Too Hot to Handle (1977)

Simply A Masterpiece

Purely Joyful Movie!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Cheri Caffaro plays a sexy slinky female assassin, hired to bump off the local mobsters so as to ease the path of the mainland syndicate to take over their illegal businesses. Her first victim is dispatched via suffocation by a plastic bag, ( a method also used by Cornelia Sharpe in The Next Man ), all while wearing a full length leather dress split to the thigh.I've seen other reviews which maintain that Caffaro's character is a hit-woman with a heart of gold. I totally disagree insofar as by the movies end, while her most of her victims have been criminals, she also ruthlessly bumps off the two cops who have been on her trail throughout the movie, without a hint of conscience. One by causing him to drive off a road and meeting an explosive demise, the other, the hero of the movie, is blown to smithereens on a boat.Caffaro's hit woman character leaves no loose ends and triumphs at the end of the movie, perhaps for sequels which never materialized.

If nothing else, "Too Hot to Handle" proves to be a solid vehicle for Cheri Caffaro, 70's starlet who combined undeniable sex appeal with personality and confidence. She plays Samantha Fox, a young woman who enjoys a lavish lifestyle and at the same time enjoys a gig as a contract killer. While she is at work knocking off a succession of Manila gangsters, a handsome young detective, Domingo De La Torres (Aharon Ipale) picks up her trail, and it complicates things for the two of them when they find themselves falling for each other. Don Schain is the director; he was actually married to Caffaro at the time and also directed her in the popular "Ginger" series; in fact, he continues to work, having recently been line producer on Adam Green's "Frozen". He goes all out sometimes trying to give "Too Hot to Handle" some style, and it is rather amusing, as he employs split screen (towards the end, we get to see four things happen at once) and iris shots, and comes up with a reasonably clever scene transition at one point. That's not to say there aren't inept moments, pretty priceless ones, in fact, as the fight scenes come off as woefully awkward. The James Bond-style music score is quite a hoot, as well. We do get treated to the sight of Ms. Caffaro's naked body, which is much appreciated, and there's a decent amount of sex. What is nice, however, is that "Too Hot to Handle" displays some disarming humour right off the bat, as Samantha takes out the first of her targets (John Van Dreelen) in a "torture room". In addition to Caffaro, the cast is entertaining; Ipale has been a busy actor for years, appearing in stuff like "Fiddler on the Roof", "Ishtar", "The Mummy" (1999), and "Charlie Wilson's War". The appearance of extremely prolific Filipino character actor Vic Diaz always guarantees a good time, and in addition to Van Dreelen, another veteran, French leading lady Corinne Calvet, makes a cameo appearance. (In fact, her final scene is amusing the way it deliberately mimics a scene from a commercial that her character shot - poetic justice indeed!) Fox and Ipale make for an appealing enough romantic pair. The movie is (comfortably) predictable, and easy enough to watch, moving along fairly well and providing a good diversion. Seven out of 10.

Buxom, leggy, shapely, irresistibly trashy platinum blonde 70's schlock action movie bombshell Cheri Caffaro, who rather uncomfortably resembles a cheap dime-store Dolly Parton clone, struts her electrifying el skanko woman hot stuff to the sizzling low-rent max as cagey, sexy and very deadly international hit babe Samantha Fox (who shouldn't be confused with either the New York porn star or the vacuous British pop singer), who's armed with an assortment of lethal weapons and clever disguises, plus sports the world's ugliest dark blue eye shadow and an extremely deep all body tan. Fox gleefully kills an eminently hateful bunch of wealthy slimebags (my personal favorite is the sadomasochistic B&D leather freak Cheri smothers by putting a plastic bag over his head after she ties the sicko up) who all live in the Phillipines. She's been hired to rub out these evil rich scum by some mystery person. In between offing people Cheri finds time to strike up a steamy romance with hunky police chief Aharon Ipale (one particularly hot date involves attending a cockfight; the killer roosters' wild brawl is tastefully inter-cut with scorchingly hot shots of a naked Caffaro excitedly writhing on a bed!).Cheri's perpetually all-thumbs director husband Don Schain, who also helmed all three sensationally scuzzy "Ginger" pictures and the tawdry "A Place Called Today" for his darling celluloid sleaze goddess wife, fumbles the ball here with truly inept, but still oddly engrossing and often painfully sidesplitting results: some priceless dialogue (aphorism to live by: "I never bet on anything but a sure thing"), copious gratuitous Caffaro nudity, hilariously ham-fisted action scenes (don't miss the gut-busting karate fight between Cheri and a would-be kung-fu assassin on Cheri's yacht), Hugo Montenegro's funky, pulsating pseudo-John Barry score, choppy editing, quite primitive cinematography by Fredy Conde (the strenuous slow motion and eyeball-straining four way split screen are both endearingly clumsy), gorgeous scenic Manila locations, an almost excruciatingly funny surprise ending, Julie McFadden's haunting rendition of the unforgettably atrocious theme song "Lady Samantha" ("Lady Samantha/He fell in love with you"), and the incomparable Vic Diaz's marvelous portrayal of a sweet, tubby, gluttonous blundering oaf of a detective all jostle for the viewer's attention in this tacky, degenerate and resolutely crummy ersatz James Bond-style action/adventure dreckfest released by New World Pictures that's absolutely essential viewing for any self-respecting Cheri Caffaro fan worth his weight in crushed beer cans, which hopefully doesn't exclude too many folks.

This is your ordinary mid-70s low-grade action-adventure with a female heroine, but it has two distinguishing features: the lead, Cheri Caffaro , is very sexy in an aggressive sort of way, and the director eroticizes the violence (Caffaro is virtually turned on by pain and death). That is quite a daring thing for a movie to do, and the people here deserve some credit for even attempting it. And the climax of the film is surprisingly suspenseful. Now, if only they had picked a more talented leading man and a better editor..... (**)