Just got word from my publisher McFarland and Company that my new book Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974 has shipped. What a strange journey it has taken. I started off doing a book about American actresses who went to Italy to work during the sixties. I first wrote about Mimsy Farmer and then tackled Pamela. I just kept writing and writing and realized I had enough for a book just on her. My plans to turn into a biography with hopefully a new interview with Pamela was sadly squashed when I was informed by her husband that she could not participate. I was going to abandon the project, but knowing I was a big fan he suggested I continue.
Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974 pays tribute to the stunning beauty that is Pamela Tiffin. Prettier than Raquel Welch. Funnier than Jane Fonda. More appealing than Ann-Margret. Yet they became superstars, but Pamela did not despite adulation from the critics and even James Cagney who hailed her “remarkable flair for comedy.” Contractual obligations and self-imposed exiles in New York and then Rome hampered her, though she remains a cult sixties pop icon to this day.
Dark-haired Pamela Tiffin debuted in the movie version of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke (1961) as the stunning innocent who steals handsome doctor Laurence Harvey from sexually frustrated spinster Geraldine Page and then she was a scene-stealing comedienne giving a Golden Globe nominated performance as an addle-brained Southern teenager who sneaks into East Berlin and marries Communist Horst Buchholz in Billy Wilder’s hilarious political satire One, Two, Three (1961) starringJamesCagney.
Next came a succession of popular teenage drive-in movies where Pamela once again delivers highly amusing performances. She’s a bored farm gal itching for more than hanging out with the hogs in the musical State Fair (1962) with Pat Boone and Bobby Darin; a bungling flight attendant in the romantic travelogue Come Fly with Me (1963) with Hugh O’Brian and Dolores Hart; a surfing college student in the beach movie For Those Who Think Young (1964) with James Darren; a race car driver loving coed in The Lively Set (1964) again with Darren; and a naive tourist in the Madrid-set comedy The Pleasure Seekers (1964), a remake of Three Coins in the Fountain, with Ann-Margret and Carol Lynley. With her beauty and seductive soft-voice, Pamela Tiffin instilled in her romance seeking characters not only a wide-eyed naïveté and endearing flightiness, but a sexiness that her contemporaries at the time could not match. It was these qualities that made these movies better than expected due to the actress’ comedic abilities and made her rise above the competition of the time. So successful was she that Turner Classic Movies has dubbed her “Hollywood’s favorite air-headed ingénue in the sixties.”
Sophisticated and intelligent in real life (she lived in New York to continue working as a model and taking college courses between films), Pamela was not a fan of her teenage movies and strove to get more mature roles. However, she was beholden to the contracts she signed with producer Hal Wallis (who discovered her), 20th Century-Fox; and the Mirisch Brothers. To her delight, Pamela was finally able to shed her ingenue image after landing a sexy adult role as a sharp-tongued, man-hungry heiress in the detective film Harper starring Paul Newman. Her sexy bikini-clad dance on top of a diving board has become one of the sixties iconic film moments.
Instead of taking Hollywood by storm at this point with her new sex kitten persona, she went blonde and headed overseas to become Marcello Mastroianni’s first American leading lady in the Italian three-part comedy Oggi, domani, dopodomani (1966) and then opted for a Broadway play, Dinner at Eight in the role essayed by Jean Harlow in the 1930s movie version. An unhappy marriage caused her to run away to Italy in 1967 putting a halt to her career trajectory in the U.S. leaving her many fans wanting more and wondering where she disappeared to.
Hollywood’s loss though was Italy’s gain. She was paired with some of the country’s most famous leading men including Franco Nero (twice), Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Nino Manfredi, and Lando Buzzanca. Though enjoying being a sexy blonde, Pamela wanted to act and went after more character parts during her time there hence her long blonde locks were hidden under dark or red wigs. Quite popular, especially when her notorious pictorial in Playboy was released, her films ranged from comedies such as Straziami ma di baci Saziami/Kill Me with Kisses (1968, one of Italy’s highest grossing movies of the sixties), L’arcangelo/The Archangel (1969), and Il vichingo venuto dal Sud/The Blonde in the Blue Movie (1971); to the underrated giallo Giornata nera per l’Ariete/The Fifth Cord (1971); tothe spaghetti western Los Amigos/Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears (1973) featuring one of her best performances as a whore. In between, Pamela returned to the U.S. for one memorable role as a political activist taken hostage by Mexican General Peter Ustinov and his army when they retake the Alamo in the very funny satire Viva Max (1969).
