Sugar Cookies

Scoop's notes

Complete spoilers:

Get this for a tagline: "Meet the beautiful people who live ... and die ... in a freaky, try-anything world".

You just know it's going to be some highbrow entertainment.

Is it a new adaptation of Murder in the Cathedral? No, it's Troma's "Sugar Cookies."

The star is Lynn Lowry, who plays both "Alta" and "Julie". Alta is the "star" of a series of adult movies made by a producer who is so jaded that simply watching and screwing his actresses no longer gets his rocks off. He must completely dominate them. He has Alta play out a "scene" in which she loads a gun and plays with it for a while. He asks her for the gun, and she gives it to him. Mind you now, she just personally loaded it with real bullets. Then, they talk. He is dressed, she naked. An excellent conversation starter. He strokes her with the gun and inserts it in her vagina. An even better conversation starter, although this one has also been known to stop conversations. Sometimes permanently.

Unfortunately, the camera is on the wrong lips during this conversation. Then he tells her to taste herself on it. She says it tastes just like chicken. Only fishy. He sticks the gun the rest of the way into her mouth and, sentimental fool that he is, blows the back of her head off. This reminds me of the scene that was cut from Casablanca, in which Henreid finds out about Bogart and blows Ingrid Bergman to Kingdom Come, after which he proposes to scatter her cheatin' remains in all the gin joints in all the cities in all the world.

Lean and leggy exploitation legend, Mary Woronov ("Eating Raoul"), plays Camilla, our producer's assistant, and another of his favorite lays. It turns out that she and Alta were also lovers, and that she likes to wear a hat in the bathtub. She bathes a lot, although chances are she does not get her hair clean, because her hat stays on. Then she begins her stretching exercises. Then a little more stretching. At this point, she's pretty well stretched out when she is interrupted by a visit from the producer who has two things on his mind. First he wants an alibi for the previous night. Second, well, for rumpy-pumpy.

Camilla now starts planning her revenge on her heterosexual lover for killing her lesbian lover. She interviews a whole procession of aspiring actresses and finds a woman named Julie who looks just like Alta (not too surprisingly, since she is played by the same actress, Lynn Lowry). Camilla has to do a great deal of coaxing and coaching to get Julie out of her clothes, but finally manages. Then, as she removes the last of Julie's clothing. Camilla finally gets Julie onto the bed and starts to rehearse her for a "movie scene" which is really a re-enactment of Alta's murder. Julie rebels, so Camilla slaps her around, throws her back down on the bed, flings her clothes at her and tells her to get out. Julie apologizes for rebelling, so Camilla forgives her and decides to take a bath with her, and they make up. For Camilla, a bath is just not the same without a big white hat so, to compensate, she fantasizes about sex with Leon Redbone. OK, maybe not, maybe they just indulge in a little lesbian foreplay. This goes on and on. One assumes they indulge in more than that eventually, but one doesn't see it.

Camilla now has Julie completely under her domination, and tells the movie maker she has a surprise for him: a new girl to take Alta's place. To show how co-operative Julie is, Camilla cuts a slit in her skin and inserts a flower stem in it.

Now it's time for the re-enactment of Alta's murder. Camilla undresses Julie, but gives her all kinds of mixed signals to make her edgy and confused. Poor Julie just doesn't know where she stands any more, so of course, she shoots the movie maker, just what any seasoned actor would do in a scene with mixed signals. Unfortunately for us, she was not on the set of "Prince of Tides". She is then horrified by her own action, and begs Camilla to tell her what to do. Camilla basically shrugs and says: "Not my problem. I just used you to get back at that jerk - do whatever you want." Julie is left distraught.

The director showed some talent, to tell you the truth, but I'm not sure the concept of "Hitchcock + porn" is one which stands to join the Combo Hall of Fame with chocolate and peanut butter. The Hitchcock elements gave the porn an ugly, dark tone. The (soft) porn scenes sometimes slowed down the plot to a crawl. It's an idea that probably worked better on paper.

Did you ever watch Sesame Street? Do you like to play "One of these things is not like the others"? Then enjoy that game with some credits which may or may not be from the career of the head Tromateer, Lloyd Kaufman:

1) The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie

2) Igor and the Lunatics

3) My Dinner with Andre

4) Class of Nuke 'Em High 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid

It's a trick question. All four of those are in his filmography. I swear it.

DVD INFO

Intro by writer/producer Lloyd Kaufman

Exclusive interviews with stars Lynn Lowry and Mary Woronov

NUDITY REPORT

Lowry is naked for most of the film. Woronov shows breasts frequently, but keeps her panties on, or is under soap bubbles. Jennifer Welles also shows everything in two scenes. Maureen Byrnes also shows everything in a sub plot that only exists to give Woronov an alibi, and Kathy Nonass shows breasts as one of the actresses interviewed.

Tuna's notes

Sugar Cookies (1973) was an attempt to create a soft-core sex film around a reasonably complex plot somewhat similar to Hitchcock's Vertigo. Lloyd Kaufman, in his pre-Troma days, produced the film, and also shares writing credit. One of the associate producers was none other than Kaufman's school chum from the Yale class of 1968, Oliver Stone. (President Bush was also in the same class.) I suppose it was not a very successful idea, because it was obviously made to make money, not to create great art, and it did not do so. Kaufman claims that Sugar Cookies was the only X-rated film ever to lose money.

Ms. Lowry plays two roles. As the film opens, she is playing a famous porn star and is engaged in domination play which includes a loaded and cocked handgun.. Her partner blows the back of her head off with it, but makes it look like a suicide, using Mary Woronov as his alibi. The killer was doing Woronov, but Woronov was also doing Lowry. Woronow starts to place a revenge scheme in place. She searches for a replacement for the dead woman, and picks -- you guessed it, Lynn Lowry (in her other role) -- and starts loosening her up and preparing her to do the same sort of sex thing with the killer.

In the special features, Woronov said she thought the film had faded into obscurity, and was not unhappy about that, since the film does not bring back happy memories for her. The script was written by her then-husband, Theodore Gershuny, supposedly for Mary, although she confesses her doubts about that motive, considering that Gershuny cast himself in a film-within-the-film, performing a sex scene with Lynn Lowry. If Ms Woronov has some regrets about her involvement, Oliver Stone seems to be in complete denial. He refused Kaufman's request to record an interview for this DVD. One may fairly conclude that he does not consider his involvement with Sugar Cookies to have been a proud moment in his career.

To be honest, the performances are not bad, and some effort was put into production design, but there is a big problem here with the uninvolving story.

The Critics Vote ...

No major reviews on file

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 4.3/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, Tuna says, "This film is a D unless you are a fan of Mary Woronow or Lynn Lowry, in which case you must see it, since it pictures them naked again and again, thus raising it to a C- for that group only." Scoop says, "Maybe a D, but I'd say it is a C-. It's a film of no interest to mainstream moviegoers because it's neither very explicit erotica by today's standards nor up to snuff as a thriller. It does however, have some retro 70s appeal for a cult audience."