Books, Arts & Manners: B Movies

BAD GIRLS is not the first female western, but it is the first to receive much—though mostly unfavorable—attention. Why? To begin with, it has four heroines, making it a buddy or gang western, the supposed equivalent of The Wild Bunch, which it variously pays homage to and rips off. Second, its heroines are whores, or ex-whores, which is a novelty. Only a seeming one, though, for all of them have hearts of—maybe not quite gold, but certainly silver.

All these beauties ended up in a saloon instead of a salon through unkind circumstances wholly beyond their control. As a result, they are not really that hoary cliché the whore with the heart of gold, but hearts of gold briefly tainted by whoring—a newer cliché. Yet were they ever bona-fide harlots, to use the period parlance? One woman declares, “At least I never let one of them kiss me,” a not inconsiderable victory in the kind of gun-happy bordello we’re shown.

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John Simon

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BAD GIRLS is not the first female western, but it is the first to receive much—though mostly unfavorable—attention. Why? To begin with, it has four heroines, making it a buddy or gang western, the supposed equivalent of The Wild Bunch, which it variously pays homage to and rips off. Second, its heroines are whores, or ex-whores, which is a novelty. Only a seeming one, though, for all of them have hearts of—maybe not quite gold, but certainly silver.

All these beauties ended up in a saloon instead of a salon through unkind circumstances wholly beyond their control. As a result, they are not really that hoary cliché the whore with the heart of gold, but hearts of gold briefly tainted by whoring—a newer cliché. Yet were they ever bona-fide harlots, to use the period parlance? One woman declares, “At least I never let one of them kiss me,” a not inconsiderable victory in the kind of gun-happy bordello we’re shown.