Angel is serio-camp depicting a young private high-school student living in Hollywood on her own, who foots the bills by working the corner. By day, she is sweet, pig-tailed, straight-A Molly Stewart (Donna Wilkes) and, by night, she's the tough and street-smart X-rated "Angel." She surrounds herself with life's castoffs including fellow prostitutes, cowboy entertainer Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun) who fancies himself as some kind of Sam Elliott knock-off, and drag-queen Mae (Dick Shawn) who gets all the good lines while doing his worst Jack Lemmon impression from Some Like It Hot ever. There's a serial killer loose on Sunset Boulevard who is cutting up hookers left and right. Not only does Molly have to contend with getting sliced up as an occupational hazard, but she's further burdened by hiding her secret life from her less forgiving peers. If the authorities were having such a problem finding their man, they should have just dressed up those secondary-school bitches Molly has to deal with as whores and put them on the case. One of them would have been bound to stumble upon him by playing the odds and used her self-entitled, belittling, judgmental tongue to reduce the weak-willed, anger-addled, small-dicked murderer to his knees. Instead, we get Cliff Gorman who plays the lieutenant hell bent on finding The Killer (John Diehl), a fagtastic, self-loathing mess of an early-80s gay stereotype straight out of Cruising. He has sexual issues AND he's a necrophiliac (The Killer, not the lieutenant)! If they ever remake this movie, I hope they use Lindsay Lohan as Molly/Angel. She's still young enough in years. In fact, the older, she is, the better for the movie. Perhaps the Lifetime Channel ("Your life, your time"), who has openly embraced her recently with the impending crapfest Liz Taylor biopic, can make that happen. STAT! While she's still on this planet breathing coke-infused air.
Movie Spoiler Summary
Angel starts out with a pan of early 1980s Hollywood in all of its trashy glory. The Old and New Golden Ages of Hollywood are dead and the New Commercial Hollywood hasn't quite taken hold. Superimposed on the screen are TV-movie-quality credits. Sweet little Molly ‘Angel’ Stewart (Donna Wilkes) in pigtails chews candy as she makes her way to the school bus stop, as workers actually scrub the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame a little after dawn.
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| Look Ma, no crack |
On the bus, schoolmates in feathered hair laugh and share secrets as they make their way to the private North Oaks Prep school somewhere off west of West Hollywood (?) maybe. In class, the teacher assigns the students to read the first act of King Lear. Afterwards, nerdy curly blond Wayne (Dennis Kort) asks Molly on a date. She shoots him down with her sweet and innocent look, but we then find out that Molly is no "Angel," but someone who also goes by the name of Angel. She takes down her pigtails and whores it up in front of her vanity mirror.
While “Something Sweet” by The Allies plays over the soundtrack for the first of many, many times during the film, Molly hits the streets that night. There is al kinds of zaniness, including a guy on a huge bike, Hare Krishna’s, fire-eaters, and proselytizers. Cops are out arresting crooks. Some guy traveling in the back of a truck mumbles something to Molly, whom he refers to as “sweet tits.” When she rebuffs him, his pride is wounded and he starts acting like even more of a asshole. Another guy offers her $20, who apparently thinks it’s a lot of money. Maybe for a peck on the cheek, but Molly has bigger fish to fry. Some guy, Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun) who thinks he’s Sam Elliott cons the police. Molly picks up another to bum a ride, before calling him a pervert and then a cop. Molly has a transvestite friend Mae (Dick Shawn channeling Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot) who comes to save her with the line, “Why don’t you go home now and spank your monkey, numb-nuts?” Mae is a freak show, but she does take Molly out for ice cream. Lt. Andrews (Cliff Gorman) bumps into Officer Collins (Mel Carter) and they discuss the "Hooper" serial killer running loose. “Nothing stops the action," Andrews says, “If a tidal wave hit this street, the hookers would bob up like a bunch of corks,” all while eating an ice cream cone. Andrews has the killer's profile down: single-parent-raised, sexually abused, necrophiliac, probably bisexual, possibly impotent. Mae walks by with Molly and razzes Andrews. In the killer’s lair, the Killer, simply known as The Killer (John Diehl) does sit-ups old school style on an elevated wooden board. The work has paid off. His body is pretty sick. But, the character Diehl plays is cuckoo for Coco Puffs.
