny name but Body Fever seemed to stick.

Oh yes, that is Coleman Francis, the director of The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba. Steckler had just completed filming the last scene and when walking to his car, he saw Francis drunk and lying in the gutter. Steckler felt so bad about Francis's condition that, even though he had finished work on the movie, he offered Francis a role. Steckler added some scenes just to give Francis some work and money, which he gave to him in advance. Steckler and his crew were astonished when Francis showed up for work the next day sober, clean-shaven and nicely attired. Steckler had wanted him to play the part of a disheveled bum, but Francis had used the advance pay to buy a decent second-hand suit, a shave and a haircut.

Kevin Murphy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 said of his movie, "Coleman Francis uses edits like blunt instruments. He uses blunt instruments like blunt instruments. His major themes are death, hatefulness, death, pain, and death. He looks like Curly Howard possessed by demons from Hell. He tried to pass off Lake Mead as the Caribbean Sea. His films have the moral compass of David Berkowitz."

He plays the only person Charlie trusts, a laundromat owner who went out of business when his customers kept using wooden change to get free washes. If you think that's weird, well, Steckler wears a Gilligan hat through most of this movie.

A sequel called Bloody Jack was filmed in 1972 starring Steckler, Brandt and Robbins with Charlie discovering that all of the girls he's dated are being killed, It was shot but never edited or scored.

Amiable private detective Charlie Smith (a charming and likable performance by Ray Dennis Steckler) tries to find elusive cat burglar Carrie Erskine (Carolyn Brandt at her most foxy and enticing) who has stolen an expensive stash of heroin from ruthless drug ring kingpin Big Mack (robustly essayed with growly gusto by Bernard Fein). Charlie and Carrie plot together to double cross the gangsters who are after them. Steckler does a sound job of covering all the nifty noir bases: Hard-boiled narration, grimy locations, a groovy jazz score by Henri Price, a tough gritty tone, an amusing sense of cynical humor, rough'n'tumble fisticuffs, several hot dames (Brandt in particular makes for a perfectly tasty and duplicitous femme fatale), a convoluted plot, and affectionate nods to Humphrey Bogart and vintage 40's film noir classics. The wonderfully seedy rogues' gallery of colorful and entertaining low-life characters helps a whole lot: Dina Bryan as sassy secretary Stella, Larry Chandler as hippie pimp Waco, Ron Haydock as the smarmy Fritz the Photographer, Coleman Francis as down on his luck old-timer Coley, Julie Conners as alluring dingbat Shawn Call, Pat Jackson as zonked-out stoner Julie Richards, Herb Robins as wormy lackey Herbie, and, best of all, Gary Kent as vicious dope-peddling hoodlum Frankie Roberts. The slim budget and ragged production values add immensely to the overall deliciously seamy atmosphere. Jack Cooperman's fairly polished cinematography boasts a few snazzy stylistic flourishes. A nice change of pace for Steckler.