Not a biography, Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974 is a career retrospective of Pamela Tiffin’s movies plus TV and stage appearances. Interviewees (including Franco Nero, Hugh O’Brian, Lada Edmund, Jr., Carole Wells, Tim Zinnemann, Martin West, Niki Flacks, Jed Curtis, Peter Gonzales Falcon, Eldon Quick, John Wilder, and Larry Hankin) provide a behind-the-scenes look at her work. Plus noted film historians Dean Brierly, Roberto Curti, Howard Hughes, and Paolo Mereghetti weigh in on Pamela Tiffin’s place in cinematic history.
To most television fans actress Judy Carne is only remembered as the original Sock It To Me girl on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. But the bouncy auburn-haired British lass (born Joyce Audrey Botterill on April 27, 1939 in Northampton, England) had a prolific career on television before she literally made a splash on that groovy hit variety series. The daughter of a London fruit merchant, she danced with the Bush-Davies ballet and made her stage debut in the 1956 revue For Amusement Only in the West End. Before Carne headed for the U.S. she was a panelist on Juke Box Jury and a regular on the sitcom The Rag Trade.
Judy Carne was first introduced to American audiences as Heather Finch, a British exchange student who comes to stay with an American family in the first hour long comedy series Fair Exchange in 1962. She next played the rich Barbara Wyntoon daughter of the snobbish Cecil Wyntoon (John Dehner) and in love with the poor Jim Bailey (Les Brown Jr.) on the long forgotten sitcom The Baileys of Balboa during the 1964-65 season. And on the big screen she had a small role as one of the three “nameless broads” (the others being Janine Gray and Kathy Kersh) who are found in bed with James Coburn in the comedy The Americanization of Emily (1964).
With the advent of the Beatles in 1964, all things British were in during the mid-sixties so Carne with her cute looks and mod dress was perfect for the spy genre making two memorable appearances on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1965 and 1967.
In between, Judy Carne landed her third TV series called Love on a Rooftop during the 1966-67 TV season. She played newlywed Julie Hammond Willis, the pampered daughter of a rich used car dealer, who is married to struggling architect David (Peter Duel) and living in a tiny windowless apartment, which sits on the roof of a building with a wonderful view of the San Francisco Bay area. Though warm and original, critical kudos could not save it from cancellation after only 1 season. I remember this show and Carne in it quite fondly. It made me want to live in an apartment with incredible city views. Something I still have not achieved to this day. The sitcom was rerun at night during the summer of 1971, which was a few years after my first memories of watching prime time TV. Land of the Giants, Here Come the Brides, Here’s Lucy, Mayberry R.F.D., Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Mothers-in-Law, and the western Lancer still standout for me.
Shortly after her last appearance on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Judy Carne found “overnight” fame on the innovative new variety series Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In beginning in January 1968. Though Carne had comedic talent she is best remembered as the Sock It to Me girl, in which she would invariably get doused with a bucket of water or fall through a trap door on the floor. Also memorable were scenes of Carne gyrating in a bikini as the camera zoomed in on phrases and slogans painted in Day-Glo colors on her body. She became one of the most popular actresses on the show (she was my favorite) rivaling even that of Goldie Hawn (who was funny but her incessant giggling annoyed this 8 year old). Capitalizing on her popular catchphrase, Carne even released a novelty single. Judy stayed with the series for two years and left part way through season three. She told TV Guide in 1969, “Frankly, it has become a big bloody bore.”
Post Laugh-In, whole Goldie Hawn went on to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Cactus Flower and became a bona fide movie star, Judy Carne did not fare as well but remained popular nevertheless. She landed a one-year gig on The Kraft Music Hall, starred on Broadway in The BoyFriend, did a number of TV guest shots (including 6 appearances on Love, American Style always to my delight) and movies-of-the-week (most notably QB VII in 1974) and was a regular performer on the talk and game show circuits.
https://youtu.be/JSrxXBBBuy4
The late seventies, however, really did sock it to Judy Carne. She made headlines in the road company of AbsurdPerson Singular for an altercation with co-star Betsy Von Furstenburg who reportedly purposely spilled a glass of water on Carne during a performance. A nightclub act she put together failed and was a big disappointment. Her sixties experimentation with drugs developed into full-blown heroin addiction. In 1978 she was busted for illegal prescription drugs (she was acquitted) and suffered a broken neck in a car accident. People involved in accidents require a good lawyer to represent them Lawyers from Carlson Meissner Hart & Hayslett provide services as such.
