B Movie Venuses: the films of Andy Sidaris

We were Skyping to our particular friend S in Vancouver a week or so ago and bemoaning the fact that we were short on trashy films to watch at the end of a hard day with a bottle of Rioja, some slices of chorizo, cheese and a few olives.  We have quite a lot of  films to watch, some good TV (we are enjoying Fringe, which Agent DVD gave us for our birthday) but nothing really engagingly moronic (although, that said, we did enjoy the recent The Three Musketeers, much to our surprise) for when we want to switch off almost completely.

Mr Sidaris realises that his second career choice was a good one

Well, today what should arrive from the land of the frozen moose but a boxed set of films by Andy Sidaris.  A former Emmy award winning TV sports director he changed tack and made a host of B-movie (and that's being genererous, it seems), low budget action films in the eighties and nineties featuring a whole bevy of classic Playboy playmates.  This set features all twelve of these films and the Playmate cast list features some of Triple P's all time favourites from the eighties.  S says that she has watched them with girlfriends and they have to drink a shot of vodka every time an actress appears gratuitously topless and, as a result, they get completely drunk and out of control.  We can imagine!

McArthur

Michaels

Wiesmeier

Edwards

We have heard of these films but have never seen any of them as they had been out of production for some time. S tells me that the acting is terrible, the production values are laughable and the action scenes unconvincing.  However, she thinks we will enjoy them as the photography is nice (many of them were filmed in Hawaii) and they are "full of Playmates with big, bouncy tits." There are, we have to say, worse recommendations. So we are looking forward to watching Malibu Express later tonight and will report on this epic later.  According to IMDB it features Playmates Kimberly McArthur (January 1982), Lynda Wiesmeier (July 1982), Barbara Edwards (September 1983 and one of our favourites) and Lorraine Michaels (April 1981).  Also featuring B movie queen Sybil Danning, there should be plenty to look at at least and we are happily anticipating watching these ladies in motion!

We have some nice pink Rioja, some chorizo, olives, sundried tomatoes and some hot cheddar with chilli.  Perfect!

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Non-Centrefold Venus of the Month 5: Susan Backlinie, January 1973

We are running behind a bit on our magazine girlies so will attempt to catch up over the next week or so. We realised that we haven't even done January's non-centrefold of the month let alone February or March's yet.

So let's go back over forty years to Penthouse's January 1973 issue where she featured in a pictorial by Ralph Nelson called The Lady and the Lion.

Well, and that is exactly what the pictorial is about, Susan cavorting with a lion.  She was an animal trainer at the Africa USA safari park in California (where the TV show Daktari, which Triple P remembers from his childhood, was filmed).

Apparently, for $1,000 (a lot of money at the time, she would hire herself out for film stunts involving lions, although she refused to work with any lion older than two years as they were too unpredictable.

Certainly it takes some nerve to strip off and pose with a lion like this.   On the picture at the top she is actually lying on it for heaven's sake!

Fortunately, she remained safe and was not attacked by the animal, a fate which would, of course, befall her in only a few years.  But not by a lion.

Away from her furry friend she poses effectively on a stripey hammock and shows off her 5' 8" and 37-25-37 figure.

Susan is in possession of an all over tan, quite unusual for American girls at this time but claims in the accompanying article that she prefers nudity and only wears clothes when absolutely necessary.  Quite right too!

The text claims she is a 23 year old from Washington DC but actually she was born as Susan Jane Swindall in Ventura, California in September 1946, which would have made her 26 when this pictorial appeared.

Susan would achieve worldwide recognition two years later when she stripped off for a skinny dip and became the first victim in Steven Spielberg's breakthrough blockbuster, Jaws (1975).

Her distraught look in the scene (which took nine days to shoot) was enhanced by director Spielberg not telling her when a diver was going to grab her leg in simulation of the shark attack.  It remains one of the most iconic screen deaths ever put on celluloid.  When she was recording the screams to be dubbed over the film Spielberg had her tilt her head back and poured water down her throat whilst she screamed.  Nasty!

Susan in the Mermaid Follies in 1966

Backlinie had been a champion swimmer in her teens and later became a professional swimmer at Florida's long running Paradise Mermaid Follies show.

Susan in 1941

She spoofed her Jaws scene in Spielberg's disastrous "comedy" 1941 (1979) where she skinny dipped once more only to find herself underneath a surfacing Japanese submarine and clinging on to the periscope in probably the only good scene in the film.

She appeared in a few other films usually either swimming or with animals but her iconic appearance in Jaws meant that magazines were still keen to run pictures of her if they could find them.  Here she is stripping off by the sea again in February 1977's Mayfair, which featured the famous pictorial of Linda Lusardi.  

Susan was over thirty when these pictures appeared in Mayfair so it may be that they were taken earlier.

The text accompanying the pictorial said that she was living in a 30 foot cabin cruiser and still doing a lot of diving.

She makes a splendid sea nymph!

Susan now lives in her birthplace of Ventura and is an accountant but can be seen attending conventions and autograph signings based on her Jaws fame.

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