The Swinging Barmaids (1975)

You go into a double bill of films entitled The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) and The Swinging Barmaids (1975) without any real expectations.  Certainly, when I settled down to watch them back-to-back on Saturday, I was expecting nothing more than a mildly sleazy few hours entertainment.  As it turned out they were both surprisingly decent pieces of exploitation.  Which, in the case of The Swinging Cheerleaders, shouldn't have been much of a surprise, as it was directed by Jack Hill, a Roger Corman alumni with a solid track record in producing this type of film.  Despite an obviously low budget, it is a very slick looking film with good production values and decent performances from a strong cast.  The Swinging Barmaids is far rougher around the edges and, despite its title, is certainly not a cheerful sex comedy like Cheerleaders.  Instead it is what would now be called a serial killer drama, centered around an LA bar, where the barmaids are being stalked and murdered by psychopath.  There is no mystery as to the killer's identity - he's known to the audience pretty much from the outset.  Indeed, he is even glimpsed by his potential victims when they stumble upon the first murder, but the blonde and hirsute killer disguises himself by shaving off his beard, cutting his hair and dying it dark.  In this guise, he succeeds in getting a job as a barman at the same bar as the barmaids before proceeding to knock off these witnesses one-by-one.

A notable aspect of the film is way in which the murders are portrayed - far more brutally than was the norm even for exploitation films of the era.  The brutality is expressed less through blood and gore and more through the sheer violence of the assaults on the victims, which variously involve stabbings, drownings and strangulation.  These are quite long drawn out and pretty harrowing. But it doesn't end with the killing of the victim - the killer then poses the partially naked bodies and photographs them.  There is also a strong implication of necrophilia, not just in the photography, but also in the police statement that first victim was also raped - this is certainly not depicted while she is alive and struggling with the murderer, implying that it occurs between the murder and the murderer being disturbed by her flatmates.  Strong stuff for the seventies, which only adds to the film's sleazy feel, already accentuated by the scuzzy bar the victims work in.  The killer himself is never glamourised, as often happens in this sort of scenario.  He doesn't have any quirks, any 'signature' bizarre method of murder, he doesn't keep momentos (beyond the photos, that is) or send taunting messages to the authorities.  Nor is he portrayed as an obviously crazed psycho with some complex backstory and/or childhood trauma to 'justify' his actions.  He is simply a violent misogynist. For most of the film he is, on the surface, simply an ordinary guy.  It is only toward the end of the film, when he realises that the police are on to him, that he begins to unravel along the more familiar movie psycho lines.

All of which isn't to say that Swinging Barmaids is a great film, or even necessarily a good film, but it is surprisingly enjoyable in its own sleazy way. The pace is uneven, although it does get off to a flying start, the plot rather gets bogged down until the next murder, and it never manages to build up much suspense - we know who the killer is and who his victims will be, it is even pretty obvious which order they'll be killed in.  Some viewers might object that it is implausible that the waitresses wouldn't recognise the killer when he comes to work at the bar incognito, but to be fair, he does look very different without the beard and with shorter, darker hair.  Nonetheless,in spite of all this, the film is directed by Gus Trikonis with a gritty intensity,  creating a suitably downbeat milieu for its scenario, particularly the dingy 'Swing-a-Ling' bar, full of sweaty and drunken male punters leering over the girls.  While there are plenty of bared breasts on display, the fact that they invariably accompany the murder scenes means that any titillation is effectively neutralised by the amount of brutal violence also on display.  As far as the cast are concerned, Bruce Watson gives an effective turn as Tom, the murderer, while William Smith is somewhat underused as the cop on the case until the film's climax.  Dyanne Thorne, the future Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, features as one of the titular barmaids.  All in all, The Swinging Barmaids provides audiences with a suitably sleazy seventies sexploitation experience, while carying the formula sufficiently to make it stand out from the crowd and deliver surprisingly memorable B-movie.