Sede de Crime

I just watched this movie and this was a Raquel Welch movie that I had never seen before. Let me say right off that I'm not one of those people who trash RW's acting. I don't understand those people. They seem ignorant to me. She's not a trash actress. She can act. She can say lines. She can emote. She can make you believe at times. That's all you need to be an actress. And if you're gorgeous on top of it then movie goers should be thankful. You don't have to be Meryl Streep.

Okay, so I very much enjoy the actress and icon known as Raquel Welch. I also really enjoy go-go dancing which this movie has in abundance. I don't care for strippers. I don't care for pole dancing. I don't care for topless dancing. I don't care for dirty dancing. But I love go-go dancing. I can't put my finger on why I like it so much, but to me it's the perfect marriage of dance and female beauty. It's exquisite to watch. So they could have put lots more in and I would not have complained one bit. And there is one go-go dancer at a LA club called The Losers who is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Wow. Just a total knockout. She's worth the price of admission all by herself.

Okay, so the movie. Well, there's this wacko dude who kills at the drop of a hat. He has a psychological problem. He can't stop killing. That's not good. He also wants to kill Raquel Welch. That's not cool. She's trying to avoid him and that's not easy. People keep telling him where she is. Morons. There's a lot of stalking going on with this guy. I guess you could say that this is basically a stalker movie.

Raquel gets into a romance with a guy. He's the proverbial nice guy. He's a guy who lives in Los Angeles and he doesn't have a car. Everybody in Los Angeles has a car. I know because I lived there for 10 years. And I had a car. But not this guy. Raquel does not hold that against him which is surprising I guess you could say. He romances Raquel who falls for him fairly easily. She needed a nice guy in her life and she found one. But be careful, Raquel......the stalker is still out there and he's still stalking you.

Some people said this movie is flat and boring. They must have been in a bad mood. It's not flat and boring at all. It has a lot of tension and some explosive and violent action. And of course lots of go-go dancing. And lots of beautiful women. What's boring about that? Some people are hard to please I guess. They want every movie to be like Star Wars or JAWS. Those movies were sociological and psychological earthquakes. Not every movie is going to be like that. So just eat your popcorn, shut the heck up, and enjoy the movie.

I enjoyed this. I'm glad I finally got to see it. I gave it a "7".

Luke Askew shoots his ex-wife, Las Vegas pony Kay Peters, and takes a shot at her fellow showgirls, including Raquel Welch. Miss Welch flees to Los Angeles, but Askew pursues. Will Miss Welch survive to find life and love with James Stacy, or will the crazy guy kill her?

It's a cheap feature, distinguished from a TV movie only by the topless dancers -- although Miss Welch is not one of them. Her specialty has her wearing clothes, and she spends the rest of the film in a tight top, schoolgirl-length skirt and white knee socks. The dialogue is blah, the cast is thoroughly undistinguished, save for Gordon Jump, and the highlights are the topless dancers and the scene in which Miss Welch sets her pursuer on fire. It's exploitation all the way from producer Leon Fromkess, whom you may remember as Executive In Charge Of Production for PRC.

Well, Raquel Welch is Raquel Welch, she's not Joanne Woodward or Julietta Masina or Jennifer Jason Leigh. She is beautiful, sexy, cute. That's about it. She may be a great actress, but no film, script, role has been found yet, according to her hidden talent. Here, she's simply embarrassing. As are all the other actors. Very stupid script, super embarrassing acting.

***SPOILERS*** Requel Welch in one of the most demanding roles of her film career as Michele a Las Vegas Go-Go dancer. Michele is stalked throughout the movie "Flareup" by a crazed killer Alan Morris, Luke Askew, who holds her as well as her friend and fellow Go-Go dancer Iris, Pat Delaney, responsible for the breakup of his marriage to Go-Go dancer Nikki, Sandra Giles.

Trying to get Nikki to reconsider at an outdoor café in Vegas, where she's with both Michele and Iris, she tells the hurt and despondent Alan to get lost where he pulls out a gun and shoots her! Alan then turns his gun on Nikki's fellow Go-Go dancers, Michele and Iris, as they run for their lives and escape.

Later Michele and Iris going to the hospital to find out how Nikki is doing, she died from her wounds, Alan runs down Iris and her police escort with his car as Michele escapes again. Michele is sent to L.A by the manager of the club that she dances in, the Pussycat, to work at the "Losers" nightclub in order to get away from the vengeful Alan.

At "The Losers" Michele meets Joe, James Stacy, the clubs parking attendant who changes her hose, car tire, and then gives her a sip of coke, the soft drink, from a bottle that he's drinking out of. This impressed the beautiful Michele so much that by the time the day was over she was shacked up with Joe in his apartment in L.A! I should be so lucky.

Alan gets the bartender at the "Pussycat" nightclub Silor,Ron Rifkin, to tell him where Michele is and then carjacks Mr.Willows, Tom Feddon, killing him and driving off with his car to L.A to murder Michele. Finding both Michele and Joe at the beach Alan is interrupted in his attempt to kill them by the police and runs down and kills a biker as he makes his escape.

Alan then tracks down Michele at a gas station as she out runs him, on wheels and on foot, to a zoo. It's at the zoo where she's rescued by the police with Alan again getting away and is put into a police guarded hospital room for her own protection.

Michele breaking out of the hospital goes to Joe's place only to be held hostage by Alan who was there waiting for her. After being held alive by Alan in order for Joe to come home; Alan plans to murder him so Michele can see it. Suddenly Michele breaks away from Alan and locks herself up in the kitchen and when Alan breaks in she pours a can of gasoline on him and lights a match setting him on fire thus the title of the movie "Flareup".

Luke Askew who's a pretty good actor seemed so embarrassed in the movie that he played it straight and tried to keep his emotions in regards to the part that he was paying under wraps. Especially in that incredibly unintentional hilarious last sequence with Miss. Welch, when he looked like he was either hypnotized or on drugs.

If you love camp as much as I do, then you will love "Flareup". From the opening credits we know it's a camp fest by the gyrating "go-go" dancer doing the boogaloo around the credits. Opening scene at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas is great, with Raquel and two friends having lunch "al fresco". The hairstyle on the one friend looks as though it needs a building permit. She immediately gets shot by her ex-boyfriend (maybe he thought the hair-do was a little too much as well). He then turns on Raquel (whom he blames for the breakup) and spends the rest of the movie trying to kill her. If you love location shooting then dig all the groovy shots of Las Vegas and Los Angeles before they made both towns into an overbuilt, gaudy mecca that both cities are today. What sends this movie over the top is when Raquel mounts a horse and practically dislocates her head from the throwing back and forth of her mane of hair. AND THIS WAS BEFORE PROZAC! I loved every second of this movie, it has more entertainment value than anything I've seen in the past 10 years.