Best movie of this year hands down!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

While some might call this obviously cheaply made trashy drama an exploitation classic, I became fascinated by its two leading female characters, actors I'd known from my soap opera viewing of the 1980's. When I first saw Meg Myles on my daytime TV screen, she was playing the kind-hearted tavern owner Sid on "The Edge of Night", dispensing advice along with coffee and pie and trying to find love in a violent, mob controlled town. Around the same time, Grayson Hall was playing the scheming Euphemia on "The Edge of Night", the turban wearing matriarch of a tragic Southern family vowing revenge on the wealthy Texan who had allegedly stolen her family fortune. In the middle of the night during the time, I caught Grayson in her Oscar nominated role as the nasty Miss Fellowes in "The Night of the Iguana" where she played a repressed lesbian whose sexuality was only assumed because of her desperation to keep teenage nymphet Sue Lyon "pure". In this drama, made two years prior, Ms. Hall plays Pepe, a sophisticated nightclub manager who is assumed to be a friend of Sapho's as well, although that is never spelled out. Pin-up Meg Myles already had a singing career and some film experience when she was cast in this film which utilizes her busty hour glass figure to great advantage. Only 28 when she made this film, for some reason, she seems nearly 10 years older, so for men to go ga-ga over her and kill to keep her out of other men's arms seems absurd. She's first seen ripping off an ex who had earlier tried to kill her, flying to New York, picking up a man on a plane who sets her up with a singing career at Pepe's. Hall takes her in, dominates her time, introduces her to important people and promotes her as a new singing find. Myles does indeed have a good singing voice, but it's obvious that her tracks were dubbed and that she's lipsincing to loudly piped in recordings, especially in her final song, clad in leather and brandishing a whip. Manipulating the suave Hall into getting hired, she also becomes involved with wealthy Mike Keene and his teenaged son (Bob Yuro) whom the audience is never sure of whether he is in high school (boarding) or college. He looks far older than college age, but the love scenes between Myles and Yuro still make her seem much older. Noila Chapman is great in her few scenes as the aging drunk whom Keene dumps to pursue Myles, and Del Tenney is fabulously bitchy as the obvious gay Paul whom Myles refers to as "Paulette". This reminded me in some ways of the same year's "Walk on the Wild Side" where Barbara Stanwyck played the lesbian owner of a brothel, as well as 1965's "Who Killed Teddy Bear" where Elaine Stritch added even more glamour to her lesbian character who ran a bar just like Hall does here. There were even some elements of the 1933 Stanwyck film "Baby Face", although Myles seems slightly longer in the tooth here. The scene where Yuro and Myles end up at his father's country hideaway (complete with pool and waterfall) does give Myles a chance to show the desperation for a quiet, peaceful life, but her ambitions take over and back to New York it is where her betrayal of both men takes a sudden violent turn. Myles really isn't "Satan in High Heels", but your average bad girl who takes several nasty turns (theft and the urging of one man to kill another), and as much as I like her, find her made to look cheap and vulgar and not really the ideal of any man's sexual fantasy outside the glimpse of her ample bust. I would have liked to have seen more of Hall on screen as she has that great raspy voice presence that made her seem like a fellow stage sister to Stritch and the equally raspy Eileen Heckart, showing that the "Baritone Babes" are often more fascinating than the sexually over-exploited blondes, here represented by the fairly amusing Sabrina as Myles' rival at Pepe's nightclub.

The female of the species, is more deadly than the male!Agreeably sordid melodrama is fine as a curiosity piece, although in truth, it's not titillating or sleazy enough to be of great use to hardcore exploitation fans. It stars Meg Myles ("Coogan's Bluff") as Stacey Kane. Stacey toils away as a burlesque show stripper at a carnival until her junkie ex-husband Rudy (Earl Hammond) shows up one night, wanting to start fresh. He's got a wad of bills with him (payment for a story he wrote), which is big temptation for her, so she steals it and takes off for NYC, where she soon starts a new life as singer in a nightclub, run by a lesbian character named Pepe (Grayson Hall of 'Dark Shadows') and owned by Arnold Kenyon (Mike Keene). Before too long, she's become involved with both Arnold and his ne-er- do-well son Laurence (Robert Yuro, "The Shakiest Gun in the West").Overall, the movie is competently done, and certainly better acted than one might expect, with an especially fine, effectively bitchy performance by the sexy Ms. Myles. Hall and Keene are also quite good, but what's really amusing is noting that Paul, the suave, bisexual pianist, is played by Del Tenney. Tenney was better known as a cult director during the 1960s; he went on to helm "The Horror of Party Beach", "The Curse of the Living Corpse", and "Zombie" a.k.a. "I Eat Your Skin". English entertainer Sabrina (playing a character named Sabrina) rounds out the main cast.Unfortunately for some, "Satan in High Heels" fails to measure up to that grabber of a title. It's not that the story isn't diverting at all, but the pacing is slow, and things never ever get that interesting, at least until Myles belts out her show stopping number near the end. In fact, the four songs in this movie are actually not bad.Still worth a look, but it might not appeal to trash lovers across the board.Six out of 10.

This film was quite enjoyable really. It starts out a bit slow...and never really gets to full speed...but in the end it's got a pretty decent storyline going. A carny/burlesque girl rips off her carny/sleaze ball husband and sets out to the big city to find wealthier men to take advantage of. She gets a job at Pepe's, an upscale burlesque/variety club and proceeds to mercilessly make her play for the rich older man. And his son. This movie is worth watching if only for the vibe that it gives off. The early sixties smokey club scene is beautifully portrayed. The costumes are over the top and lovely. The riding outfit that the main character wears is priceless, as is the plastic-ish, big collared pant suit she wears in a couple of scenes. Pepe's wardrobe is gorgeously early mod. The ending was a little anti-climactic for me. I was expecting a lot more....like an actual murder. Either of her or of the old man. The way they left it was a bit lame. But still a pretty darn good film and worthy of a viewing.

Gritty, glum, moody, downbeat, depressing---all the elements that make black & white 60's sexploitation films based in New York City so much fun on a rainy afternoon. Superstacked sexbomb model and singer Meg Myles is perfect. Grayson Hall is great. Why Hollywood never utilized Myles' talents always puzzled me. Intrator lucked out casting her as a bitchy, cold-blooded user who gives an inch and takes a mile from everyone. He did a good job although his camera focuses more on Myles' feet than her famous 42-inches. Through sheer happenstance, she winds up at a Manhattan cabaret that's inhabited by a nest of spidery characters as jaded, rotten and nasty as she is. They try to mold her to their specifications. Her rebellion is futile because she wants to become the star of the club. Another 50's-60's bullet-bra icon, British blonde Sabrina, makes a rare film appearance as another club entertainer.