In 1985 Carne co-authored (with former boyfriend Bob Merrill) her heartbreaking autobiography Laughing on the Outside, Crying onthe Inside: The Bittersweet Saga of the Sock-It-To-Me Girl. She candidly revealed details of her tumultuous three-year marriage to Burt Reynolds, her admitted bi-sexuality, her love affair with singer Lana Cantrell, life on Laugh-In and her drug addiction. The book put her back in the spotlight for a short period and to capitalize on her newfound notoriety she put together a cabaret act entitled Only I…. Her show ran for a few months at the Duplex in Greenwich Village during the early nineties and she caught the attention of radio shock jock Howard Stern appearing on his radio and TV shows. Shortly after, she returned to England and lived the rest of her life out of the spotlight.
Rear more about Judy Carne’s spy genre appearances in my and Louis Paul’s book Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973.
Pity Jane Wald. The beautiful buxom brunette was saddled with a curvaceous figure measuring 38-22-35 that most women would kill for. But, as with most sexy actresses, she wanted to stand out due to her acting talent rather than her bra size. During the early to mid-sixties, Wald graced a number of glossy sex comedies that gave her little to do but glide across the big screen wearing nothing but a bikini, a towel, or harem wear.
Jane Wald was born Jane Wolberg in Mount Vernon, New York. Her father was an international businessman and her mother an artist. As a young adult, she attended at few semesters at NYU before enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began learning her acting craft while doing summer stock and supported herself by working as a model appearing on billboards and in newspaper ads for Parliament cigarettes and Rheingold beer. Noticing her print ads, Playboy came a-calling three times but the modest Wald declined the offers to be a Playmate. Her first foray to Hollywood ended when the studio dropped her option and a dejected Wald flew to Europe to be with her parents.
Refusing to give up, Wald decided to give acting one more try and returned to Hollywood in 1959. To gain notoriety, she went the typical starlet route posing for lots of cheesecake photos, attending many openings, and entering promotional beauty contests. Wald was voted queen of the 1960 National Truck, Trailer and Equipment Show. She also gained a lot of publicity in 1962 when she accompanied Johnny Grant on a tour of Hawaiian military bases. She joined a troupe that included Ruta Lee, Ann B. Davis, and Cynthia Pepper.
Jane Wald began finding acting work due to her next door neighbor Barbara Steele. Invited by the actress to lunch at the 20th Century-Fox commissary, Wald was spotted by actor Paul von Schreiber who was putting together a small independent avant-garde drama called Weekend Pass (1962). She played a dance hall girl opposite von Schreiber’s naïve sailor on leave. After spending time with him, the sailor is shocked when she asks to be paid for her services. Jane Wald recalls, “This was a non-union production and it was filmed in downtown Los Angeles. We walked around the streets at night shooting it and a lot of the homeless people became part of the crew helping out carrying lights and things. I believe it was an entry at some film festivals [Coronado International Film Festival, for one] but it never was released nationally.”
The film, clocking in at less than an hour, played the Los Feliz Theater in Los Angeles for one week in late December 1961 to be eligible for Academy Award nominations. Alas, none were earned. The featurette did pop up in LA again in September. Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times called it, “less savage then The Savage Eye and praiseworthy as straight-forward cinematic storytelling.”
When it rains, it pours as the old adage go and soon Jane Wald would not lack for work. Television kept the pretty brunette busy and she turned up in episodes of Surfside 6; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis; Shannon; and The Tab Hunter Show as a gold digger after millionaire Richard Erdman’s money. Wald’s movie career officially started with a splash literally as she is seen soaking in a bath tub in The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962). She covered up, albeit with a towel, for her role as one of lecherous landlord Hogan’s (Jack Lemmon) va-va-voom tenants who likes to shower with her basement bathroom window open in the hit comedy Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963). She apologizes for not paying her rent for the last two months, but the voyeuristic playboy doesn’t mind a bit and presents her with a flower he just picked. Hogan is preoccupied with virginal coed Robin (Carol Lynley) who has just moved in with her boyfriend (Dean Jones) in an experiment to live platonically to see if they are marriage compatible. Despite her small role, Jane Wald’s image was used to promote the movie in many print promotions throughout the world.
