SUPERCHICK (1973)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

"No one person can give another person everything he or she needs in this life."

Protagonist Tara B, True (Joyce Jillson) utters this line to one of the three lovers she visits as she jets from city to city in her peripatetic adventures as an airplane stewardess. She's justifying her refusal to be tied down by that particular lover, though he doesn't know about his competition. As movie lines go, this one does a fair job of summing up the ethic of free love. Had there been a greater quantity of such insights, then SUPERCHICK might have garnered a reputation as a Fielding-esque romp in the realms of Eros, rather than being just another tepid skin-and-sex comedy. 

Not that SUPERCHICK isn't reasonably entertaining, even when Jillson isn't getting naked on screen. Like other sex-films, its characters exist in a world where the beautiful people never "lose their charms in the end," and pretty much everything that happens to them evokes lubricious associations. The original idea for the spoofy flick is credited to its producer John H. Burrows, and it's his only writing credit among a long list of production credits ranging from 1950s westerns to the first NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET to the 2004 RAY biopic. 

While Tara is not any deeper than the average CANDY-like naif, she's atypical in being a mistress of the martial arts, able to repel any and all unwanted attentions. She's not strictly speaking an action-heroine, in that she simply defends herself against the three or four attacks made on her-- defeating a karate master at her dojo, or beating up a half dozen motorcycle toughs (albeit offscreen). Jillson's judo probably wouldn't convince anyone looking for believable fighting, but for the purpose of showing her in charge of her body in all respects, her skills are as efficient as her cornfed good looks.

Tara's one encounter with the metaphenomenal takes place when she decides to spice up a boring afternoon in Hollywood by answering a newspaper ad offering a "unique experience" to anyone who responds. Tara legs it out to a creepy old house and meets former Hollywood thespian Igor Smith. By an amazing coincidence, Igor made his bones playing characters in "cheap horror films," just like the fellow playing Igor, the ever-busy John Carradine. Igor's idea of a unique experience is to escort Tara to a room full of torture implements, which he plans to use on her. When she asks what his mother would think, he does a PSYCHO bit, asking for his mother's approval and getting it from some upstairs room. Tara beats up the old goat and imprisons him in his own chains for later incarceration, though she also manages to convert him to masochism. All of Tara's other adventures are entirely mundane, including her final meeting with all three beaus, who agree to continue their mutual relationships with her.

I said Tara B. True (whose name evokes old timey melodrama-names like Tess Trueheart) was not technically a hero. However, the script justifies the title "Superchick" (a nickname given her by one of her lovers) by having Tara wear dowdy clothing and a dark wig to conceal her hotness while she's working as a stewardess. In the opening scene, she gets off work, enters a convenient phone booth, and emerges as a black-clad, blonde-locked hot chick. For good measure, in place of the Superman "S" chest-emblem, Tara wears a tiny "S" locket around her neck-- though the letter could stand for "sex goddess" as much as "superchick.