“This Is The One They’re Talking About!”
With that claim in the film’s trailer, “The Candy Snatchers” joins the list of the strongest, grittiest 70’s exploitation movies! And one that its lead Actress, Tiffany Bolling, regretted making!
The Candy Snatchers – 1973.
By the early 70’s, “grind house” movie theaters all across the US were showing “roughies” – gritty films that showed the worst of society – the films were at times awful, at times offensive…and at times pretty good!
Here is one of the better efforts – with a great plot, good action and strong performances!
Here is the plot of “The Candy Snatchers”:
16-year old “Candy” Philips (Susan Sennet, wife of singer Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash) is brutally abducted and buried alive in the hills of Southern California by a trio of amateur criminals hoping for a hasty ransom exchange.
One of the “Candy Snatchers” by the way is the great cult Actress Tiffany Bolling!
Here is the trailer:
“Take it easy, baby! You’re just bein’ kidnapped.”
Can’t argue with that!
Of course, nothing goes to plan, and the kidnappers have to plot more extreme ways to get their money…it’s a gritty grindhouse film that echoes the stark griminess of “The Last House On The Left.”
According to wikipedia, Bolling disowned the film:
Actress Tiffany Bolling has stated that she later came to regret making the film and that she had only done it for a paycheck. She further commented that “I was doing cocaine…and I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I was very angry about the way that my career had gone in the industry…the opportunities that I had and had not been given…. The hardest thing for me, as I look back on it, was I had done a television series, The New People, and so I had a lot of young people who really respected me and… revered me as something of a hero, and then I came out with this stupid Candy Snatchers movie… It was a horrendous experience.”
That being said, the film was recently remastered and released on a special edition DVD with bonus interviews- and is worth checking out if you want to see how gritty the early 70’s grind house films could be – Bolling had a great career in such films as “The Wild Party”, “Wicked Wicked” and the cult gem “Bonnie’s Kids!”
While Bolling didn’t like the plot of “Candy Snatchers”, this film, released the year before that one, had a somewhat similar premise: greed! Two rebellious sisters and a crooked P.I. attempt to escape from the girls’ mobster uncle with $400,000 in stolen loot, and meet nefarious characters while dodging a bickering pair of enforcers.
Bolling was in a number of good 70’s films like “Kingdom Of The Spiders”, and did a lot of television work as well – including three years on the hit TV series “Vega$!”
Bolling retired from the business in the late 90’s, but these films live on.
This era in exploitation is filled with films that are classic, and some that just have to be seen to be believed!
You see what I mean? “The Sinful Dwarf” is one of the most bizarre exploitation film of the 70’s…here are more from that era, including Christina Lindberg and Lina Romay’s best roles:
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Let me know if you’ve seen “The Candy Snatchers!”
Categories: 70's Films, Cult Classics, Exploitation Films, Extreme Cinema, Grindhouse, JRsploitation, sex kittens, Talent / Celebrites, Uncategorized
The poster for ‘Bonnie’s Kids’ is hilarious. They actually added the body measurements of the characters! That reminded me of how any glamour model always had her ‘measurements’ mentioned. Something of an obsession, until the 1980s.
Best wishes, Pete.
Pete, the movie posters for 70’s cult films were sometimes better than the film itself! Thanks for the comment!
“The Candy Snatchers” was fantastic and yeah, pretty brutal. Tiffany looked great in it. The film was a direct rip-off of a TV-movie called “The Longest Night” from the year before. As a matter of fact, when one of the kidnappers compliments Tiffany’s character on coming up with the whole scheme, she replies that she got the idea from TV (meaning “The Longest Night”).
And of course there is a lot of “Pulp Fiction” in the fantastic “Bonnie’s Kids.”
That’s terrific trivia, I didn’t know that – thanks for sharing!