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>"This sorta thing happened before!"
October 16, 2010
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1991, PG
Director: Stewart Raffill
Writers: Edward Rugoff , Michael Gottlieb
A young department store intern falls in love with a female store mannequin possessed by the ghost of a young 17th Century princess who comes to life whenever her necklace is removed by him only.
This is the kind of steaming turd of a movie that lulls the mind of the viewer into a Moebius strip of speculation on how it got made (and necrophilia) – anything rather than watch the painful events unfolding on-screen. It’s a Moebius turd.
“OK – so we got a green-light on another ‘Mannequin.’ No we don’t got that pussy McCarthy, but that douche from Herman’s Head is available. Fuck McCarthy- you know “Weekend at Bernie’s?” We got Bernie the stiff to play the heavy in this one, some count. And that effay Negro, Hollywood, is a lock. (He’d work for a sandwich.)”
The train-wreck opens with a bargain-basement unfunny Borscht-belt “Princess Bride” fairytale costume set-up in the enchanted land of ‘Hauptmann Koenig,’ and it’s all downhill from there. Even those admirers of Kristy Swanson’s ‘talents’ will be hard-pressed to endure the whole ordeal, and will marvel at how none of the mannequins used for her scenes actually resemble each other.
Cut to ‘modern times.’ Our hero (William Ragsdale) is a ‘likeable’- enough faceless nebbish whose doting Jewish mother runs her own dating service and just wants him to find a nice ‘goil.’ He takes a new job at a Philly department store run by a ruthless dictator (Stuart Pankin, the fat guy from ‘Not Necessarily the News’). After a few forgettable characters are introduced and discarded (security guy, perfume girl), the kid is quickly scuttled to be an apprentice to good-ole over-the-top Hollywood Montrose, in charge of staging the climactic store musical production.
Meanwhile, the evil sorcerer Count from H-K (Terry Kiser) is hatching a plot to steal the store’s jewelry by delivering a fake goodwill shipment of his country’s products to the store. (containing Swanson the enchanted princess mannequin with the magic necklace.) So there’s this truck mishap, where the enchanted mannequin fall out the back of the truck and into the river. Our hero quickly jumps in the water to rescue the ‘goods’ which underwater turns into a real woman. The confused kid brings her back to the store, and after removing her necklace discovers the stiff is his ‘dream-girl,’ who is destined for him. He tells Hollywood, who helpfully reassures him, “This sorta thing happened before.”
After a night of introducing Swanson to the ‘crazy world of today,’ and some nice leopard-print nightclub outfits, he must defend and protect her from the evil Count’s fiendish plot. (and much painful ‘comedy’ is made of the Count’s facial mole hair and his bumbling homo-erotic leotarded henchmen.) Yadda yadda- he is caught dry-humping his dream stiff by his mother, and eventually foils the plot at Hollywood’s big (terrible) show, in a ridiculous duel with the Count, who is himself turned into a mannequin that crumbles to pieces from a hot-air balloon. Aah- sweet justice.
Keep yer fingers crossed for a Hollywood ‘reboot!’
Categories: B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Kristy Swanson, Meshach Taylor, Stuart Pankin, Terry Kiser, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Ragsdale
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