VICIOUS BLONDE (or BLONDES depending on trailer vs. film's title) is a perfunctory, grind-'em-out junker from Nick Millard, made on a 1968 trip to Munich. As he candidly admits in an interview on the DVD release, he shot enough footage for 3 movies (including THE SPECIALISTS, as yet not revived during the video era), came back to the West Coast and added more explicit sex footage for release on the Adult Theater circuit.
I interviewed dozens of indie filmmakers during the 1980s, ranging from Chuck Vincent to Sam Raimi, and every one had a dream project yet to be fulfilled. For Ted Mikels it was a big-budget ($10 million) adaptation of BEOWULF, to star his chum (he met working out in a gym) Arnold Schwarzenegger. For Millard, it was Emile Zola's NANA, for which he wrote a screenplay adaptation.
On this DVD, Nick in very ungentlemanly fashion blames his leading lady on the poor result, VICIOUS BLONDE. He claims she couldn't act (I believe it) but instead of replacing her as NANA he scrapped his script, and shot this 2-day MOS wonder of a Silent Movie instead. The movie that emerges is atrocious.
Credited in the press kit as Karla Fischer, his maligned leading lady comes from the German tradition of blonde bombshells typified by Barbara Valentin and Christiane Maybach, both who graduated to Rainer Fassbinder's stock company later on. Fischer portrays Nana, a dancer at a vast Munich nightclub (stage looks big enough to host Roller Derby).
She is kept by older guys, has a crush on a young student named George, and ends up falling in love with a sponger named Fontanne, who takes her money, beats her up and cheats on her before throwing her out.
At least that's what the femme narrator tells us. Fortunately, the narrator as "Nana" talks normally, with an all-American accent instead of the ludicrous "European" accents adopted in many Nick films like GUNILLA. This is silent footage, haphazardly shot by Nick, which cries out for a prankster like Woody Allen of WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY to fit an interesting or funny story to. The scenes only vaguely match the voice-over -it's just footage in search of a director. Footage that is poorly shot -instead of hiring a professional d.p., Nick lenses by himself, with harsh lighting that throws amateurish looming shadows all over the place. All the better for some latter-day self-appointed "film historian" to call German Expressionism...
Another evil deed Nick perpetrates here is the absence of nudity (in the German shoot). Even bombastic "Karla" keeps her clothes on, just giving a hint of large breasts seen through diaphanous nighties. The guaranteed lesbian scenes with her girl friend Satin are the tamest in Nick's career -fully clothed groping. Cast as Satin is another anonymous actress, "Uta Vargas" in the press kit, who has a pug-nosed face that's a ringer for the great '60s West Coast stripper Yvonne D'Angers, star of a lousy lesbian film SAPPHO DARLING, which is fabulous compared to VICIOUS BLONDE.
As he freely admits in the interview, the softcore content is in a tacked on scene, shot back in L.A., which has nothing to do with the film proper. Supposedly in an upstairs "Members Only" room, a fetish girl with long gloves (she sucks the fingers occasionally), garter belt and black boots, writhes around and undresses to reveal full frontal nudity. The fans have (supposedly) been served.
Soundtrack is the same lame jazz tracks used over & over by Nick in dozens of his films. Finale is one of the crummiest endings (rather, non-endings) of all time. Nick has a stray scene of one of Nana's sugar daddy's answering the phone (silent of course) and the narrator throws in some cock & bull story of tragedy for Nana. I'm sick and tired of these silent porn films where there is supposedly a "story" in the narration - they're a total crock. Might as well hit the Mute button and make up your own story.