Fatale Abstraction

OK, I've taken one for the team. I've valiantly squandered about 80 minutes of my life watching the abysmally mesmerizing 1973 film "Little Cigars" so you won't have to. I confess I am something of a film addict, and crappy movies are particularly difficult for me to pass up, especially now that I have the hallowed and mighty DVR feature on my cable box. I wear my B-movie credentials with pride: I was at the world premiere of Basket Case II, hosted by Joe Bob Briggs, local Dallas filmgod. Now equipped with the luxury of DVRing something while I'm away/asleep, etc., the world of crap cinema is mine as never before.

Anyway, Little Cigars commences with a terrible (even for 1973 standards) animation of a group of 5 small cigars making nice to an Amazon cigar - seriously - I expected hot-dog-and-bun-style filth(the little fellers sorta dry-humped her), but restraint ruled the day. The film opens to a scene of a hot chick (ice-veined Penthouse pin-up Angel Tompkins) in bed with her old-goat gangster sugar-daddy. He does something to her under the covers with a cigar, and she persuades him to give her the cigar so she can try it, and she apparently fries his wedding tackle with it. She flees the scene with his money and her mink coat. She hooks up with a scheister gang of 5 midget guys, and they start pulling progressively larger capers until they work their way up to robbing an armored truck. How could 5 midgets get away with this, you ask? Well, the 5-0 was onto them, and at one point the police haul about a dozen midgets into a room for a line-up. There's even a black midget guy with an afro because you know - all them midgets look alike. Anyhoo. In the way of all things, Cleo, our anti-heroine, ends up hooking up with this 70-year old midget leader who played an oompa-loompa in The Wizard of Oz. I think he was in the Lollipop league. There is one prolonged midget-on-the-back necktie strangulation which was remarkable for its sheer refusal to end. Surreal. There's also the classic moment in the film when the original gangster's henchmen catch up to Cleo and the gang, and one of them says "Cleo, you must have fallen on hard times, hanging out with a dwarf!" She sneers at the goon and fairly spits out "He's not a dwarf--he's a midget," with righteous indignation that would do Rosa Parks proud. Best dialogue of the movie though, is the very end, when she has bailed on her diminutive lover and comes back, tail between her legs. His pride is hurt and he calls her a slut, and she says, "I came back for you, didn't I?" He says "why?" His heart melts when she replies "Because I'm your old lady and I dig your little ass." Quite.

OK - you're glad you didn't see it, but aren't you happy you heard about it?

For a low-budget 70s film that WILL have you squealing with delight (the girls' detention center bunkroom scene alone is worth the price of the rental) check out "Switchblade Sisters." Good shit!