A few years ago the anonymous proprietor of Arbogast on Film kicked-off a self-described floating blogathon called "The One You Might've Saved."
At the time, it was a call for other writers "to come forward with those doomed characters from horror movies whose plight or personality so moved the writer that he or she wished they had the power to breach the fourth wall of cinema and save that person from his or her tragic fate."
For quite some time I had kicked around the notion of who I would choose to rewrite history for, but just never got around to putting keystrokes to the blogosphere. However, when the man put out a call once again for those We Might Have Saved, I took it as a sign to finally get off my butt and get this thing done.
So who did I choose? Well, I chose Marylin Clarke's doomed bad girl Tina from Del Tenney's totally bitchin' The Horror of Party Beach (1964).
Why her? Easy. She's sassy, and brassy:
Brazen, and bold:
A girl who wasn't afraid to take a walk on the wild side, and do her own thing:
A righteous riot of one, who wasn't ready to rein it in and take that domesticated ride on the Yellow Bus to Squaresville, man, but opted, instead, for a fast, free-wheeling trip down the Road to Ruination.
Of course, this wild and recalcitrant streak put a target squarely on her back. The rules for such things weren't cast in bedrock yet back in 1964, but they were definitely an itch in somebody's pants, which is why this round hole in a world of square pegs had to go, reduced to serving as a painful abject lesson to those who would follow in her wake; and to make way for the heroine proper -- who, in vetted contrast, was duller than dishwater and might as well have been a store mannequin on the arm of our designated Square-Jaw.
Feh.
Thus, when all of this behavior finally burns the last straw with her [now] former beau, Tina casts him off like her cute top and Capris.
… And then celebrates her new found independence with a swim and a little 'me time' on a solitary outcropping.
… Where her fate is quickly sealed in a scene that is both 50-percent ludicrous, hilariously so, because of 'what' attacks her.
… But is also 50-percent morbidly perverse as the google-eyed and knock-kneed Atomic Horror slashes / caresses the poor girl to death.
Thus and woe, in the end, with our bad girl "properly" punished, and the homogenizing, white-bread vestiges of the Eisenhower era safely defended for just a little while longer, most folks are left with this indelible image as a reminder of those too irredeemable, who veer too far off course. This could happen to you.
… As for me? Nah.
To me, she'll always be the one that got away.
Originally posted on April 22, 2010, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.
The Horror of Party Beach (1964) Iselin-Tenney Productions :: 20th Century Fox / P: Alan V. Iselin, Del Tenney / D: Del Tenney / W: Richard Hilliard / C: Richard Hilliard / E: Gary Youngman / M: Wilford L. Holcombe / S: John Scott, Alice Lyon, Marilyn Clarke, Allan Laurel
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