Flareup

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.

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.

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".

Las Vegas dancer Raquel Welch is stalked by the crazed ex-husband of her best friend (who blames Rocky for breaking up his marriage). After a violent opening, film turns to more routine melodrama, as Welch runs from place to place, eventually hiding out at the Old Zoo in L.A.'s Griffith Park! Some nifty location work, lots of costume changes for our star, good supporting work from the underrated James Stacy. Yet, the film is too clean, too slick to be convincing--especially as it deals with seedy nightclubs and topless dancers. Much was made in the presskit of Raquel's dance routine, but it's laughable instead of memorable. Welch is rather over-the-top here; she really flourishes under a looser direction, and Disney-vet James Neilsen is just too mechanical for her. **1/2 from ****

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.