Well, now. Boy howdy, what a movie! Okay, so I recently watched Pets (1973) for the first time and, wow, it’s bizarre. Probably because it feels like three increasingly disturbing vignettes strung together to form a strange, road-trip-style movie. This disarming oddness is part of what makes it a memorably strange cult film. However, the main reason you’ll never forget Pets is because of leading lady Candice “Candy” Rialson’s bravura star turn as an aimless, smoking hot drifter named Bonnie.
We follow the comely Bonnie—who has no qualms about flashing her panties from underneath her miniskirt, or doffing her top and banging anything that breathes—as she journeys across Los Angeles, makes questionable decisions, and gets mixed up in a series of bonkers events. IMDb helpfully sums up Bonnie’s series of wild sojourns as:
Naive, but brash and sultry teenage runaway Bonnie finds herself lost and adrift in America. The lovely young lass runs afoul of a colorful array of evil oddballs who all treat her like an object: violent criminal Pat makes Bonnie help her kidnap the middle-aged Dan Daubrey; domineering lesbian painter Geraldine Mills wants Bonnie to be her kept girl and uses her as a model; and wicked misogynistic rich sicko Vincent Stackman desires poor Bonnie as the ultimate prized possession in his menagerie of caged female animals he keeps locked up in the basement of his swanky remote mansion.
That last part, about the “wicked misogynist rich sicko” with the “menagerie of caged female animals” in his basement is a doozy, as you might expect (and the main reason it’s called Pets). Writer-director Raphael Nussbaum (who appears to have some porno credits to his name) does a nice job of escalating stakes with each segment, culminating in the wildly over the top but emotionally powerful “swanky remote mansion” ending.
Nussbaum adapted his three-act play Pets into this movie, but the better title would’ve been The Misadventures of Bonnie. After all, blonde bombshell Rialson carries the entire movie on her sturdy shoulders, even as her breasts threaten to spill out of every top she wears.
Rialson is an utter delight to spend time with, even if her character’s motivations are often unclear. She’s a real trouper throughout, too. The movie calls for her be sexy and free with her body, and she never disappoints. While we don’t learn much about Bonnie, we discover a few key things: she loves animals, hates being used as an object, and is always horny and ready to get it on at a moment’s notice—even with the kidnap victim of the first segment, or with a burglar who breaks into the apartment where Bonnie’s staying with Geraldine during the second act.
Rialson went on to become a cult movie legend, thanks to several other 1970s cult faves in which she starred, including Hollywood Boulevard (1976) and Chatterbox (1977)—two films I also revisited recently, during an impromptu Candice Rialson marathon. Quentin Tarantino is such a fan that he based Bridget Fonda’s character in Jackie Brown on Rialson. Pets is where Candice Rialson’s legend was born, making it required viewing for fans of cult cinema.
Pets is currently streaming on Tubi.
The Starfire Lounge 