cult film freak: SHARY MARSHALL IN STEVE COCHRAN'S 'TELL ME IN THE SUNLIGHT'

SUNLIGHT was Filmed: 1962 Released: 1965 Rating: ****

First time director Steve Cochran directs himself against his usual villainous type in TELL ME IN THE SUNLIGHT as a laidback sailor on the coast of Nassau, Bahamas, wandering the nighttime town on what feels a never-ending leave from the parked ship, picking-up on a young Mexican girl more than half his age and getting nowhere till the next night when, after a shave & haircut by another toned-down usual-villain Jay Robinson, he meets a stripper named Julie played by drop-dead-gorgeous Shary Marshall...

And after crowded smoky shots in a noisy bamboo-filled strip joint, most of the picture has the new couple hanging around town at night, providing TELL ME the kind of indie project that'd seem commonplace a decade later but in the early 1960's, when it was actually made then released upon Cochran's death, it's a poor man's b-movie romance both steamy and sexy yet without any sex... So Marshall's heart-of-gold stripper is a different kind of girl-next-door while Cochran, usually a slap away from getting what he wants from a dame, is even more subdued, patient, and cautious... like his film, the only he'd direct as, on the same yacht he'd be found dead on, he was scouting the next tropics-set locale. Making the plot-less yet thoughtful SUNLIGHT shine brighter knowing it's not just the last, but the only.