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The Abductors (1972)

Dir: Don Schain

Cast: Cheri Caffaro
William Grannel
Richard Smedley
Patrick Wright
Jennifer Brooks

The second film in the "Ginger" trilogy (the others being "Ginger" and "Girls Are For Loving")
"The Abductors" is widely considered the best of the bunch. So let's get trashy and have a look at a film that would never get the green light today.

We start as we mean to go on, as the very first image is a topless, screaming Woman being dragged along a grimy corridor and thrown onto a dirty mattress by two typical B movie thugs.
With no time to spare we next have three more Women (Cheerleaders no less) having the tires shot out on their car, and soon these too are stripped to their panties, bound and gagged and taken away.
As their car is blown up the title appears and a funky Jazz tune propels us forward.

The delightfully politically incorrect mixture of sexual violence and corny humour, that marks out these films, is shown by the next sequence as our Heroine 'Ginger' (Caffaro), a sexed up secret agent, is phoned by her Boss, Jason Varonne, (Grannel) as she lounges on a lilo in her pool. The conversation that follows shows us what kind of film we are to expect. 'Ginger' answers the call;
"Jason! How are you"?
"Fine. And you"?
"Nearly Naked"
"So what else is new"?
"I'm lying flat on my stomach for a change".
Simple, but effective!

'Ginger' is kitted out with a few cheap looking gadgets and a gun and is sent off to investigate. As she looks over the burnt remains of the girls car still on the roadside (seems the local Cops are not the most efficient bunch) an Advertising Photographer named Ken (Smedley) appears. Ken is all bad fashions and smarmy attitude. Just the type of guy our 'Ginger' goes for as she's soon flirting with him in that 70's cliché riddled way. Soon she is shaking her maracas at him (no really, she brings her own instruments to the dance floor) in an hysterical night club sequence where she jiggles her stuff in a very loosely knitted black dress. That a held, sweaty, make up smeared close up of 'Ginger's' face ends this scene goes to show that what was considered sexy in the 70's is certainly not very sexy now!

Meanwhile, our poor abducted girls are informed by a sleazy, muscle bound guy named Jablon, with a dreadful 70's porn mustache (Wright), that they are to be groomed as sex slaves for rich men. To show what happens if they don't co-operate a curtain is pulled back to reveal the first Woman we saw kidnapped strung up (topless of course) between two walls like a Human hammock.
The girls are told to remove their panties, as the bad guys' leer, and we do indeed discover that they are not natural blondes. Much close-up nipple tweaking follows.

An undercover Female operative named Carter (Brooks) is used to bait the kidnappers because they need someone with an innocent look and 'Ginger' is not suitable because, as Jason informs her in a great bit of dialogue, she "Drips sophisticated sex"!
Soon, with the help of slimy Ken, 'Ginger' and Co are hot on the bad guys' trail. But all does not go to plan…

 

Full of very bad 70's décor, fashions from Hell (some of 'Ginger's' outfits are truly dreadful, and only a see-through green top, for obvious reasons, does anything for her), unflattering make up ('Ginger's' ever present blue eye shadow) and tan lines, this film has certainly dated. But it's this that actually gives the movie its charm. It's like a time capsule of all that was bad, crazy, wonderful and just downright tacky, in the 70's.

This 70's attitude is also shown in the way the Women are treated. All of them are stripped and pawed (even raped in that very dodgy 'it's okay, it's only rape and she kind of likes it anyway' fashion that was a prevailing view seen in many Grindhouse films of the day) and have their bodies studied up close by the ever lurking zoom lens. It's pure, undiluted exploitation, and that's what we are here for.
The whole film drips with trashy sexuality, and it's all the better for it.

But the scummy guys do not get it all their way. Carter is shown to be a Woman who can look after herself as she throws various goons around and knees them in the groin (which results in a shot that would never get through today where she is kicked back between her legs) and 'Ginger' uses her sexuality with wild abandon, going as far as is needed to trap the bad guys.
She uses her body as a weapon with as much devastating effect as a gun, as various stupid goons are teased and lured into being beaten up and humiliated by our Heroine.
One hairy guy is left tied to a tree with his penis hanging out in a most unflattering fashion. You can almost hear the Women in the audience laugh!

Schain has been given a bit of money for this sequel and, given the rest of the sets and the lame action sequences, he seems to have used it all on getting as many forms of transport on screen as possible. Helicopters, motor boats, planes and cars are shown off in an attempt to make the film look bigger than it actually is.
It's a shame he did not use the budget to create a better finale shootout. Dear reader, be prepared for one of the worst gun battles ever committed to celluloid as extras hold their weapons (as it were) like they don't know which end the bullets come out from, a machine gun smokes so much it looks like it's firing soot and numerous examples of the prop guns not working when the trigger is pulled are kept in the shot.

Schain handles the sexploitation scenes better. He effectively uses the occasional split screen shot (especially as the Cheerleaders are put through their 'sex training' and we are given combined shots of them parading naked, kissing and rubbing up against bad guys) and pulls off some well filmed sex scenes that show just enough to entice but stop short of anything too strong. A naked Woman having her crotch rubbed on a Pool table is a fine example of this.
But Schain fumbles the ball sometimes as a dreadful whipping sequence involving one of our now corrupted Cheerleaders shows. She cracks that whip alright, but never actually manages to make contact!

Performances are perfect for the type of film it is, with Caffaro and Brooks being especially good fun. And it moves at a brisk pace, only slowing down at the overly talky finale as the Big Boss of Evil is confronted, packing in as many sleaze delights as it can.
When all is said and done we have a nudity filled, trashy, exploitative, at times sexually sadistic film that is also a first class bit of cheese topped entertainment.

Cheap, 3rd rate companies still try to make Sexploitation films even today but they just can't pull it off. This film and it's ilk are products of their time. A time when huge billboards screamed out that "Ginger is back" and the Grindhouses were full of similar trashy treats.
Now we simply get silicone-enhanced starlets pouting inanely from lifeless covers as one cheap bit of crap fights with another for Home Video obscurity.
But our 'Ginger' comes from a different period, a period where trash was out there, big and bold and in your face.
They don't make them like this anymore, and you know what? The movie World is a much poorer place for it.