“This was such a fun picture to work on,” exclaims Wald. “Jack Lemmon, Carol Lynley, Paul Lynde and the whole cast was just so nice. After Yum Yum Tree was released my dad who was on business in Japan called me. He was in a taxi and looked out the window and saw this huge block-long billboard of Jack Lemmon handing me a flower through my open bathroom window.”
Jane Wald continue getting small parts opposite some of Hollywood’s most popular leading men. In the comedy Take Her, She’s Mine (1963) she was one of coed Sandra Dee’s Parisian roommates. When her daddy (James Stewart) comes looking for his wayward daughter, Wald emerges from the bathroom brandishing her tooth brush. In the Shirley MacLaine What a Way To Go! (1964) she gives an energetic performance as artist Paul Newman’s kooky French beatnik friend who creates her artwork by shooting paint balloons onto her canvas.
“Sandra Dee, Paul Newman, Shirley MacLaine were all sweet to me,” says Wald. “Actually I never had any problems with the stars I worked with.”
Despite showing promise in her latter role, Jane Wald was still restricted to the decorative role due to her beauty and curvaceous figure. Her first bikini role was playing a bit in the sex farce Honeymoon Hotel (1964) starring Robert Morse and Robert Goulet. Next came the abysmal comedy John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1964) starring Richard Crenna as a former football player coerced to coach the sheik’s football team and Shirley MacLaine as a reporter. Jane was indistinguishable from many of the other scantily-clad starlets (including Barbara Bouchet, Teri Garr, Shelby Grant, and Irene Tsu) who were part of sheik Peter Ustinov’s harem.
Wald was frustrated with being cast due to her looks more so than her talent. She reflected, “I knew I had a nice body, but it was something I sort of took for granted. In Hollywood, it got a lot of attention—it made me self-conscious. I wanted to be known as a serious actress. I should have just gone with the flow but we always want something we don’t have. It was kind of silly of me that I didn’t since I obviously had a great body. I didn’t take advantage of it like the girls do today especially that in those days there was no nudity to worry about.”
Next came Jane Wald’s most memorable role. Dear Brigitte (1965) starred James Stewart Robert Leaf, an absent-minded professor of poetry and lover of all creative arts, who lives on a retired steamboat called the River Belle with his wife Vina (Glynis Johns);money-hungry teenage daughter Pandora (Cindy Carol); and eight-year-old tone-deaf, color-blind son Erasmus (Billy Mumy) who turns out to be a mathematical prodigy to the chagrin of his father. Pandora and her boyfriend Kenny (Fabian) get the idea to make money off Erasmus’ ability and use it to handicap the horse races. They begin winning big, but are eventually busted by the outraged parents. The professor learns that his son has been writing love letters to French movie star Brigitte Bardot and when she finally writes back and invites the boy to meet her. Erasmus begs to go. How can a father say no to Bardot and off they go.
The movie opens with Ed Wynn as the Captain describing all the creative types who live in his waterfront community. He then waves to artist George (Charles Robinson) who is painting his topless wife Terry (Jane Wald) whose back is to the camera. They live on the boat next door to the Leaf family and happily greet the Captain. Terry’s skimpy attire, or lack thereof, is the film’s running gag as the professor is always telling her to put on some clothes. About an hour into the film Wald’s Terry is finally clad, albeit in short shorts and halter top, and has more lines as she and George alert Prof. Leaf that his students are leading a protest outside to persuade him to return to campus. He quit when the dean accused him of knowing that Erasmus was betting the ponies. Later she runs out in a very skimpy green and white checked bikini and joins the Leaf family and the Captain who is launching his new model sail boat. The vessel disappeared into the sea and alas Jane did too from the movie.
“I adored working with Jimmy Stewart on Dear Brigitte,” exclaims Jane. “I used to go over his lines with him. He was very nice and he said to me that I had great comedic timing. We filmed this on location in Sausalito. I asked Ed Wynn to visit this museum one day. He said, ‘I’m afraid they may keep me there’ so he wouldn’t go with me.” This story was told to the press back in 1965 with Wynn adding, “And I don’t know whether that’s humorous or witty. Just cautious.”
