Flareup

This is a tedious and decidedly low voltage attempt at an action thriller and vehicle for the then quite popular Raquel Welch.

The main drawbacks are the script which features cardboard characters and implausible situations, along with the leaden direction. The undistinguished cast has little to work with, but Ms Welch must be called to account for one of the worst performances of her career. This is saying a lot considering her body (no pun intended) of work. She is alternately vapid and wooden or hysterically shrill.

Ms Welch "portrays" a Las Vegas exotic dancer on the run from the deranged ex-husband (Luke Askew) of her friend and fellow dancer. It seems the Askew character blames Welch for the dissolution of his marriage, so after he blows away his former wife at an outdoor cafe in broad daylight he seeks to do likewise to poor Raquel.

Welch flees to Los Angeles pursued by the killer and immediately takes up with James Stacy. In watching their scenes together one has the impression that the filmmakers were simply going through the motions of providing the obligatory male love interest for Ms Welch. There is zero chemistry between them and the whole Stacy character seems virtually superfluous.

I found the pace of this film quite slow with little tension or suspense. One never really empathizes with or cares much for the central character. The psycho murderer, instead of being menacing and scary, is merely boring and dull.

Ironically, though she plays a go-go dancer, Ms Welch's considerable physical attributes are not put to good use here. She has one dance number (wearing only a moderately revealing outfit) that is tepid at best. The other dance routines by others (some of which are performed topless) come off much better. In fact these rather brief sequences and some fairly colorful and interesting Las Vegas and L.A. locations are all this misfire has going for it.

Raquel Welch plays a dancer at the Pussycat a Go-Go in Vegas when a psychopathic killer starts stalking and gunning down dancers. Raquel goes on the run, but the psycho follows her when he starts working at an L. A. club. The police procedural elements of the film are pretty dumb, but the swinging '60s vibe of the film is terrifically fun. The filmmakers were very clearly trying to do a studio version of a Russ Meyer film and succeeded to a degree when it comes to big hair, big ladies, and flashy colors & visuals, but it's missing Meyer's delicate balance of camp and melodrama, not to mention his stellar editing and direction. The film even uses a real-life L. A. go-go dancing club, "The Losers," where Meyer found some of his biggest stars, Erica Gavin, Tura Satana, and Haji! FLAREUP serves as a fun time capsule of late 60s Los Angeles and Las Vegas, shooting on location all over the streets of LA, which, on its own, makes the film worth watching. Overall, your enjoyment of FLAREUP will depend on your love of 1960s camp, which worked just fine for me.

AI CAPSUL REVIEW: In Flareup (1969), Raquel Welch plays a Vegas go-go dancer stalked by a psychotic killer who follows her to L. A. Though the police procedural plot is weak, the film's vibrant '60s style, campy energy, and on-location shots of Vegas and L. A. make it a fun, flashy time capsule of the era.

Cars, Go-Go Girls and 60's Vegas. A fun time capsule. Unfortunately a pretty poor movie that would have sufficed being an episode of Police Woman. Worth seeing once if you're old enough to appreciate the time period.

Good, creepy bad guys that you can find in every 70's police dramas like Barnaby Jones or Mannix. This is one of those movies you want to label 'so bad it's good' but it falls short of that. The film stock quality seems to be very good which makes me wonder why so much money was invested in this unworthy effort.

Raquel is nice to look at. Stacy is a decent actor, and there are a few familiar character actors worth seeing. Otherwise, don't worry if you never see this one.

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".

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.