Michaels just explodes off the screen from the opening moments of "Wicked Woman" -- she's a platinum beauty, a slender, almost athletic 5-feet-9, with gangly limbs. Raw and sexy in every scene. The film is streaming on YouTube in six parts. Here's Part 1; check her out at the 4:25, mark as she puts some racy Latin music on the phonograph, stretches out her bare legs and feet (!) on the ottoman, takes a swig of hooch, lights a cigarette and cracks open an Astrology magazine. That is one saucy gal for the first year of the Eisenhower administration.
What draws you in is her near-affectless demeanor: dead eyes, a sad mouth and a rather husky, monotone voice. She's a bit of a beta beatnik. (This thoughtful blog post finds an apt comparison to Sally Kellerman.) She can take or leave ya, mister, so don't waste her time with idle chat or fancy romance. Let's get the dough and ditch this Loserville.
The plot summary of "Wicked Woman" at IMdB is helpfully succinct: A blonde floozy drifts into town and gets a job as a waitress at a local bar. She sets her sights on the bar's handsome owner, who is married to an alcoholic. Her plans are for the two of them to take the bar's money and skip to Mexico - but a boarder at the rooming house where she is staying discovers her plans, and comes up with a plan of his own.
Michaels stars as Billie Nash, and she plays nicely off of the married couple, Matt (Richard Egan,the soap "Capitol") and Dora (Evelyn Scott, TV's "Peyton Place"). Rouse ratchets the tension as Billie and Matt carry out their scheme right under Dora's nose. Percy Helton (a longtime TV character actor) is the mole-like Charlie, the nosy old neighbor who knows how to play Billie and threatens to derail that trip to Mexico. Will Billie get away with it? Would she care much if she didn't?
Michaels was a model and pulp-film actress whose star burned hot and brief, with an IMdB total of only 14 titles in 7 years, from '49 to '56 (roughly ages 21 to 28) (note all the multiples of 7 in there; neat). Not much to her bio: born in New York, died in Phoenix in 2007 at age 78.. Did I mention she stood 5-foot-9 (in her bare feet)? Married the director of "Wicked Woman," Richard Rouse. Has an Oscar-winning son, Christopher Rouse (editing, "The Bourne Ultimatum"). Earlier had a fling with the director of "Pickup," Hugo Haas, probably contributing to the end of her first marriage (to a producer 30 years her senior).
After the thrill of "Wicked Woman," "Pickup" was a letdown. The sluggish tale has her arriving in another small town to find an older man with money to settle down with. She picks Jan "Hunky" Horak (Haas, the director), a sad-sack railroad worker and widower who just wants a puppy to keep him company at his little shack by the tracks. Instead, he's dogged by Black Betty (Michaels), who finds his bank book, which has a bottom line of $7,300, which somehow seemed like a million bucks to a broke babe 60 years ago.
Hunky is struck by a car and is rendered deaf, which is fine by Betty, because now she doesn't have to talk to the schlub and she can carry on with the truly hunky railroad co-worker Steve (Allan Nixon). Hunky eventually regains his hearing, but he plays dumb to collect his pension and, more fun, to hear what Betty says around him. It ain't pretty.
Here's a good taste of her bile in "Pickup":
The whole thing eventually falls apart in the second half. A tramp called Professor comes and goes like Mr. Green Jeans for comic relief. Things with Betty and Hunky come to a head. And then Haas tosses in a ridiculous "Wizard of Oz" kind of ending, and you just know that ol' Hugo was a little nuts to have crafted this monstrosity.
The film would be near worthless ... if it weren't for Beverly Michaels. She's a thoroughly modern screen presence, a revelation in the early '50s. Perhaps her blase chick shtick got old quickly and motherhood and other adventures were preferable to the merry-go-round of cheap scripts and relationship roulette with the filmmakers.
We're waiting a while before we dive back into her oeuvre, so as not to burn through her catalog too quickly. And we'll save her final title for last. It's called "Blonde Bait."
Grades
WICKED WOMAN - A-minus
PICKUP - C
* - Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique films, cutting a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out previous entries here and here.
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