Lovely But Deadly (1981) Juniper Releasing/Action RT: 93 minutes Rated R (violence, nudity) Director: David Sheldon Screenplay: Patricia Joyce and David Sheldon Music: Robert O. Ragland Cinematography: Robert Roth Release date: 1981 Cast: Lucinda Dooling, John Randolph, Mel Novak, Susan Mechsner, Richard Herd, Mark Holden, Michael O’Leary, Rick Moser, Judd Omen, Irwin Keyes, Linda Shayne, Linda Salcedo, Pamela Bryant, Mary McDonough, Wendell Wright, Marvin Katzoff, Gordon Haight, Vincent Roberts, Marie Windsor, Jeana Tomasino. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
Before my father finally caved in and got cable TV installed, you could say I was something of a window shopper. I used to pore over cable guides at the homes of family members or friends luckier than me. There were so many movies I wished I could see. One title that sticks out in my mind is Lovely But Deadly, a cheap actioner about a high school cheerleader going after the drug dealers responsible for her brother’s death. It used to show on cable all the time. That is, until we got it at my house. That’s when they mysteriously stopped showing it. Disappointing, but I got over it.
It took nearly 40 years, but I finally got the opportunity to watch Lovely But Deadly thanks to the streaming service Tubi. I can safely say it met my expectations mainly because I didn’t expect high art. To be honest, it’s pretty bad. I can easily see it being a “Dog of the Week” on Sneak Previews except I see it differently than Siskel and Ebert. The way I see it, it’s the kind of bad that isn’t bad at all. It’s one of those movies that get by on sheer ineptitude. Is it any wonder that it got the RiffTrax treatment a couple years back? That right there should be a ringing endorsement for bad movie connoisseurs.
Lovely But Deadly opens with a bunch of California teens hanging out on the beach. One of them, a boy named Arthur (played by Vincent Roberts who was murdered during a robbery later in ’81), is stoned out of his mind. He drowns in the ocean when he tries to catch a tuna without a fishing rod. Since the local cops aren’t all that interested in busting up the drug ring that has most of the student body at Pacific Coast High hooked on dope, older sister Lovely (Dooling, Surf II) poses as a new student in order to take it down herself. She wants revenge for what they did to her family.
Lovely, real name Mary Ann, strikes her first blow for justice at a school dance where she hooks up with dealer Larry (Haight, Honky Tonk Freeway) with the promise of sex for drugs. Proving conclusively that horny high school guys invariably think with the wrong head, he takes her to his den of iniquity- i.e. his bedroom in his parents’ house- where she proceeds to shove his product down his throat until he passes out. He later dies by suicide in the hospital forcing the cheerleader to find another way to get to the head dirtbags.
What better way to get there than getting close to the BDOC (Big Dealer on Campus), popular quarterback Mantis Managian (Moser, Dazed and Confused), who has a direct line to the top guys. There’s just one thing standing in her way, his girlfriend Gloria (Bryant, H.O.T.S.), a jealous type who makes the mistake of picking a fight with Lovely in the locker room. You see, she has a black belt in kung fu as do some of her fellow cheerleaders, one of whom is played by Linda Shayne (Screwballs). They get into it with Gloria and her minions until their coach (Mechsner, Chained Heat) puts a stop to it. Talk about bad timing, she ends the melee before the girls get a chance to rip each other’s tops off. It’s a cinematic injustice sure to be booed by every hormonal 14YO boy watching.
Are spoilers even a consideration here? No? I thought not. Lovely ends up at a party where she makes the acquaintance of the head guys, Warren Lang (Novak, Game of Death) and Honest Charley (Herd, T.J. Hooker), before getting into another catfight with Gloria. This one’s a real doozy! They end up on the buffet table leading somebody to make a remark about chopped liver wrestling. Sounds sexy…. NOT! In any event, her efforts land her in big trouble with the big boss who orders his two incompetent goons, played by Judd Omen (Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf) and Irwin Keyes (The Exterminator), to take care of her until it’s time to take care of her.
