Cast overview: | |||
![]() |
Nan Peterson | ... | Nina Duprez - alias Minette Lanier |
![]() |
Robert Richards | ... | Pierre Guillot |
Peter Coe | ... | Jacques Guillot | |
Betty Lynn | ... | Lili Guillot | |
![]() |
Howard Wright | ... | Cob |
Harry Lauter | ... | Clay Lanier | |
![]() |
Rosalee Calvert | ... | The Real Minette Lanier |
![]() |
Tyler McVey | ... | Dr. J. B. Opie |
![]() |
Smoki Whitfield | ... | Burt - the Manservant |
Helen Forrest | ... | Callie - the Gris-Gris Woman |
Brothers Pierre and Jacques Guillot are partners in trading furs and Spanish Moss and Jacques is mad at his brother because Pierre is about to marry Lily and Jacques thought he had the inside track on her. Jacques refuses to attend the wedding, and is out gathering moss with his assistant Cob when Callie, an old Gris-Gris woman, leads them to where she has found a badly beaten and unconscious young woman. They take her to Doc Opie just as Pierre and Lily are being escorted to their new home by friends following their wedding. The doctor asks Jacques to carry the beautiful stranger into the newlywed's house where he has her put to bed. Pierre takes an instant dislike to this girl who calls herself Minette. He steps into the bedroom and tells her she has to go but she throws her arms around him and kisses him...just as brother Jacques passes the bedroom window. Later, Minette tells him that Pierre had forced his attention on her while she was ill. Jacques moves her into his shack to ... Written by Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Nan Peterson literally rolls onto the scene after a harrowing horseback escape while sporting a sweater with an M L monogram emblazoned across her sculpted torso, which she claims stands for Minette Lanier, never mind the association with Marie Laveau. Upon her rescue and transport to town by Peter Coe as Jacques Guillot, the story begins to suck you in like Cajun quicksand. Jacques and his brother Pierre, played by Robert Richards, get their stones rolling via the coquettish Minette, yet still manage to gather a lot of moss as apparently there's a market for that stuff somehow. Minette skinny dips, dances in her bra to radio rock n' roll and initiates petting parties like a 50's anti-heroine busting out of the constraints of squareness in a seething cauldron of southern fried crawdad stew. These characters are engaging and of course get involved in inevitable spurts of violence, yet the last thing you want to see is any of them hurt or killed, based on an empathy for the players that seems rare in movies these days. There is a plot twist that is logical and unexpected which seamlessly rolls into the main story line. Full spectrum black and white low end production values only enhance the southern Gothic mise en scene. Betty Lynn of Andy Griffith fame along with character actor Harry Lauter and some lesser known figures add some spice to the cinematic gumbo which goes down quite smoothly.