On television Wald turned up on Batman as a curvaceous bad girl who helps Cesare Romero as the Joker fake the kidnapping of a visiting Maharajah in “The Joker Trumps an Ace” and “Batman Sets the Pace.” The Dick Van Dyke Show offered her the female lead in “Stacey Petrie, Part 2” playing Julie Kincaid a love interest for Jerry Van Dyke as Dick’s bungling brother Stacey who wrote letters to her from the army on behalf of his buddy a drummer named James Garner. When the GI lost interest, Stacey did not and kept corresponding using his buddy’s name. Now in town to open up a coffeehouse, he finally gets up the courage to meet her. Stacey comes to Julie’s upper Eastside abode, complete with a butler, where an elegantly dressed Julie greets him. So excited to hear about the man she loves, Stacey hands her one last letter where he reveals the truth. Thinking she would be happy, Julie instead is furious and slaps Stacey twice and hits him over the head with a pillow before storming off. A dejected Stacey heads to his club where Rob and Laura are decorating for the opening and he wallows in self pity. Arriving home, Rob answers the phone and it is Julie looking for Stacy. In a funny bit, she talks to Rob who relays what she is saying to Laura and it goes back and forth. Julie wants Rob to tell Stacy that she is sorry. Julie arrives at the opening and seeing her Stacey gets tongue-tied again as each tries to apologize and they amusingly keep cutting each other off. Wald is quite charming in this role and does well playing off the frenetic Jerry Van Dyke whose shtick can be grating.
In 1966 Jane Wald was still getting press and columnists speculated that her meetings with producer Arthur Jacobs was because she was being considered for the role of Nova in Planet of the Apes. That part went to Linda Harrison. She says, “I stopped acting around 1966 after I remarried and was expecting my first child. Because I resembled Natalie Wood, I was offered a part as her sister but had to turn it down. However, I did appear in a Buick commercial showing how a pregnant woman could fit behind the steering wheel.” Hubby #2 who was not in show business. They went on to have three children before divorcing in 1974.
Jane Wald’s last two sixties movies, the cult thriller Seconds starring Rock Hudson and the biker flick Hell’s Bloody Devils, only featured her in very minor roles and were a complete waste of her talent. It is surprising since she had graduated to bigger roles on TV and proved she had comedic ability that she would wind up the decade so insignificantly.
Wald made intermittent attempts to revive her acting career. In the mid-seventies she turned up in the episode “Flight to Danger” on Barnaby Jones and in 1993 she co-starred with Deanna Lund and Liz Torres as college chums who look back on their university days while vacationing at a ski resort in Girl Talk, a sort of precursor to Sex in the City.
Asked if she had any regrets giving up her career, Jane Wald firmly states, “I would rather have my children and the life I have now then a woman who doesn’t have children. That’s what is important in life—it’s not having a career. If you have a career and come home to an empty home at night—what’s the point?”
Pretty, blonde Melody Patterson (profiled in my book Drive-in Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties) will forever be remembered as shapely cowgirl Wrangler Jane on the cult TV comedy series F Troop. Patterson was fresh-faced, feisty and a bit reminiscent to real-life western heroine Calamity Jane. I loved this show and her on it. Most of the online tributes and obits deservedly concentrate on her success here and her short-lived marriage to actor James MacArthur. However, I love 60s biker movies and going to profile her 2 appearances in the genre, which many fans may be unaware of.
Proving she could play strong-willed women convincingly, the biker film genre took advantage as Melody was cast as a Hollywood starlet in The Angry Breed (1968) and a former motorcycle gang member trying to go straight in The Cycle Savages (1969).
Melody was cast as movie starlet named April whose boyfriend was the leader of a motorcycle gang in the exploitation film, The Angry Breed (1968). “During the late sixties, Hollywood seemed to be always trying to portray itself as being populated by dope-crazed, LSD-taking, weirdoes,” remarks Patterson. “I think that is what this movie was supposed to be about. But I am not really sure. It is the worst movie ever made.” The Angry Breed tried to merge the world of violent bikers with the hip pill-popping Hollywood set but it was not a success. The reviewer in Variety noted that the film “[had] the look of a mismatch between an out and out sexploitation item and the type of actioner that has proven such a formula for American International.”
