Poor Pretty Eddie
Poor Pretty Eddie is a 1975 American film starring Leslie Uggams, Shelley Winters and Michael Christian. Made on a relatively small budget, it is known for having an atypical narrative and directorial style, which combines elements of horror, exploitation film making and Southern gothic. It has subsequently become popular in cult and B movie circles.
Plot
Liz Wetherly is a popular black singer in need of a break from her hectic schedule. When her car breaks down, she ends up stuck in a remote southern town that‘s been left for dead “ever since they put in the interstate.”She is forced to spend the night at “Bertha’s Oasis”, a rundown lodge that serves as the bizarre fiefdom of an overweight ex-burlesque star who lords over her much younger boyfriend, Eddie, and a cast of equally-strange townsfolk. Eddie fancies himself a singer on par with Elvis, and expects Wetherly to make him famous. But things turn ugly for Wetherly, who endures rape and abuse at the hands of her captors, before culminating in her bloody revenge on the “rednecks” that terrorized her.
Cast
- Leslie Uggams as Liz Wetherly
- Shelley Winters as Bertha
- Michael Christian as Eddie Collins
- Slim Pickens as Sheriff Orville
- Dub Taylor as Justice of The Peace Floyd
- Ted Cassidy as Keno
Background
Most of the individuals involved in the production of Poor Pretty Eddie were, at the time, nominally employed in the world of adult films, with the picture representing an opportunity to appear in mainstream films. According to the extensive liner notes packaged with the film's DVD, backing was secured from Michael Thevis, an Atlanta-based businessman commonly known as “The King of Pornography” whose other businesses included a chain of sex shops, a record company, and the manufacture of peep show booths. Thevis used the production to launder money he had made through dealings with various Mafia figures, which then attracted the attention of the FBI. Shortly after the film's production, Thevis was jailed on an assortment of charges and, following a prison escape in 1978, was placed on the FBI [Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1970s|FBI’s most-wanted list].The movie's script, loosely based on the Jean Genet play The Balcony, was the work of television writer B. W. Sandefur, who also wrote for such shows as Barnaby Jones, Little House on the Prairie and Charlie's Angels.
The film was shot on location in and around Athens, Georgia in 1973. The film’s biggest star, Shelley Winters, was flown in on a private plane that nearly crashed upon landing.
Contemporary reviews for the film were almost unanimously negative, owing to the film's dark racial undercurrents and repeated depictions of rape. One Georgia-based film writer concluded: “Upon leaving the theater, I quite honestly felt nauseous.”