Lost and Found: The Swinging Barmaids

In which sexy cocktail waitresses fight for their lives against a women-hating lunatic with a murderous fixation on buxom babes.

With a title like The Swinging Barmaids (1975), this sexploitation stunner sounds like it should be a lighthearted seventies sex-romp. In actually, it’s a taut and nasty little slasher/crime thriller. Written by Charles B. Griffith—of such cult credentials as The Little Shop of Horrors and Death Race 2000—and directed by Goldie Hawn’s first husband (!) Gus Trikonis, whose other ‘75 flick was Supercock—it’s about cockfighting, get yer minds out of the gutter!—The Swinging Barmaids focuses on employees at an awesomely named Los Angeles nightspot, the Swing-A-Ling Club (thus the “Swinging” barmaids of the title, who otherwise don’t do any swinging whatsoever). The club’s cocktail waitresses—who wear revealing outfits resembling Playboy Bunnies, minus the ears—are being stalked and killed, one at a time, by a real sicko named—wait for it—Tom Brady!

There’s a distinct, seventies TV detective show vibe throughout, which is actually a positive for me, as I love seventies TV detective shows. Even a major plot detail, in which the killer takes a job at the club so as to be closer to his next victims, feels straight out of an episode of Starsky & Hutch or Charlie’s Angels. Speaking of the seventies, the period detail in the set designs and locations is solid gold, and will more than satisfy fans of The Me Decade.

Dyanne’s ta-tas are most definitely on the menu at The Swing-A-Ling Club.

For fans of cult queen Dyanne “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” Thorne, I have good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad news: she’s the crazed killer’s first victim, meaning she’s gone after the opening ten minutes. However, the good news is that during her brief time onscreen the stunning Thorne’s voluptuous body is on full, glorious display. From her mountainous breasts popping out of her skimpy waitressing outfit, to her intense death scene—during which her clothes are ripped and torn to reveal copious amounts of flesh—Thorne puts the “sex” in “sexploitation” all by herself. Her death scene is an all-out fight for her life that goes on for several minutes. It’s pure chaos and terror, as the busty and leggy Thorne tries to kick and claw her way free from the deranged assailant after he burst into her apartment. They tumble over furniture, he yanks her backwards by the hair, tosses her around like a rag doll, and rips off her clothing, before plunging a knife in her back. Then the sick pervert arranges her dead body in seductive poses before taking icky souvenir photos. Yikes.

Sexy Dyanne Thorne’s character Boo-Boo (for real) might be dead here, but she’s still dead sexy.

Cult movie legend William Smith simmers as the resolute police detective trying to capture the killer. Small-time TV actor Barry Watson delivers an all-time unhinged performance as the serial killing Tom (not that Tom) Brady. Despite being saddled with an atrocious fake beard and wig in the opening scene (before the character shaves and cuts his hair), Watson goes for broke every step of the way, turning in a memorably unsettling performance that somehow manages to grow more disturbing as the film progresses. The bar babes are uniformly smoking hot, and the camera enjoys lingering extensively over their scantily clad bodies. The female form is lavishly filmed here, especially—and most disturbingly—during the messy and brutal kill scenes, when the women wind up topless and dead as doornails.

I’d like to take a second to make a special shout-out to Renie Radich, who plays the sultry and sassy Marie. Not only is she a total babe, she also has a beautiful smile and seems utterly bored with all this serial killing stuff. She’s hawt.

Renie Radich is incredibly hot and I was rooting for her to make it to the end. Also, that’s thirst trap Dyanne Thorne’s luscious thigh and drool-worthy hip in the background.

Radich is positively smoldering every time she graces the screen.

Radich effortlessly transitions from barmaid to bikini babe, and we thank the filmmakers for making that happen.

Inexplicably, the film was rereleased in 1980 under an even more misleading name, the porno-sounding Eager Beavers. For a movie with two terrible names that don’t come close to conveying what the movie’s really about, The Swinging Barmaids manages to be a minor, but rewarding, cult gem.