At a diner, Mae, and some other working girls listen to Molly tell tall tales. An easily irritable Italian restaurateur throws a conniption over a bum in his establishment. While discussing the serial murder, Crystal (Donna McDaniel) one of the more astute whores offers this sage observation: “Why should the John’s be scared, it’s the hookers who are getting killed?” Mae makes fun of the blonde in their company who wants to escape Hollywood for Tahiti, where “the men use their dicks for oars.” The blonde takes her remarks personally, on the behalf of the recently deceased Fay and Cherry, and lays into her. Mae, always quick with the comebacks, retorts in an homage to her namesake, “Did you ever hear anybody whistle in the graveyard?” They leave the Roosevelt Hotel.
Crystal bumps into Yoyo Charlie (Steven M. Porter), a man dressed up as a creepy version of Charlie Chaplin, while he entertains passerby’s. He’s not too stealthy about hiding his attraction to her. Yoyo endears Crystal to him by giving her a toy top as a present (which will be important in the near future). Crystal walks off and starts work. The Killer hits on her and they walk towards her demise. She’s an astrologist during the daytime, and, if she were any good, she would have seen this coming. No wonder she makes her main paycheck from whoring. Before they enter the hotel, he pulls her aside at knifepoint and starts stabbing her. I guess this is the premature ejaculating version of cutting someone up: he just couldn't wait!
Molly surprises Kit from behind and Mae looks drunk and a little confused by the presence of the youngsters he’s entertaining with gun tricks. It turns out that Kit knew Molly’s “pappy” from way back. In his room, The Killer tucks the freshly killed and decomposing Crystal into bed. In their apartment building, the loud and crazy painter-landlady Solly Mosler (Susan Tyrrell) welcomes the arrival of Molly and Mae. Because Solly imagines herself as a hot young prostitute, she has purchased a gun to protect herself. “This psycho killer shows up and I’ll blow his fucking head off.” Molly goes to bed and Mae warns lesbian Solly that she better not go anywhere near Molly and to get rid of her gun, “Why don’t you take that thing out of your pants, before you blow your balls off … all eight of them.” In her room, Molly reminisces over memories of her father.
Sunrise the next day, Solly rings. Molly places her painting back on the wall, so her feelings won’t be hurt that she sucks as an artist. Solly came to collect the rent while Molly tends to her “mother” Norman-bates style. My bet is they share the same mom. The Killer starts cracking open an egg from the top and sucks out its contents while staring at a picture of him and his mother from his youth, inscribed “To Billy Bay, my lovely …” (Perhaps his negligent mother was a failed actress?) He ends up consuming the whole egg, shoving the whole shell into his mouth, because gym-nuts can never get enough protein.
Speaking of muscle heads, at school, jock idiot Ric Sawyer (David Underwood) hits on Molly and he strikes out. She then visits the school counselor Patricia Allen (Elaine Giftos), who inquires why she isn’t more social. Patricia may seem by the book, but, as you'll learn later, she means business. Molly shares that she takes care of her mother, who has suffered from a stroke. Andrews conducts an investigation with a crime scene unit into Crystal’s death. Yoyo is there broken down in tears. Not too bright, he’s holding the top he gave her, which is covered in her blood. Mae shares the bad news with Molly. Kit and local residents are up in arms. Kit is piping mad, but he remembers his manners. Andrews advice to everyone (but more specifically the prostitutes) with the BEST LINE EVER: “WORK IN PAIRS if you can and, for Christ sake’s, STICK TO REGULARS.” He hands out his phone number to the girls. Molly discusses future plans with Lana, “Tahiti in December?” “Bitchin’!” Lana notices The Killer waiting against a post, “I think I see our down payment; I’ll see you later.” Off his game, Molly catches what the man looks like.
At the hotel where she’s studying, a crass, aggressive john wants her to be less Molly and more Angel. She takes him to the hotel room she shares with Lana. He’s rude to her and she’s about to walk off when he shoves a wad of cash in her brassiere, “You better be fourteen, baby, or I’m going to throw you back for being too old.” (WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?) The john discovers Lana’s dead body in the bathroom and his weak stomach sends him reeling. (He's all talk, I guess.) Molly investigates and breaks down in tears upon her discovery. Back at his place, The Killer scrubs down his rather fine body in some kind of atonement ritual, because he's covered in the cooties of a dead woman he has just killed and screwed or something like that. At the precinct, Andrews tries to draw information out of Molly, but only elicits more tears. The conversation turns to Molly's life and Andrews schools her, “You know what happens to used-up whores? They don’t go to Leisure World, baby. They end up on hard shit or booze and spend half their time in the slammer and that’s just where you’re headed. You’re living in a dream world, baby. What you need is a good swift kick in the butt.” Molly isn’t too crazy about her line of work, especially the fat old slobs she has to have sex with, which, ironically, is what she has to look forward to at Leisure World.
