Chatterbox! (1977)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Crappy film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Tom DeSimone's "Chatterbox" is the sort of movie that you can only enjoy if you accept low, blatantly ridiculous humor. I do. They probably made it just because it was now acceptable to make a movie about a woman whose main sexual organ develops the ability to talk. They knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. Very likely aimed to appeal mainly to 14-year-old boys, although I get the feeling that the psychiatrist's inclination to use the woman's unusual ability to make money is a swipe at greed.And the cast is interesting. Candace Rialson starred mainly in these sorts of movies. Another cast member is Sandra Gould, best known as the second Gladys Kravitz on "Bewitched". And of course, there's the always flamboyant Rip Taylor.Good times.

A young woman who works in a beauty parlor (Candice Rialson) discovers that her vagina can talk, which causes her no end of trouble.Although American International Pictures may be best known for their low budget horror and Roger Corman films, they were not afraid to make a quick buck here or there from something a bit racier. And this is definitely racy. While not the "soft-core pornography" that some have labeled it, the lead actress is naked for a good portion of the film and the very plot simply cannot be PG.Unlike vagina dentata, whatever happened to Penelope is hard to explain -- apparently her female parts not only have a voice (and hence vocal chords, a tongue, and whatnot) but also eyes and ears, because Virginia seems to know a whole lot about what is being said and done around her...Candice Rialson has something of her own interesting history. While she did some real acting, such as in "The Eiger Sanction" (1975) and "Logan's Run" (1976), she ended up getting typecast as a "sex kitten" and ultimately died prematurely at age 54. As an odd consolation, Quentin Tarantino based a character off of her in "Jackie Brown", no doubt in part inspired by "Chatterbox".Director Tom DeSimone is the ultimate mystery, and no one seems to even know how old he is. He started out in adult films, moved to exploitation, and then rose to horror, making a few memorable flicks (most notably "Hell Night" with Linda Blair). How he was able to transition to legitimate director is beyond me, but well played, good sir.

The post-Freudian subtext is pervasive and intentional. The resolution of the Ego/Id conflict explicated by giving the lead's genitals its own voice is obvious. Equally obvious are elements like the Dating Game's date coming to bed dressed in a suit of armor before ditching the lead with the remark "I saw, I conquered, and I came" while telling his next in line to wait in the hall being a well structured reference to the essential character armored phallic-narcissist. The psychiatric jokes are fast and furious all the way through. And without this film's premise how else could the curiously reflexively self aware movie director within the movie toss a line like "I want people to know this is more than just the first film to star a real cu..." uh, can we use that word on IMDb? I don't know, the acting and production values didn't seem so bad to me. And the humor has more depth than apparently is generally recognized. Perhaps the biggest problem with the film is in its over-reaching. Somehow I'm reminded of the famous Henry L. Mencken quote.

Chatterbox is a great movie. Candice Rialson's performance is spot on. The musical intermezzo's a hilarious, especially the one where Candice performs before a live audience for the first time. And the happy end (with a twist) is just great. The overall tone is tongue in cheek. It's obviously they weren't trying to make Citizen Cane here.For those people who say this is a bad movie, I'm just wondering. Did they really expect an insightful drama about a woman with a singing vagina? It is what it is: a wonderful piece of cult-trash cinema. And I loved every minute of it...