Sickbed Fever Dreams! - Volume One

This post could also be filed under "Did I Just See What I Fucking Thought I Just Saw??" LOL While recovering at home from some out-patient surgery recently, I was planted in front of the television. A lot. Though I was never on anything stronger than Extra Strength Tylenol, there were a couple of incidents in which my viewing content made me wonder if I'd actually been slipped peyote or morphine by accident...! This first offering I went into 100% blind. In fact, I had only a thumbnail of the poster shown above-right to go on, along with the knowledge that the movie's top-billed star was Mercedes McCambridge. The film is called Sixteen and was made in 1972.

The film kicks off with a horse-drawn cart making its way through a rural community, encountering highway construction at one point, before coming to rest "downtown."

Country bumpkin couple Ford Rainey and the aforementioned McCambridge enter a building that seems to be a combination bank and barbershop (I am not making this up.)

Inside, they are informed that, due to the state appropriating part of their property for the highway that's now being built, the couple will be given a sum of $8,000.00. Now that may not sound like a lot, but in 1972 that was close to one year's income for an average family (not to mention more than these people would ever see otherwise!) They are asked the names of their three children with are "Bruvver," Naomi and J.C. (named not after Jesus Christ, but the department store J.C. Penney!)

Despite being given this money in hard cash, McCambridge remains thrifty, carefully weighing how much produce she's buying and putting back any excess. Why she has one of Carolyn Jones' old wigs from The Addams Family carelessly stapled to her head is anyone's guess.

Rainey splurges on some moonshine, which a zealous local preacher (played by busy character actor Parley Baer) wants to sample. I mean sample plenty! Baer also has gotten word of the big payday for the family and attempts to squeeze some of that out of them as well until he's chased away with a mop by McCambridge.

The eldest siblings go about their daily chores, feeding and watering the animals on the farm.

Once finished, they wave goodbye to their mother and dart off into the wilderness, trudging through fields, trails and swamp! As they kept going deeper and deeper, I started to get an oddball feeling. No... Not that they were going to have sex. But...

...that they were going to find a place to skinny dip! And that's exactly what happened.

They remove every stitch of their clothing and cavort around in a pond.

I don't know what made me uneasier... that the siblings (presumably 16 and 18) were swimming together naked or that the water was so damned icky that anything more than an inch or two underneath became a dark tan color, in stark contrast to the swimmers' faces!

I mean, WHAT was in this water?

Usually a naked swimmer's bare buns read pale under the surface and it doesn't look like they are paddling around in Log Cabin maple syrup!

The refreshing swim, um, behind them, they exit the rusty looking brine.

Bruvver begins to notice the angles of his younger sister's back.

"Bruvver" (a bastardization of Brother) is played by John Lozier, an actor most likely in his very early 20s and who never appeared in another movie.

Naomi is played by Simone Griffith (who was 22 at the time) who'd been in two prior low-budget films and who went on to a rather respectable acting career for a time. (She was in Death Race 2000, 1975, starred in a popular video rental Hot Target, 1985, and was on many popular TV series including a regular role on Amanda's with Bea Arthur.)

As utterly tawdry as this entire scene seems, I must say that it's all presented with a light, innocent touch. They're merely curious about changes in their bodies, having likely done this all through their childhoods. It's not seamy or nasty, but it's certainly unusual!

On their way back home, they stop off at a shack where a kindly woman they know (called Aunt Ada) lives all alone. She gives them charm necklaces, to protect them from harm, and also provides them with biscuits and some milk for a snack. 

Aunt Ada is played by notable character actress Maidie Norman, who you'll recall from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Airport '77 (1977) and many other projects over the years. Accustomed to working with Oscar-winning leading ladies like Bette, Joan and Olivia, to name only three, I thought she might also rub up against McCambridge here, but this, and one other brief solitary scene, is all she has in the film.

For her trouble (surely one day's work on location) they spelled her freaking name wrong in the opening credits! In the biz since 1947 and that's the thanks ya get....!

Next we find the family all gussied up and headed into town again on their trusty nag. They park it under a tree (!) near the Trailways bus station and the five of them board the vehicle. Where are they off to?

Would you believe the fairgrounds?? Now, listen... I clicked on this movie thinking that it was going to be some sort of backwoods raunch like Bloody Mama (1970) or Moonshine County Express (1977) or something. Nothing could have prepared me for what it actually turned out to be.

For all intents and purposes, this is an updated, quasi-inbred, sleazy, unofficial update of the novel-turned-movies State Fair (1933, 1945, 1962!) McCambridge didn't bring any pickles for competition and Rainey has no prize hog for judging, but otherwise this is awfully close...!

