Gripping story with well-crafted characters

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This is a low-budget trashy film. While it's not at all salacious by today's standards, back in 1959 it was quite the exploitation film. It's the story about a she-devil named Nina. Nina is interested in two things--men and destroying marriages. And she has a track record of slutty advances on men--men who just can't help themselves! The first time you see her and her vampish ways is when she is found near death and she tells folks her name is Minette. She's taken in by a nice lady (Betty Lynn--Thelma Lou from "The Andy Griffith Show") who doesn't realize that her kindness would be repaid by betrayal. Fortunately, the husband is able to stop before it's too late--but no one believes him when he tells folks she's bad. And, her slutty ways result in her husband and his brother (and business partner) having a HUGE fight. Later, however, the husband and wife investigate and find that 'Minette' had been up to no good in another nearby town--and her slutty ways led to a woman's suicide! In many ways, this is like a white trash version of "Peyton Place"--and with lower production values. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing, as the film IS entertaining....though you might feel a bit guilty about enjoying such a nasty little film. If you do watch, look for the super-lame cat fight scene--it's funny because it's so bad. Also look for the nude swimming scene--very tame when seen today but awfully shocking back then.Entertaining trash....so if that's what you like, then this film is well worth your time.

Racy tale on the bayou as a rich hussy escapes from her husband and ends up coming between a newly married fisherman, his wife and his partner, his brother. Its lots of exposed flesh as the woman tries to play every side against each other for her own amusement and profit. Things get even more complicated as the husband shows up. This is a real southern fried pot boiler of the sort that they don't make any more.Okay tale of love and lust in the swamp is an amusing example of the sort of film that undoubtedly played in the drive in across the south in the late 1950's and early 1960's. I liked it for what it was, but I don't think I need see it again.

A press-release bio item, from Howco-International's release of this Bon Aire Production called "Louisiana Hussy", on Robert Richards informs the reader that Richards Has "......recently taken up cooking and is attempting Alice B. Toklas' complicated recipes."Well, her recipes, combined with crawdads, okra and hush puppies, possibly goes a long way in explaining this bayou hash-bash. Brothers Pierre (Robert Richards) and Jacques Guillot (Peter Coe) are partners in trading furs and Spanish Moss---"give ya'll a couple of bushels of moss for a bucket of that stuff Alice B. cooks with"---and Jacques is hacked off at his brother because Pierre is about to marry Lily (Betty Lynn)and Jacques thought he had the inside track on her...and he did, until Pierre gilded Lily with some Alice B. brownies. So, bad-loser Jacques refuses to attend the wedding, and is out gathering moss with his assistant Cob (Howard Wright) when Callie (Helen Forest), an old Gris-Gris woman, who can mix up a mean mess of grits, leads them to where she has found a badly beaten and unconscious young woman (Nan Peterson.) They get her to Doc Opie (Tyler McVey)just as Pierre and Lily are being escorted to their new home by friends following their wedding. Ol' Opie asks Jacques to carry the beautiful stranger into the newlywed's house where he has her put to bed. Pierre, wishing to prime his new bride with some Alice B. goodies, naturally resents this intrusion and takes an instant dislike to this girl who calls herself Minette. He steps into the bedroom and tells her she has to hit the road but she throws her arms around him and kisses him...just as brother Jacques passes the bedroom window. Jacques is irked by this turn of events.He gets more irked later when wily Minette tells him that Pierre had forced his attention on her while she was ill. Jacques moves her into his shack to protect her from Pierre who is, of course, innocent but glad to get her out of his house. Meanwhile Doc Opie brings Pierre and Lily a New Orleans newspaper showing a very beautiful woman identified as Mrs. Minette Lanier (Rosalee Calvert)who had recently committed suicide in the neighboring exclusive community of Grange Hill, a Louisiana landmark because it was three feet above sea level. Pierre and Lily hustle down to "Nawlenes" and look up Clay Lanier (Harry Lauter)who has been on a prolonged binge ever since his wife's suicide. But his talky servant, Burt (Smoki Whitfield) tells them that the real Minette had been crippled after falling off a horse, and Clay had brought Nina Duprez to his home as a companion for Minette. Nina is more interested at being Clay's companion and pulls a few tricks and incidents that convinces Minette that Clay is carryin' on with Nina, and she ups and shoots herself. Clay knows her suicide was engineered by Nina, almost kills her and tries to kill himself, but Burt interferes and, during the scuffin' scuffle, Nina manages to escape and collapses from the beating and exhaustion at the spot where Callie found her.Clay sobers up and decides he will go after Nina and finish the job. But the film wimps out after that and nobody else dies and, when last seen, Nina is boarding a Toonerville Trolley heading west.

I had to rate this movie a 7/10, because it is a highly entertaining bayou trash romp. The intermittent sex scenes are especially humorous, thanks to the director's and cast's attempts to push the censors' envelope of acceptability to the limit for '59. In fact, the characters' intertwined shadows sometimes get away with more than the characters themselves do! Then there's lots of fightin' and fussin' to keep you interested between the romantic interludes.We saw this on public TV's One Star Theatre a few years ago, and had a blast watching it. The lead "hussy" is completely unscrupulous and immoral, and she's played against nice, sweet Betty Lynn ('Thelma Lou' of Mayberry fame) to great effect. Enjoy this one for all it's worth, if you can find it!!