Thursday, July 14, 2011

Ruby LaRocca

I had this genius idea to write an article about Ruby LaRocca. Don;t know who she is? Tough! I was going to scan pictures from my collection of films with her in them. I was going to put up all this titillation concerning Ms. LaRocca. It would be a great article.
Then I asked myself a question.
Why?
Why are you doing this article?
Well, see there was an event in November. An incident where Ms. LaRocca was injured and suffered brain damage. She is relearning to walk and talk and stuff. Having met her at Cinema Wasteland once it was heartbreaking to me that something like this would happen.
She is going to chronicle the event on her own blog to explain what went down. What? You want a link to her blog? Stop being so lazy and find it already. If the Internet made it any easier the human race would be extinct in a week.
So, I decided that this needed to be something...different.
So, ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, this is what Ruby LaRocca means to me.
Deal with it.
I started my career as a film reviewer with Cult Cuts. I will always be with Cult Cuts. They understand that I will watch anything and probably give it more of a fair shake than anyone else.
I became an expert in sexploitation films.
Around the same time Seduction Cinema came into being. Seduction Cinema did softcore spoofs of Hollywood flicks. Things like Playmate of The Apes, Spider Babe, Lord of the G-Strings...you get the idea.
Ruby LaRocca was in a lot of these films, but I was more interested in Misty Mundae. Not really all that interested in Ruby.
Then came Dr. Jekyll and Mistress Hyde.
This film means a lot to me for three reasons.
One, it showed me that Tony Marsiglia was a director to be reckoned with. I have been proven correct on that more than once since seeing this film. Anyone interested in true exploitation cinema needs to watch everything that he has made.
Two, it showed me that Misty Mundae was more than a pretty girl with little boobs. She could act.
Three, that Ruby LaRocca was suddenly on my radar.
Here was this beautiful girl, full of life, vibrant and with that little smirk that showed the devil inside of her. At the end of the film where she is dressed to the nines and the only sane person left after Jekyll's experiments, Ruby is a force to be reckoned with.
But that wasn't what did it.
Seduction Cinema is famous for the sheer amount of extras they put on a DVD. For Dr. Jekyll and Mistress Hyde it was a behind the scenes thing where Ruby and Misty just hung out and did stuff when they weren't making the movie.
It was fascinating to watch.
That was all I needed. Then came the list of movies;
THE DEVIL'S BLOODY PLAYTHINGS proved she could play sheer evil.
BIKINI GIRLS ON DINOSAUR PLANET showed she could do old school slapstick.
SHADOW: DEAD RIOT put her with some B movie heavy hitters and she held her own.
ZOMBIE CHRIST she put some class in Bill Zebub's epic.
A lot of people watch these videos to fixate on a particular actress and the whole lust thing rears it's ugly head.
Ruby was never like that.
I saw a bright, funny, intelligent woman who knew what she was doing and took it in directions that no one would have conceived of.
Do you know of anyone else who would be in ORGASM TORTURE IN SATAN'S RAPE CLINIC?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
So, anyway, Ruby's brain got hurt. I saw a YouTube video interview she did and it broke my heart.
Sort of.
Because she's still here with us and she's still Ruby.
That's a good thing.
Monica Puller should be given a sainthood and a medal for making sure that the sheer delight of Ruby LaRocca is still here with us.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Sometimes us film reviewer folk need to vent and tell you what is going on in the real world.
So, speaking of the real world...
Ruby has huge medical bills and needs to be able to continue with all of her therapy and whatnot. They have an online auction of art and cool stuff.
Go HERE to check out the cool stuff. Buy something or donate. Your choice.
So, no pictures, no video, nothing but this uber geek telling you what is up. What is going on in the world and what you need to do to help someone who deserves so much more than that.
Get out of here already.

  

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for taking the time to write such a beautiful blog about Ruby. Thank you for talking about all of the reasons she is multi-faceted with such honesty. This was a nice suprize for us both to see, and it made her day.

    -Monica

    ReplyDelete