Say it ain't so! And yet, in many ways, it is...

Mother and daughter pose for a memento at a photo booth.

Youngest son Buddy Foster (of Mayberry, R.F.D.) chomps on a wad of cotton candy bigger than his head.

The naive Griffeth enters a haunted house and eventually becomes lost, confused and unhinged within its dark, confusing walls.

The attraction operator ultimately has to come in and remove her! She'd entered the thing with "Bruvver," but he's nowhere to be found suddenly. And why?

Because he's become obsessed with stripping cooch dancer Beverly Powers!

Meanwhile, as she recovers behind the scenes from her haunted house ordeal, Griffeth is approached by a motorcycle stunt rider played by Peter Greene.

Seeing her in tears, he tries to get her mind off her troubles by inviting her to watch (for free) his act, which takes place inside a large cylinder.

She watches with awe as he speeds along the walls of the circular contraption.

Meanwhile, McCambridge and Rainey take in all the sights, sounds and tastes of the fair.

Powers, who wonders why she can't shake her bumpkin admirer Lozier, is informed by one of her esteemed coworkers that he's part of a family who've just come into some fast cash! (Word travels FAST, people!)

That clicks on a light bulb over Powers' head. Maybe she can get in on some of that...

After shaking what she's got in front of young Lozier, she tempts him back to her trailer where he's startled to find that the careening pile of brunette curls she'd been sporting aren't truly hers. She instructs him to stick around while she changes clothes.

Likewise, Greene is turning on the "charm" for Griffeth.

The rest of the family doesn't know what's become of their two eldest kids.

Greene lures his virginal prey into the cylinder where he's used to performing.

Before long, he's got her dress off!

Then it's off to the races...

In anticipation of the big event, our Prince Charming has advised some of the local yokels to climb the stairs and see this show!

The fair is basically over with and yet there's still no sign of Griffeth or Lozier. So the others do what any other family would. They board the last bus home without two of their children and head home!

Powers has dragged young Lozier to a local watering hole where she loads him up with his first ever taste of bourbon.

Then, making sure her wares are on display, shows him how it's done on the dance floor.

Greene, who's apparently very popular around that neck of the woods, arrives. (Do be sure to check out the scuff marks on his jeans...!) It's not long before a fight erupts at the bar and the involved parties leave after a melee.

Meanwhile, the recently deflowered Griffeth waits for Green to return from looking for her brother in Greene's tastefully-decorated trailer.

He and his jeans return home from the scuffle at the bar and he instantly decides to get more comfortable.

"A man's got so much more to offer... You know what I mean, Dorothy?"

I think that over the course of the last 15 years, I've demonstrated that I'm not straight, but I must declare that Griffeth appears rather enticing here. I can't imagine any red-blooded straight guy not finding her pretty delectable. (As an aside, one of the many TV shows that Griffeth later appeared one was The Golden Girls, from whence the quote on the prior photo is derived. She popped up as Stan's new, younger wife Chrissy, on an early episode.)

Somehow he decides he just wants to relax, however. But, wowza, check out those jeans.

The following morning, Powers duplicitously informs a very hungover Lozier that they were married the night before! I cannot figure out if Powers is so common and bad that she fits this role like a glove or if she is one of the MASTERS of inhabiting hard, knowing, brazen floozies and was somehow skipped over come Oscar time...!

I get a lot of requests here for shirtless pics of Ford Rainey, so here you go! (I'm kidding...)

Back at the farm, McCambridge remains concerned about whatever has happened to her children.

Before the suspense can go on much longer, here come the "newlyweds" in Powers' fishtail convertible and accompanying trailer. To say that the parents are unimpressed is an understatement.

Lozier (who appears all the time like a very dazed Shaun Cassidy) still sees something special in his "bride." (FYI - Lozier, likewise Greene, never appeared in another movie after this initial one.)

McCambridge, however, is driven to use one of her favorite weapons, a dingy old mop, to let Powers have it in a hilarious tussle between the two actresses. 

The movie concludes with a couple of tough lessons having been learned.

It's difficult to imagine what drew McCambridge to this venture. I mean, the budget had to be loooooow, so I can't fathom it was money. And the part is not exactly an amazing one. Personally, I was rather startled that this low-rent, locally-made flick (directed by actor Lawrence Dobkin!) contained two actresses who'd later appear in Airport sequels! Norman was in Airport '77, as noted earlier and McCambridge did The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979.) If you should wish to experience this epic as I did, it's available here free with occasional ads.

The End!

No, I really mean it!