Hot Spur (1968)
Two ranch hands walk into the tiniest bar in the West. The busty serving senorita wears a midriff-baring sleeveless blouse tied in front, and a long red skirt. The cowpokes strongly suggest that she dance for them, which she does very nicely. Suitably turned on, they grab her, grope her and tear her top open, revealing round, full breasts. They wrestle her to the floor and pull up her skirt, showing her bare ass. As one holds her down and the second one mounts her, she screams and tries to fight them off. The guitar player and bartender do nothing, but Carlos, who is outside tending the horses, rushes into the bar. The cowpoke on top of the girl slaps her hard twice in the face. Carlos flashes back to a similar scene involving the rape of his sister. We briefly see the sister pinned to the ground with her top completely open and showing a nice set.
Back in the present, Carlos intervenes, but gets his ass kicked. Meanwhile the wench has gotten up off the floor, but one of the men pushes her back against, the bar, leans her over backwards with her chest fully exposed, and threatens her with a broken bottle. Rats! In comes the ranch boss and stops the action. “That’s enough!” Well, I didn't think so. But that’s not the last we see of the sister-rape scene. Carlos recognizes the boss as one of the culpable parties.
Later, back at the ranch, there is a lengthy orgy scene involving several fine-looking, naked working girls and the ranch crew. Fun, but nothing non-consensual. While this is going on, the boss is having an argument with his voluptuous but haughty wife Susan (Virginia Gordon). Angered, the husband slaps Susan, she spits in his face and he rips the entire front of her dress open. Wow…what a body this woman has! The dress is barely hanging on her shoulders, with everything from her clavicle to her fur exposed. The husband then pushes her backward onto the bed, and gets on top of her for, presumably, some spousal sex, which we don't get to see as the scene fades out.
Meanwhile, Carlos is having another flashback. His topless sister, wrists tied together with rope, is being towed (stumbling forward on her feet) across a grassy field by a group of men. They tie the end of the rope to a tree branch, start taking her remaining clothes off and then pull her to the ground.
Next day, vengeful Carlos abducts Susan while she is out riding in the hills. He takes her horse but when she flees on foot, he gives chase, wrestles her to the ground, and as she struggles, tears at her clothes, pulling her blouse below her chest and shoulders. He finally slugs her, ties her wrists together (in front, what a bozo), and takes her to a shack near an abandoned mine. But once there, he puts Susan in a hog-tie and goes out to set traps for the men he knows the boss will send out after him. While Carlos is gone, Susan squirms and struggles to free herself, but Carlos returns just in time to stop her from cutting the ropes on a knife she’s found. He tells her if she shuts her mouth she won't get hurt, but does she listen to him? No…he should have gagged her right away.
As she rattles on, pleading for Carlos to release her and talking about how she has nothing against Mexicans, yada yada yada, his mind drifts back to the rape of his sister. We see her (very beautiful and topless) tied AOH to the limb of a tree while the camera slowly zooms in on her face and upper body. This is apparently the POV of Susan’s husband. A little bit of struggling would have been nice here, but they do have a shotgun pointed at the girl. And we learn that little Carlos witnessed the whole affair. Back in the present, Carlos becomes increasingly annoyed (as do we) with Susan’s non-stop speech until finally he grabs a knife, sits on top of her, furiously cuts away at her blouse and tears it off her. That puts an end to the chatter.
After a short digression to scenes of the boss’s men closing in, we're back at the cabin where Carlos quickly removes the rest of Susan’s clothes. He then re-enacts the gang rape of his sister, repeating her attackers’ statements as he rapes Susan. This is a very intense scene. Afterwards, he tells Susan that his sister later committed suicide, and that he has killed all of her assailants except Susan’s husband. He leaves Susan crying on the floor, confused, naked and still hogtied.
As the boss’ men approach the cabin, we see Susan cleave-gagged (finally) and tied AOH to the ceiling. The men starting shooting holes in the cabin, and Carlos wants to make sure they know Susan’s still alive in there, so he whips her several times, causing her to scream (through her gag). We get several looks at her legs, butt and back with bloody marks, and with each stroke her body sways. Quite a few frontal views as well. One flaw in the scene is that we briefly see her knees bending while her feet are touching the floor, so we know that the suspension is not as tight as it looks.
The rest of the movie is a basic Western shoot-‘em-up, with a few more glimpses of Virginia Gordon in a partially nude state, and a surprise ending, but no more GIMP scenes.
Movie plusses: Beautiful women, lots of nudity and partial nudity, decent rope-tying, clothes-ripping and whipping. Interesting, intense story. And how many times do you get to see a former Playmate hog-tied?
Movie minuses: Gordon’s chatter was tediously delivered; not as well done as her GIMP scenes. She should have been gagged from the beginning; but we do feel some empathy with Carlos when he finally shuts her up. The rape scene of Carlos’ sister was intriguing, but the flashing back and forth between past and present diminished the impact. I understand the artistic reason for it, but it could have been better. The rape scene in the bar was interrupted. No other GIMP scenes.
Movie grade: C
Note: The DVD is by Something Weird Video, which means you get their standard intro (which I've grown tired of by now) and a 30-minute preview of other movies tacked on to the end. So of the 2-hour running time shown, 85 minutes is for the movie. I suspect that there may have been some editing of the sister-rape scene, based on some stills I've seen. Also, IMDb shows an original running time of 91 minutes. Another interesting fact from IMDb: In 1969, National Review listed Hot Spur as one of its Top Ten Films of the year.