PRINCESS WARRIOR (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

While PRINCESS WARRIOR is an unremarkable junk-film-- shot on limited locations with very limited funds, by people who never became well-known in the movie industry-- it does offer me the chance to talk about the criteria I use to designate an adventure-filled comedy from an adventure with comic elements.

I subscribe to the theory that comedy's appeal is that of "incongruity," as suggested by the philosopher Schopenhauer. Most of the time, comedies use either verbal wordplay or slapstick violence to engender a sense of an incongruous world. However, some stories with adventure-elements invoke the ludicrous just by the dominant look of the characters. Japan's gentleman-thief Lupin III oscillates between comic absurdities and straightforward daredevil action, but Lupin himself, with his angular body and monkey-like face, always evokes the ludicrous. Same thing with the DC comic book CAPTAIN CARROT, which hardly ever includes a real joke or a pratfall, but features a bunch of funny-animal superheroes fighting funny-animal villains.

And what's the dominant image of the kickass heroine of PRINCESS WARRIOR, who can clobber grown men with a few choice blows? Well, she spends most of the film clad in a wet T-shirt that reads "Better When Wet." From that image alone, I think her place in the annals of ludicrous cinema is secure. Of course, it also helps that her proper name is Ovule, which word means "an unfertilized ovum," while her main opponent, Curette, is named after a small knife used in biopsies. Oh, and other characters have names like Exzema, Bulemia, and Ricketsia.

The nub of the conflict between Ovule (Sharon Lee Jones) and Curette (Dana Fredsti) is played fairly straight, though, aside from the Ed Wood look of their alien homeworld. Ovule and Curette are sisters who stand to inherit the rulership of their planet when their ailing mother kicks the bucket. Since Curette is a cruel bitch whose every word sounds like she's auditioning for the part of Joan Crawford in a MOMMIE DEAREST revival, the current queen gives the much nicer Ovule the nod. I'm not sure if the Queen Mother passes away just then, but Curette, who has a gang of henchwomen, immediately decides that Ovule's got to die. Having no other recourse, Ovule uses a teleport device to hurl herself to another planet, which just happens to be 1989 Earth. Nothing daunted, Curette, Exzema and Bulemia use the same device to follow. The teleport-device must have been made by the same inventors as those that made the Terminator's time-portal, since the ladies all have to travel naked (which provides the film's only moments of live nude girls).

By the way, did I mention that the unnamed world is a matriarchy, in which all the residents seem to be hot young women? Even the Queen Mother, who's a little older, is a glamourpuss. Not till the film's end is it mentioned that there are men on the planet, but they're slaves of their feminine overlords.

Anyway, naked Ovule happens to manifest near a club holding a wet T-shirt contest, so the exiled princess snags a spare shirt and tries to take her leave. She gets pulled into the contest (which takes up a fair amount of time-- not complaining, though). Ovule clouts a grabby promoter and escapes. The club's deejay Bob takes a shine to the comely blonde and goes after her, eventually offering her a place to stay. For some reason Ovule won't consider Bob's offer, but she will flag down a passing automobile and appeal to an equally unknown (and not good looking) stranger for shelter. The latter guy tries to take Ovule to his place. Bob interferes and gets punched out, after which Ovule clobbers the clobberer. Did she have to see Bob play Galahad before trusting him? Maybe, since she does go with him.

Curette and her followers wind up at the club, and in the best Arnie S. fashion they beat up some locals and take their clothes. They learn from the promoter that Bob took Ovule to his place, and to save his own skin the sleaze guides the alien amazons to Bob's address. Curette thinks that Ovule and Bob are lovers and decides to torture Ovule mentally before killing her. In this lightweight flick's only gruesome moment, Curette orders a henchwoman to heat up a metal spoon, promising to stick it right in poor Bob's mouth. 

Up to this point, the film, while stupid, has at least been energetic. Bob is then saved when a couple of largely incompetent cops barge in and try to arrest everyone. Bob and Ovule escape, and the cops, instead of turning in their other prisoners to other cops, drive around with Curette and her minions in the back of the patrol car. I'd cut the filmmakers a tiny bit of slack here, though, because if Curette and company were taken to a precinct, that would be the end of the conflict. But there's no excuse for all the tedious chase-scenes that serve to pad the running time. Prior to the climax of the film, the only points of interest is that when Ovule explains her alien origins to Bob, he thinks she's nuts and tries to get her mental help, only to end up escaping with her again. At one point, the betrayed Ovule reveals her priorities re: good slave-keeping by uttering the deahtless line, "If I weren't so tired I would beat you." Nevertheless, all the fighting and running may have an effect on her adrenaline, since she finally makes love to her Galahad. At the conclusion the film ramps up its energy slightly when Ovule and Curette square off and have a fistfight in an abandoned warehouse. After the heroine wins, her allies from the homeworld send her a teleport-device, and she persuades Bob to be her co-ruler. Oh, and she promises to do away with slavery as soon as they get back, just to ensure a happy ending. 

As a last touch of not-funny comedy, the producers imitated a schtick from MST3K-- which had premiered three years previous-- in that at the very end of the credit sequence, a line of dialogue from the film is replayed.