GARY KENT IN RAY STECKLER'S 'BODY FEVER' AKA 'SUPERCOOL'

Ray Dennis Steckler and Gary Kent fight in Super Cool YEAR: 1969

Film Noir/Gumshoe/Private Eye films have a main character wandering (and wondering) from one location to the next in search of something, or someone, or both...

What they get along the way are a lot of names, mostly red herrings. Sexy dames and tough broads with tougher boyfriends. Fights. Gunshots. Psychedelic drugs and heroin or...

Well the last sentence doesn't fit the Humphrey Bogart-era films, in which this was inspired all the way to director and here main star as well, Ray Dennis Steckler looking into a HIGH SIERRA poster with his image reflecting onto Bogie's. And in SUPER COOL, the real title's shown in the opening credits despite being packaged as BODY FEVER and with other names like CHEAT FOR LIFE, THE LAST ORIGINAL B MOVIE and DEADLOCKED...

Gary Kent grabs the bag of loot from his director Score: ***

It's an urban/suburban odyssey of Steckler's scrawny gumshoe Charlie Smith, trying to find a missing dame, played by his real life star and perpetual ingenue Caroyln Brandt, who stole a ton of drugs (after all, she's a cat burglar who dresses like Catwoman)...

The best elements pit Smith against Frankie Roberts, played by Steckler's stock heavy Gary Kent (a formidable ax-murderer in THE THRILL KILLERS), who not only keeps women addicted to smack but smacks them regularly. And like those mazy Noirs of the forties and fifties, the plot is purposely convoluted: so the audience is as confused as the snoop... But the flat conclusion seems a bit forced: ending a breezy jaunt that could've gone on forever. Or at least fifteen (or ten, perhaps?) minutes longer.