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| Off to see the wizard? |
A guy sings “Let It Shine” on the street corner, while Kit puts on his Sam Elliott act. Molly breaks the news of Lana’s death to that cold bitch Mae, who is as dry-eyed as they come and already in the know. Kit pulls a gun on the executor of his estate, who wants to put him in Leisure World [what is the writer's obsession with LEISURE WORLD??? and why can't he pick a side either pro or con?], where non-whores are put out to pasture. Mae scares the executor off by licking his face. Kit laments all of his dead friends. Always quick with the one-liners, when Molly says she’s on her way to the morgue to see Lana, Mae says they must hurry before “she ends up in the tomb for the Unknown Hooker.” Andrews has a difficult time informing the motley crew that they can’t claim Lana’s body until the murder investigation is finished or some shit like that. On her way out, Mae gets a whip-sound-effect to complement the flipping of her scarf in Kit’s face. As finding The Killer can wait, Andrews follows Molly’s school bus. Between classes, Ric tries to tempt Molly with the mystery behind his nickname of “Razzel Dazzle.” What the fuck? So, he's got sexual-boundary issues and he loves musicals ... hmmn.
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| The ladies line up nude |
In the girl’s locker-room, there’s a gratuitous shot of the women changing, negligible to the plot, because, well, what else do you expect from this film? For the gays, the next scene is of The Killer furiously working out, but the camera doesn’t show nearly enough.
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| The guys don't |
In a porn theater, the owner gives The Killer the business on etiquette, “Hey, scum bag. Get your dirty boots off the seat, this ain’t your fucking office.” He complies, revealing spurs or something unnecessarily ornate on his footwear. On the streets of Hollywood, “Something Sweet” plays again over the soundtrack. The cops take The Killer in for an ID lineup for a crime presumably greater than putting one’s boots on the back of a theater seat. Molly picks the guy who is totally the cutest, but isn’t sure if he’s The Killer (he's not, but look at those arms).
Molly excitedly ID’s The Killer on his way out, but the microphone catches her voice, prompting him to grab the gun out of donut-belly-officer’s holster. He escapes Jame Gumb-style. Andrews drives Molly home, but has a cigarette and tells her a story before she leaves the car. In her apartment, he grills her about her private life. Despite Molly throwing the fourth amendment in his face, he discovers (big surprise) that her mother’s room is mostly empty with her mom nowhere to be found. He turns to Molly about the life she chose for herself and she teaches me my mistake for not watching this movie for vocational advice when I was growing up, “It was easy. I just put on some sexy clothes and high heels, and went out and made a living.”
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| Where's Tony Curtis when you need him? |
Hollywood at night, “Something Street” plays YET again, as Molly hits the street. Ric spots Molly while driving down Hollywood Boulevard with friends. Parking in an alley, Molly tells them, “Look Ric, you had your fun. Now, please let me go.” But, one of his friends wants to see her “whisker biscuit.” They decide to gang-rape her and she insists on them using condoms. Ric isn’t too keen on the idea, but one of this friends chimes in with some logic, “Hey, Ric, maybe we should. No telling what we might catch from this slut.” Molly becomes my hero when she points a gun at whisker biscuit-eater’s temple and demands, “Okay, you bastards, now get out of the car. GET OUT OF THE GOD-DAMN CAR.” She fires a shot through the window to show she means business. Pulling the gun on them after they escape the car, she notices Ric has soiled himself. “Hey, look me up again, Ric, when you’re toilet-trained” (meaning never).
In the girl’s locker room, the word has hit that Molly is Angel the whore. Ric rats on Molly to all the students, after threatening to gang-rape her (what an ass), and goes one further and gets counselor Allen to search her locker (it’s that easy?). She finds her gun. Wayne tries paying her for sex, sending her to tears, because this country is great, but not great enough, that you can’t make good grades and a living without people talking smack behind your back.
