3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ZADORABLE PIA IN YET ANOTHER BAD MOVIE MILESTONE, September 25, 2007
This review is from: Fake Out [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The terrifically tacky 1982 howler Fake-Out has the single most satisfying opening scene in movie history: the self-enchanted, charisma-free Pia Zadora dances badly while screeching a disco tune on a glitzy Vegas stage, and just as you're thinking, "When are the police going to show up, handcuff her and take her away to a prison for the criminally untalented?" they do. When you see that the arresting officer is TV's chrome dome Telly Savalas, you know Fake-Out is a Bad Movie milestone.
Turns out showgirl Zadora just won't rat on her mobster boyfriend, even when faced with the prospect of sharing the clink with tough female cons who say things like, "What a lollipop! Put her in my cell. I ain't had a lollipop since I was a baby!" As months pass, spunky Zadora becomes the prison's Jane Fonda, teaching aerobics to the women inmates. Urging them to rotate their pelvises lewdly, she explains, "If you get it down right, you might have a new career when you get out." And you never doubt that every actress here, including Zadora, is going to need one. After exercise class, the Zadorable one heads for the showers, where four naked women--goaded by the lifer who called Pia a "lollipop"--gang up on her to get their licks.
After a soapy rape, Zadora tells the authorities she'll spill the beans on her boyfriend. To ensure she'll show up in court, she's released into the custody of officer Savalas and his dim-bulb partner, Desi Arnaz Jr. When Savalas reveals he doesn't believe Zadora is ever going to really talk--"I think you're stroking us"---Zadora replies, "Stroking you would only give me calluses." Pretending to be concerned for snitch Zadora's safety, Savalas stashes her in a Vegas hotel, and if you actually believe Savalas is protecting her by the time they get there, you probably believe Zadora can act, too. The evil Savalas tells Zadora to stay put in her suite--"If you get an itch for something else, put some powder on it"---and Zadora snarls back, "When I get an itch, I scratch it!" Then, impressed with the snappiness of her comeback line, she adds, "I'm dirty from the company I've been keeping. I'm gonna take a bath."
Meanwhile, two hit men hired by Zadora's boyfriend sit in a hotel room across the way, waiting to get her in their crosshairs. Make what you will of the fact that this film's producer/director, Matt Cimber, cast himself as one of the assassins who tries to rub out Zadora. While you're at it, make what you will of the fact that when Zadora and Arnaz go shopping, they run into Larry Storch who, in the role of a fat-cat producer determined to make a star out of his untalented wife, eerily resembles Zadora's then-husband Meshulam Riklis, the fat-cat producer who bankrolled this film in an effort to make a star out of his wife. Apropos of nothing, Storch remarks, "Water seeks its own level," which certainly explains what happens next. Back in the hotel room, Zadora takes another bath, during which she invites Arnaz into the bathroom to enjoy her nakedness. "That's a nice outfit but I wouldn't go out in the rain in it," he says as he falls into the tub with her.
Having shared with Arnaz what is clearly one of her sacred activities--we're talking about bathing--Zadora falls seriously for the guy. After a requisite brush with the mobsters, the two go to a marina to wait aboard a boat called "The Happiness" and Zadora chirps, "Happiness is a hot bath, right now!" Yes, this is her fourth attempt to come clean in one day. Naturally, there's a love scene, and then there's a shoot-out, and by the time the happy ending arrives, you're certain it's going to take place in a bathroom. It doesn't. But so what? Zadora could scrub herself silly and never lose the distinctive scent of Eau de Bad Movies We Cherish.
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