Chatterbox (1977)
"It speaks for itself!"
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© 1977 American International Pictures
All Rights Reserved
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What can you say about a film so blatantly awful yet so disarmingly sweet and
brazenly erotic (at least erotic from the perspective of a 16-year-old male
circa 1977)? Not much except director Tom DeSimone knew his drive-in audience—beer chugging teenaged guys—and that's why "Chatterbox" played on the
outdoor screen for weeks on end every summer from 1977 until the early '80s.
The delicate subject matter (a woman is cursed with a talking and singing
vagina) is so ridiculous that it could have been offensive if it wasn't so
totally innocuous.
The story's thrust has Penelope and her outspoken "box" on a cross-country
singing and dancing tour. All the while, as they make it to the top,
Penelope is nursing a broken heart. Her boyfriend walked out on her because
of his inability to satisfy Penelope's fire down below. In the end, of
course, they come together and, hey, we ain't exactly talkin' "Citizen Kane"
here.
DeSimone's coup with "Chatterbox", however, was placing Candice Rialson in the
lead as Penelope who has a difficult time keeping Virginia (yes, that's
right) quiet. Rialson has been missing in action since her last appearance in
a movie called "Winter Kills" in 1979. She was the epitome of '70s drive-in
California girls—blond, blue-eyed, innocently dirty with an unabated
willingness to lose her clothes in almost every film she made from "Candy
Stripe Nurses" to "Hollywood Boulevard" (1976) to "Moonshine County Express"
(1977). Rialson became an icon for the drive-in set infiltrating guys'
post-adolescent wet dreams more so than even Farrah Fawcett did back in the
'70's.
Needless to say, if Candy Rialson showed up on the drive-in screen, the movie
was guaranteed to be a hit. The only question left, however, is: Where is
Candice Rialson now?
Credits:
Directed by Tom DeSimone
Actors:
Candice Rialson
Larry Gelman
Rip Taylor
Links:
Internet
Movie Database
"Chatterbox" merchandise
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