She visits Andrews, who warned her early on that one day she would have to pay for her profession. He listens to her talk more about her father coming back, though she finally believes that ship has sailed. He feeds her some sage advice about deadbeat dads. Mae insults Solly while playing cribbage, “What have you done to your hair? It looks like an orangutan has been sitting on your face all night.” She has nothing, so, Mae goes in for another one when Solly blows smoke from her cigar. “Listen kumquat, I don’t mind the smoke, but your breath is behind it. Don’t you ever inhale?” She pulls a fast move, and Mae has a conniption. Solly: “How fucking dare you, you cunt? I don’t have to cheat to beat the likes of you.” “When I was a kid, my father warned me, he said, 'Rachel, don’t ever play cards with a Jewish dyke. They cheat.'” “Ah, eat my puff, will you?” Solly says with her train-wreck of a painted-on mono-brow and a shirt from Coos Bay Yacht Club (seriously, I'm not making this stuff up). Counselor Allen comes looking for Molly’s mother, expecting Solly to obligingly cough up her the key to Molly’s apartment so she can see if the invalid mother is real or not. When her sweet face doesn’t work, she grabs Molly by the lapel (who can’t seem to get anything right) and threatens her, “Listen, fuck face. I used to work for the city health department and you got so many violations in this flea trap, that one phone call downtown will put your ass in court so fast that you won’t have time to wipe it let alone pull your pants up. Do you get my drift? Now, you give me the God-damn key.” Solly acquiesces and checks out Allen on her way out. Not too bright that one (can't cut a break, either).
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| Those eyebrows didn't paint themselves |
At Molly’s, she finds Mae, who has whisked herself out of Solly's without Patricia seeing her apparently to play the role of Molly’s invalid mother. Considering the brand of whoop-ass Patricia has just shown to be capable of, it’s no surprise that she doesn’t buy Mae’s Jack-Lemmon-drag-act one bit (who does?). The Killer marches with the Hare Krishnas down Franklin or somewhere in Hollywood. There’s a kaput car parked on the grass, so you know the Boulevard of Broken Dreams can’t be too far. He then rather conspicuously breaks off, interrupting a cop’s burger lunch. The cop follows him to Molly’s apartment. Patricia and Mae part ways, but not before that cunt Patricia insists on knowing that mess of a drag show’s “real” name and then asking about her dress. As Patricia leaves, the camera turns to the cop’s dead body, care of The Hare Krishna-convert Killer. Mae greets The Killer at the door with an insult about his bald head. Worrying that The Killer actually thinks he’s a female prostitute and not trying to track down Molly, Mae begins to strip down to Marvin "Rachel" Walker. The Killer must have been steeping his brain in stupid tea after he cut his hair, because he looks more clueless than hot at this point. Mae gets the first punch in by plugging The Killer’s ears with his falsies and kneeing him in the groin. While Mae shows to be a worthy adversary in the fight which commences with the bodybuilder, her material gets stale, as she makes another breath joke only moments after insulting Solly, and, then, goes all Bruce-Willis-Hollywood with the bland, “Don’t fuck with me, bitch.”
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| Mae gets knocked over by paranormal activity ... Guess they didn't get the shot they wanted |
My favorite shot by far, though, is the one of Mae being pushed by thin air into a table.
Sadly, Mae meets her maker on Molly’s bed, surrounded by lavender walls. With the canopy sheet having fallen atop the two wrestlers, we start to see blood, and it’s not Mae’s menstrual cycle. Solly runs in too late to save him, but manages to absorb an insult, one final time, as his last words are, “Just my luck, the last thing I’m going to see in this world is your ugly face.” Molly arrives with Andrews, who finds the cop’s body. He reports the deaths from Molly’s room.
Molly, pissed off that her drag mom went up to the big cabaret in the sky goes rogue with presumably Andrew’s pistol (because hers was confiscated from her locker thanks to that nark rapist-wannabe prick Ric). Andrews asks for Kit to help him track down Molly. The Killer, incognito again with the Hare Krishna’s, stalks Molly. Yoyo sees him with the knife and warns Molly. The Killer grabs a hot piece of American-Hero-look-alike-man-candy and shoves him into Molly and takes off. He escapes on the back of a passing El Camino (and there just aren’t enough of those), but the pissed-off owner quickly tosses him out (don't tread on him!). Molly begins firing every which way but at The Killer (she could have used another day with Kit). A chase commences. Kit rides bitch on a biker’s motorcycle. Molly continues to try to land a shot with a gun that is almost as big as she is. The Killer shoots Kit and overpowers Molly, taking her gun to shoot at her and Andrews. But, good old Kit saves the day. The Killer’s last words: “It hurts.” Cut to the threesome walking down the alley leaving The Killer’s corpse leaning against the alley wall. Roll credits over, of course, “Something Sweet.” The End.
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