In pre-Hitler Germany, we are awash in decadence and cliches, and Tigress is the star of every show. Enjoyably bad, TIGRESS is an over-the-top costume drama that dishes out platitudes about love in a variety of accents, not all of them German.
Self-possessed Andrei (James Remar), a pedigreed dandy whose family has lost its money, jumps off a freight train in naughty Berlin. He catches the roving eye of Tigress (Valentina Vargas), a febrile cabaret dancer who lives off men, doesn't do drugs, and abhors pimps. Vexing her main lover,
Harry (Hannes Jaenicke), by running away with stand-offish Andrei, Tigress stops undulating long enough to implicate Harry in gem theft. Alas, the jewelry hasn't been stolen, so Harry is off the hook and hot for revenge--as well as hot for one more slow dance with untrustworthy Tigress.
Vowing to avoid complicated sentiment, Andrei and Tigress travel to Dresden, where they set records for frequency of intercourse but never utter those three little words. Despite their sophisticated attitude, Tigress is miffed when Andrei tries to fix her up with Count Beowulf (Rene
Schoenenberger) and Texas millionaire Sid Slaughter (George Peppard). Meanwhile unhinged by passion, Harry beats up Tigress's musician buddy, throws a whore out a window and generally misbehaves until he's told where Tigress has gone. Meanwhile, plotting to catch Tigress in bed with Slaughter so
he can blackmail the oil man, Andrei doesn't count on headstrong Tigress bungling his plan and driving off. Accidentally encountering jealous Harry at a train station, Andrei narrowly escapes, but is shot by the police and rolls in front of a train. Hopping another freight, Andrei is menaced by
tramps and jumps off--right into the path of Tigress.
A silly bodice-ripper about a tramp with a personal code and a seedy aristocrat who's misplaced his ethics, TIGRESS is ridiculous. Flaring her nostrils, continental actress Vargas mangles English charmingly but lacks the camp appeal a Maria Montez or Gina Lollobrigida brought to their lush,
dress-up epics. Stuck in a film that suggests LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD reset in a German beer garden, usually reliable second-stringer James Remar can't cut the mustard as a suave romantic lead. Although the photography is suitably florid, the costuming is rife with anachronism; the women are turned
out as if they were forced to whip through a Rent-a-Period-Piece Warehouse in record time. But then, nothing about the film seems quite authentic, from the crude score to the script's purple prose. When viewers are reduced to trying to match each of the heavily accented players with his/her
country of origin, it's clear that the film isn't holding attention. (Profanity, violence, nudity.) leave a comment
