Starring: Meg Myles
Grayson Hall
Del Tenney
Sabrina
Earl Hammond
Mike Keene
Robert Yuro
Directed by Jerald Intrator
Release: 1962
Length: 90 minutes
"I'm the kind of
woman, not hard to understand. I'm the one who cracks the whip and holds the
upper hand....I’ll beat you, mistreat you, till you quiver and quail. The
female of the species is more deadly than the male."
Those are the words Meg
Myles sings from the nightclub floor, donning a leather outfit and waving a
riding crop. It is the pinnacle of the movie, “Satan in High Heels”, and much
like the audience in the nightclub, we the audience of this movie are witnessing
the most unforgettable act of the show. Myles nightclub performance, while mild
for 2013, was certainly tantalizing and ground breaking for 1962.
“Satan in High Heels” was the first fetish film made for a
mainstream audience. It was produced by Leonard Burtman, the father of the
modern fetish publishing industry. Burtman created the first nationwide
distribution for fetish and femdom oriented magazines in the 1950’s and 1960’s and
he successfully defended his publications from numerous legal attacks.
The screenplay for the
film was based on a short story submitted to Burtman’s “Exotique” magazine. The short
story did not have a title and once the movie was made, Burtman and his
director, Jerald Intrator, decided to call it “Satan in High Heels” and
released it in the Sexploitation genre, hoping that the title and sexy
theatrical trailer would attract a male audience. Personally, I would have
called it “Female of the Species” and would have tried for a wider audience,
but then again I am living in 2013, not 1962.
While the movie is slow in
parts, the acting is very good, the cinematography is superb and today this
film would get a PG13 rating at worst, as there is no cursing, no frontal
nudity and the sex scenes are all implied but never shown. The film’s star, Meg
Myles, was a pin-up model in the 1950’s thus there is little doubt Burtman was
seeking to capitalize on her fan base. Yet, she could act and she could sing.
Her physique made her a favorite of men's magazines of the era, but in 1954 she
landed a small comic relief role, involving singing, in the feature film
“Dragnet”, portraying a Cuban singer. The following year, she played a singer
in Phil Karlson's feature “The Phenix City Story”, in which she sang the title
song. Myles was also selected to perform on the national tour promoting the
movie, and got a major label recording contract out of it. Myles sings two
songs in “Satan in High Heels” including the show stopper “Female of the Species”.
In the present day,
“Satan in High Heels” is considered by some to be a ‘1962 campy masterpiece of
Sexploitation features’ as the voluptuous Meg Myles proves ‘that the wicked
woman is truly irresistible.’ However, watching the first three quarters of
this movie, I did not perceive Stacey Kane to be a wicked woman. An
opportunist, yes, but no more sinful than the males in this film, such as her
drug addict and abusive husband, or the married nightclub owner Arnold Kenyon
who likes to have a woman on the side for when he visits New York, or Louie who
hits on Stacey on the airplane and introduces her to the nightclub manager but
only after she sleeps with him. Nevertheless, I guess in 1962, a confident and
dominant woman who refuses to be a victim and who uses men instead of allowing
men to use her was considered a wicked woman.
I’m not sure how old the
character Stacey Kane was intended to be in this movie (I’d say middle to late
thirties) but Meg Myles was exactly thirty in 1962 although she looks much
older. Two other females of notoriety starred in “Satan in High Heels”. Grayson
Hall plays the dominant and no-nonsense lesbian nightclub manager, Pepe. Hall
went on to star in such films as Disney’s “That Darn Cat” in 1965 but she
gained star status with the fans of the 1968 supernatural soap opera “Dark
Shadows”. Grayson Hall left Dark Shadows in 1971 for a long stint on another,
more sedate daytime drama, “One Life to Live”.
The other female of
notoriety in “Satan in High Heels” was the British cheese-cake pinup model,
actress, and cabaret star Sabrina, a beautiful British woman, born Norma Sykes,
who was known by her fans as simply Sabrina. She was called the British answer
to Jane Mansfield and Sabrina has a small part in this movie. She performs two
nightclub songs in “Satan in High Heels” which prove two things. One, Sabrina
was stunning,
and two, she could not
sing. But that didn’t matter as “Satan in High Heels” captures the eyes and facial
expressions of the male audience and it is quite apparent that they could care
less if Sabrina could sing. They may have been actors but they portray the
penis-led male nature quite well.
“Satan in High Heels” does a wonderful job of capturing the male
nature in this film. There is some superb camera work in this movie. We see how
males eye up women, how powerless they become when a woman shows a little leg
or wears high heel shoes or when she wears leather.
The movie begins as Stacey Kane (Meg Myles) is working as a
burlesque dancer in a carnival sideshow when her heroin addicted ex-husband
Rudy turns up in her dressing room with $900 cash. Stacey isn't exactly
thrilled to see her ex, but she is thrilled to get her hands on the $900 so she
double crosses him, grabs the cash, and runs off to New York.
On the plane she meets Louie (Ben Stone), and he's so taken with
Stacey's sex-appeal that he asks her out, invites her to stay with him and
introduces her to nightclub manager, Pepe (Grayson Hall). Stacey also meets
nightclub owner Arnold Kenyon (Mike Keene) and his spoiled son Laurence (Robert
Yuro). A secret love triangle commences and as Pepe observes "there's an
awful lot of wear and tear when you play both sides against the middle."