The finale takes place at the shipyard where the drugs come in from Taiwan. The shipyard is run by Lovely’s boyfriend Javelin Scott (Holden, The Young Doctors), a rich kid who’d rather be a rock singer than a businessman. This character detail is merely an excuse for Aussie singer Holden to grace us with a few songs including “Add It Up”, a catchy tune performed before a group of students bopping along to the beat, all except for this one dude who looks thoroughly bored. ANYWAY, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Javelin is involved in all the nasty business. Until the non-shock revelation, he doesn’t actually serve any purpose to the story. In fact, Lovely seems to forget she has a boyfriend most of the time, especially when she’s around Steve (O’Leary, Halloween Ends), a nice guy who hates drugs as much as she does.
At 13, I probably would have thought Lovely But Deadly was a great movie which it’s not, not by any stretch of the imagination. Looking at it through jaded eyes, I see it for the piece of schlock it is. It’s so amazingly bad on every level. While I love the idea of a kung fu cheerleader, the martial arts performed in this movie is the most unconvincing I’ve ever seen. The actors can’t even fake it believably. The fight choreography is sloppy and clumsy which is perfectly fitting given how laughable the action scenes are. The sight of thugs in fencing masks approaching Lovely and Steve in a school hallway is just ridiculous. I also got a laugh out of the chase involving primary-colored dinghies during the climax. It’s right up there with the team of female martial arts students that show up to lend a hand (and feet) in the fight for justice.
So who do we have to thank for the non-classic that is Lovely But Deadly? Let’s start with director David Sheldon whose only other significant credit is co-writing the script for the 1976 “nature gone wild” flick Grizzly. Sheldon acts as co-writer here too, sharing credit with Patricia Joyce who penned 38 episodes of Days of Our Lives. Their screenplay is rife with dopey dialogue, predictable situations and characters with IQs not exceeding double digits. The score by Robert O. Ragland (10 to Midnight) sounds like something from a 70s cop show. The cinematography and editing, by Robert Roth (They Call Me Bruce) and Richard Brummer (Revenge of the Cheerleaders) respectively, are strictly no-frills.
Let’s turn to the acting for a moment. I have to start by saying “What a cast!” In addition to those already mentioned, Lovely But Deadly co-stars John Randolph as the principal. You might recognize him as Clark Griswold’s well-meaning dad from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Marvin Katzoff (Hardbodies) shows up as, what else, the school’s resident nerd. He’s the guy you hired when Eddie Deezen wasn’t available. Mary McDonough, best known for playing Erin on The Waltons, appears briefly as one of the girls on the beach in the opening scene. Lovers of trash cinema know she starred as the final girl in the 1983 horror film Mortuary starring B-movie royal couple Christopher and Lynda Day George. Jeana Tomasino (Ducky from The Beach Girls) drops in during the party scene. It’s a pretty awesome line-up. It’s too bad the acting is so horrible.
The late Dooling is as good an actress as Karin Mani, star of the 1984 exploitation flick Alley Cat. In an eerie coincidence, they’re both masters of fake kung fu. Keyes plays yet another hulking dummy, one who goes by the name Gommorah. Despite his size and strength, he always gets his ass kicked by the petite Lovely. I’m thinking he has a mental age of 10 given how he pouts when he finds out he’s not invited to Warren’s party. Like most teen movies from the 80s, the high schoolers look more like college grads. Not one of them is younger than 22.
As you can tell, I got a real kick out of Lovely But Deadly. It’s a whole lot of high-kicking B-movie fun. I have one question though. Why is it rated R? That’s actually a rhetorical question; I have a theory. I get the impression it was originally PG until Sheldon spliced in a couple of booby shots under pressure from the studio to make it R. There’s no bad language (somebody actually says “those darn drugs”), no sexual content (just a few suggestive references) and no violence that looks real. I don’t know this for a fact, but it explains an awful lot. In any event, I’m glad I finally got to feast my eyes on it after a four-decade wait. I can’t exactly say it was worth it, but it wasn’t NOT worth it either.
