The Beauties and the Beast (1974)

Possibly the worst film ever made, if you are looking for any cinematic quality, whether it be direction or editing or continuity or acting, you will not find it here. The film is a take on Bigfoot but the monster here is a man in a gorilla suit that is terrible even by Halloween standards. He kidnaps young women and takes them to his cave but for what purpose we never find out - nothing happens and the girls just disappear from the film.Of course in any monster film we have got to have nudity and some lesbianism and on those counts the film delivers. A nice scene in which two cuties undress and climb into bed is OK. There are also some hippy campers who seem to have found some hidden loot which a couple of crooks are after is some sort of diversion but overall the film is just awful. There is a 71 minute R-rated version and an 84 minute Unrated version together with Hollywood Babylon available on a single disc from Retromedia Entertainment but unless you are into terrible films, then give this one a miss.

Beauties and the Beast, The (1974) ** (out of 4) What's better than nudity and a Yeti? This soft core romp has plenty of both as a lonely Yeti stalks the woods kidnapping beautiful women and taking them back to his cage. He's in luck as some hippies and a couple other ladies (one played by Swedish bombshell Uschi Digard) come to stay for the weekend so he has plenty to pick from. I love Yeti movies but this here is one of the wackiest out there even though it contains absolutely no plot. I'm still not quite sure why the Yeti here was taking the women to begin with as he never does anything with them except throw them in his cave and we never find out what happens to any of them. The main reason this film was made was to show off countless nude women and especially the 44-26-35 Digard who many will remember from Russ Meyer's CHERRY, HARRY & RACHEL!. As far as soft core flicks go this one here is pretty good but at only 66-minutes there's not too much going on and that includes everything with our hairy friend Mr. Yeti. I'm still not sure what the point of throwing him in here was for because we really don't get enough of him and when we do see him he's usually just carrying the women around. The idea of a horny Yeti wasn't started here as BIGFOOT beat this one by a few years and it had the added bonus of John Carradine. The main reason to watch this film is just for the nudity and some really bad sex scenes including one of the most hilarious "make out" sessions I've seen from any movie. This here takes place inside a car and you certainly won't forget it due to how stupid it is.

I love how this movie opens with an sincere on screen narration about scientific facts, examples of newspaper clippings and alleged factual sightings of an American Sasquatch monster, and then stupidly continues by saying "the story you're about to see COULD be true…". Well of course it could be true! Stuff like this happens all the time! Not a week goes by or I read something in the papers about lewd and nakedly parading around wenches getting abducted in the woods by Sasquatch himself! "Beauties and the Beast", like the title implies, is a rancid and utterly nonsensical sexploitation product of the early 70's; simultaneously cashing in on the Bigfoot hype in horror cinema at that time as well as benefiting from the always popular concept of voluptuous girls practicing the Free Love principles. It's Big-foot meeting Big-boobs, as Russ Meyer regular Uschi Digard (with her lovely Scandinavian accent and her even lovelier triple-D balcony) and her friend drive up to a remote cabin in the woods where a big and perverted guy in an ape suit resides. In earlier sequences we already witnessed how he collects scarcely dressed girls and stores them in a cave without even sexually harassing them. Now, that is weird! I personally expected at least one repulsive monstrous rape-sequence, to be honest. Anyway, the girls encounter a bunch of hippies (who have been there since 8 months but never spotted the Yeti…) and subsequently some thugs in search of golden coins, so the monster never really has a proper chance to demonstrate to Uschi what a hot date he is. "Beauties and the Beast" is a pretty lousy but undeniably entertaining piece of trash, with a large amount of unintentionally hilarious sequences (for example the guy running away naked upon spotting the Sasquatch; leaving his girlfriend behind) and harmlessly tame sexual footage. The last fifteen minutes are quite strange. It feels as if, after a whole movie of redundant sex images and pointless padding, the story suddenly becomes ambitious and eventful. There's violence and rape, new characters and the titular beast actually becomes the day-saving hero! In the end, they all live happily ever after in harmony, and nobody even bothers anymore about the Yeti's first victims, who are mostly likely still entrapped in the cave.

A very ragged-looking voyeuristic Bigfoot kidnaps girls to keep in his cave for no apparent reason whatsoever. Enter two girls vacationing at a cabin (one of whom is Ushi Digard who can barely speak English) who meet up with a small group of hippies. Soon they're all attacked by some bad guys looking for their stash until Bigfoot shows up. This is a shoddy production all around with sex scenes that go on WAAAY too long. There is one bizarre dream sequence of a showdown between two girls wearing only gun belts and boots. Recommended only to liberal-minded Bigfoot completists only.