In Hot Blood
1968
Starring
Doris Porro as Rita
Ruth Colon as Roberta
Tom Zolfo as Photographer
Dolores as Sandy
Directed by Leo J. Rhewdnal (Probably Joel Landwehr)
An Asianish model gets involved with sex, drugs, bananas, and lesbianism, and then everyone dies.
That’s the whole movie right there. Okay, fine, you want more in depth. Well, there isn’t that much more in depth. Perhaps we can talk about the origins of the film, who Leo J. Rhewdnal really is, the history of roughies, and the righteous soundtrack. It totally rocks. The soundtrack is the type of cool jazz music they rarely make anymore, the kind of music you’d play when you need to get motivated to do practically anything unpleasant, and you’d get finished before you even know it. Sad, that most of the songs are uncredited, and I’ll probably never hear them again except if I were to replay this movie. The only thing ruining the soundtrack is the narrator, as In Hot Blood follows the Coleman Francis line of movie production and had no sync sound. Something very common for this type of picture, as guys in raincoats weren’t exactly caring what the actual plot is, or if Rita’s lips were moving perfectly with the sound. They would care if her lips were moving perfectly with the banana. Which they do. Later in the film.
This film has oral sex with a banana. Take that, Brown Bunny! Actually, take that, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, your carrots are no good here anymore. Director Leo J. Rhewdnal is credited, speculation over just who he is has raised one possibility. A film student named Joel Landwehr (rearrange the letters of “Leo J. Rhewdnal”) was active making short films in the mid-to-late 1960s, and probably this and another sexplotation movie named Fluctuations to either learn the film business or to earn money for tuition or to fund more serious projects, or possibly both. (Some of this is cribbed from DVD Drive-in) Something Weird dug this up, like they dig up so many wonderful things, and threw it into a triple feature (with The Ultimate Degenerate and The Lusting Hours, which I won’t be reviewing here.) Just to be technical, this film is a type known as a “Roughie” which was a cheaply produced nudie/violence flick (because nudity alone doesn’t get the release, we need the violence pay off!) that was shown in back alley theaters. Now the back alley theaters are in your living room!