Burtman makes sure that Myles
wears plenty of leather in this movie knowing it will appeal to the fans of his
fetish publications. Myles wears leather pants in a number of scenes and she also
wears a leather dress. In fact, one of the more memorable scenes to me was when
the nightclub owner, Arnold Kenyon (played by Mike Keene), confronts Stacey
about sleeping with his son, Laurence (played by Robert Yuro). Stacey has moved
in to Mr. Kenyon’s apartment, a place he uses as a love nest when he visits New
York. Mr. Kenyon thinks he owns Stacey and he is furious when he finds out she
ran off with his college-aged son for a day and night at the Kenyon house in
the country.
Mr. Kenyon slaps Stacey
but she does not cower to him and tells him that she is going to move out.
Stacey is dressed in leather pants and a leather top, the same outfit she wore
when she seduced young Laurence. Mr. Kenyon, a man who is accustomed to being
in charge of the young women who perform at his clubs, becomes powerless in the
presence of the dominant and leather wearing Stacey Kane. He falls to his
knees, hugs her around her leather clad waist, grovels and begs her to stay by
saying “I’ll give you whatever you want”. Stacey towers over him and in her
dominant position tells him “Give me what I want, Arnold, and think how I want
it.”
The next scene shows
Stacey at the nightclub preparing for her big song, now dressed in her leather
outfit complete with leather boots, leather pants, leather vest (her arms and
neck covered by a white silk shirt, thus no skin showing) and riding crop in
hand.
Mr. Kenyon seems at
peace and he mentions to her that he is glad they had a heart to heart chat.
Laurence comes to visit her and she confesses to him that she has also been
intimate with his father. Laurence leaves her but not before she tells Laurence
that she loves him. Laurence goes and talks to his father and Arnold is anxious
to tell his son about the arrangement that Stacey demanded and he agreed to,
but before he can, young Laurence tells his father he wants to leave for Europe
in order to end the love triangle.
We never do hear what
the arrangement would have been. Was Mr. Kenyon going to submit to Stacey’s
unspoken terms that she could date and sleep with Laurence as long as she did
not leave Mr. Kenyon? (And why not choose the handsome college-aged male over
the much older man when the older man is willing to pay your rent and provide
you a career?).
When Mr. Kenyon hears
that Laurence wants to join his mother in Europe, he goes and tells Stacey, “My
son is not as opened minded as I am”, which angers her because Stacey has
fallen in love with Laurence. She does manipulate the men in the movie for her
own gain, however she genuinely loves Laurence.
Another great Femdom
scene is after Stacey performs her “Female of the species” number, she returns
to her dressing room and is attacked by her ex-husband, who is wielding a knife
and intends to kill her. Stacey fights him off by striking him repeatedly with
the riding crop. Who knows how long she would have whipped him if not for a
knock on her door.
Stacey then decides to
use her manipulation powers to get her ex-husband to kill Mr. Kenyon by
promising to reconcile with him. Her hope is that once Mr. Kenyon is out of the
way, Laurence will have a change of heart. The ex-husband fails and all three
men find out about Stacey’s plot, forcing her to leave the nightclub and all
three men. It is this final part of the movie that plays into the “Satan in
High Heels” designation.
The word "exploitation" gets bandied about cinema circles
like a bit of graffiti to be splattered on any low-budget film that features
ample amounts of either violence or sex. Even films with the loftiest of
intentions usually are exploiting some facet of mass-appeal curiosity. A film
like “Satan in High Heels” can today be revisited as a well-crafted, low-budget
film noir. It has that salacious title and a seedy atmosphere, but in the end,
it is a much better film than one would expect from a film on the “Something
Weird Video” label.
The DVD release, part of
the "Something Weird" series, is brimming with extras. The film is
presented full-frame and it looks and sounds rather good for a low budget film
from 1962. Accompanying the feature is a second movie, “The Wild and the
Naked”, which I must confess that I did not watch, but only skipped through it
and stopping to watch a few scenes. It tells the tale of a young woman who
takes a nap and dreams that she's stuck near a lake wherein any time she gets a
fleck of dirt on her she feels that she must take yet another bath, and is
chased by a gorilla, an ugly man, and other creatures.
Added to the DVD extras
are eight trailers for this and other gems of the genre, along with a 12-minute
gallery of "Something Weird" promo art and radio ads. There are also are two
short films: “Satan and the Virgin”, which features a dancer who has a devil
head on her shoulder and dances around in circles (there is an informative
title card that tells us that she is doing both roles). This feature is very
lame.
However, the other short
film on this DVD is called “Latex She-Devils” and I know the readers of “Predominant”,
especially the men, will enjoy this feature. It is an early 1970's S&M reel
about a male cat burglar who is overpowered, tied-up and abused by two latex-clad
women. It has mild bondage, mild spanking, forced shoe worship, forced breast
worship and believe it or not, forced ass worship.
So if you find “Satan in
High Heels” too mild for your Femdom tastes, the DVD extra “Latex She-Devils”
should increase the erotic value of the DVD. I got my copy on Amazon.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars