★★★★
“And not a Rick Springfield in sight.”
It’s about the year 1880, and Jessica Hartwell (Currie) is heading out West in a wagon with her preacher husband. They encounter the gang of Frank Brock (Frank); they repeatedly rape Jessica, before shooting her husband fatally, and leaving her for dead. She survives, returning to health with the help of prospector Rufe, who sports an unfortunate, obviously fake beard, yet also teaches the young woman how to shoot. For Jessi has vengeance on her mind, and to assist her in this path, she liberates three other women from the custody of Sheriff Clay (Lund). There’s outlaw Rachel (Jennifer Bishop); saloon girl Claire (Regina Carrol); and Indian Kana (the not-exactly Indian Stern), who had been a part of Frank’s gang until he abandoned her.
While director Adamson was best known for his horror films, some of his work has been covered here before: The Female Bunch and I Spit on Your Corpse! This is his best entry yet, which is straightforward, short on pretension and all the better for it. It certainly doesn’t hang around; we’re barely a few minutes in before the reason for revenge is under way, and it’s not easy viewing. It sits particularly uncomfortably, since just a few minutes earlier, the audience was enjoying the sight of the lead actress (also seen in Mama’s Dirty Girls) skinny-dipping. For the film doesn’t forget the sex in exploitation. Jessi is surprisingly quick to forget her late husband and bed the Sheriff, with most of the other female cast similarly disrobing at some point.
On the other hand, there are occasionally surprising elements, such as Tana’s refusal to help a wounded Apache; often, films lump all native Americans together, forgetting that tribes were sometimes disparate groups, who hated each other. It’s a decision which causes conflict – of the muddy, cat-fight kind – between her and Claire, a diversion on the otherwise fairly straight arrow journey towards the expected and likely inevitable confrontation with Brock. This, along with other forms of more brutal attrition, do mean that by the time Jessica arrives at her target’s hideout, the film’s title is no longer accurate. Indeed, Jessi is back to ploughing an almost solitary furrow on her mission, made all the more hazardous by Frank knowing she’s on her way.
The supporting actresses are not exactly given more than simple sketches, yet manage to make them feel like actual people. The focus is firmly on Jessica, and I liked Currie in the role, with her managing to portray both a vulnerable side and a steely determination that will not be swayed from her intended path of retribution. Her coolest moment is probably at the end, lighting sticks of dynamite off her cheroot and tossing them to great effect. Admittedly, when it comes to the finale, Brock and his men tend to demonstrate all the shooting skills of Imperial Stormtroopers, and you wonder how they ever managed to rob anyone. A great ending though, with a twist I did not see coming, providing the icing on the cake of a unexpectedly pleasant surprise.
Dir: Al Adamson
Star: Sondra Currie, Ellyn Stern, Geoffrey Land, Ben Frank