Though billed fifth, The Angry Breed starred Murray McLeod as Johnny Taylor, an actor and Vietnam vet, who has just returned to Hollywood with a script from a writer whose life in saved in battle. (“Good God, Murray wore his pants practically up to his armpits and was supposed to be the big hero,” jokes Melody laughing.) Johnny’s attempts to sell the script are unsuccessful. Broke, he begins living on the beach in Malibu where he comes to the rescue of Diane Patton (Lori Martin) who is being harassed by a Nazi-clad biker gang headed by Deek Stacey (James MacArthur). Patton’s father Vance (William Windom), a film producer, is so grateful to Johnny he agrees to finance the film. He hooks Johnny up with greedy homosexual agent Mori Thompson (Jan Murray) whose favorite client is none other than biker Deek who wants to star in the film. Mori convinces Vance to throw a costume party to celebrate the film’s start but he and Deek plot to do away with Johnny. At the party, which turns into a freak-out complete with LSD, Johnny’s leading lady April Wilde (Melody Patterson) pursues him but he wants Diane. A crazed Deek in disguise tries to kill Johnny but he escapes thanks to a diversion caused by Patton’s mute maid. The next day on the set Johnny recognizes Deek and has him thrown off the lot. That night Johnny learns that Vance has pulled his financing since he is unhappy about the budding romance between Johnny and Diane. Furious with her husband, his neglected wife (Jan Sterling) sabotages the cable car that takes Vance down to the beach for his nightly swim. Deek shows up bent on revenge and during the struggle with Johnny ends up in the cable car along with Vance. The car crashes killing Deek while an injured Vance realizes the error of his ways.
Recalling the shoot for The Angry Breed, Melody says, “This fellow’s [David Commons] only credit was a ketchup commercial and he thought he could direct a feature. How he got all of us—it was a good cast—in this movie to begin with I’ll never know. I haven’t the foggiest idea what my character was supposed to be doing and why. I ran around for a week sporting a mustache. It was difficult wearing it trying to flirt with Jimmy MacArthur, who was dressed in a Nazi uniform.” Mustache or not, Patterson was a knockout and got MacArthur’s attention—so much so that they were wed two years later.
The following year Melody Patterson had a more defined role and gave a convincing performance as Lea a troubled young woman trying to go straight while keeping her distance from her former biker gang in the violent film, The Cycle Savages (1969) directed by Bill Brame. Interestingly, the movie was produced by Top 40 deejay Casey Kasem and record executive Mike Curb, who later became the lieutenant governor of California. As the trade ads proclaimed, “Hot steel between their legs…The wildest bunch on wheels!” The film also featured a great exploitation cast including Bruce Dern, Chris Robinson, Scott Brady, Gary Littlejohn and Maray Ayres. Though panning the film, Variety’s critic commented that “the whole cast really tries.” Melody remarks, “Bruce Dern was wonderful and an absolutely an exciting actor. Chris Robinson and I had the same manager so we knew each other pretty well. I loved the director because he was an editor and knew what he was doing.”
https://youtu.be/0YSkQTSiaQQ
An artist named Romko (Chris Robinson) gets on the bad side of crazed gang leader Keeg (an intense Bruce Dern) for sketching him and his outlaw bikers as they terrorized the patrons of a hamburger drive-in. Keeg is determined to retrieve Romko’s sketches because they could incriminate him and his renegade roughnecks in a white slavery operation they run. They slash Romko’s midsection and his neighbor Lea nurses him after Keeg threatens her to keep Romko away from his apartment. To stall Romko, Lea allows the artist to draw her nude while the gang ransacks his pad looking for his drawings. Lea falls for Romko and they make love but when the police come to investigate his attack they reveal that Lea was a decoy for the gang and was pressured to distract him. Meanwhile, Keeg and his gang have coerced a high school girl over to their lair where they give her LSD and gang rape her. After being rejected by Lea, the bikers capture Romko and torture him by squeezing his hand in a vise. A pistol-packing Lea arrives to save him but she lacks the courage to shoot anyone. As the police close in, the gun is grabbed by biker chick Sandy (Maray Ayres), who chases a fleeing Keeg and shoots him dead.
“I had a better experience working on The Cycle Savages than The Angry Breed though I can’t say it was a better movie,” comments Patterson. “I was in the midst of my Method acting period and it seemed like everybody was taking long pauses before saying their lines. I didn’t like doing nudity but I agreed to do a back shot and a love scene. That is when I found out that I had a curvature of the spine. My mother was on the set to make sure everything was on the up and up. It was done with the utmost care and on a closed set. What I found amusing the most was that the sketch of me drawn by Chris’ character was a lot bustier than I was.”
RIP Melody Patterson. You will be missed.
For more on Melody Patterson, link below to purchase my book Drive-in Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties:
