Ginger 2, The Abductors (1972)
Directed by: Don Schain
Written by: Don Schain
Starring: Cheri Caffaro, Patrick Wright, Richard Smedley
THE ABDUCTORS (1972)
aka GINGER 2
Written and Directed by Don Schain
After a beauty queen and three cheerleaders are abducted in a remote area of America, sex-obsessed detective agent Ginger is sent on a mission to find the culprits and rescue the young women. Convincing her younger colleague to act as bait for the abductors in order to trap and follow them, Ginger thinks it’ll be a walk in the park with a bit of work and lots of play but it seems she’ll need to use her own persuasive powers if she’s to catch the abductors in the act.
Soft-core sexploitation film The Abductors portrays a female James Bond who uses her female cunning and wiles to solve the crime. With her vast experience, Ginger (Cheri Caffaro) knows how to get answers out of the opposite sex and hell, even when she gets them, she’ll carry on just for fun! What Ginger wants to know is why are the girls being abducted and what will the abductors do to them once they have them in their clutches. Casting your eyes upon the poster and the answer to that is pretty clear. A predictable tale introduced by a jazzy score offers a plot not that much deeper than a bad porno. Then again, the B-movie film isn’t exactly meant to be mentally taxing. This is Ginger’s show and she wants to put on a sexy performance for the viewers, using sex appeal to get her way, whether that’s to get laid or to lure out answers before providing a swift knee to the genitals. However, she’s got her work cut out as the brutes holding the girls aren’t for letting go their prized catches easily. Hulking Jablon (Patrick Wright) personally ensures the girls comply with his instructions to strip and become sexually proficient, promising to “break” them if they don’t. Having already raped one woman who didn’t comply, he’s happy to do so again and again if necessary. Jablon is good at his job and he enjoys it too. But who’s truly running the trafficking ring and selling these young women for $100,000 each?
Like most exploitation movies, prepare to see lots of topless ladies. However, this movie goes a little further with full frontal shots from both sexes, though mostly of the women, as well as a bit of on-screen female stimulation. The rest, from what I can gather, is simulated but there’s enough here to put this into a slightly different category than the grindhouse exploitation films that I’m used to watching where it’s simply nudity and simulated sex. Similar to other exploitation movies though, I wouldn’t class this as porn. One aspect that did catch my eye during the rape scenes, was that the victims seemingly enjoy it – similar scenes which caused controversy in Straw Dogs. When compared with the rape scenes of today’s movies, which are terrifyingly brutal to watch, the response of the women in the scenes in The Abductors seem more akin to rape fantasies rather than rape against the victim’s will, whilst the film tries to suggest that intercourse will make any woman compliable. However, the same could be applied to the men in this very film with the ladies using their assets and promise of sex to tempt, tease and get the better of the men.
Part crime drama and part action film, The Abductors seems to have it all: sex, crime, mystery and a gun fight. However, the low budget approach alongside some weak performances and a shallow screenplay leaves much to be desired. We’ve seen that exploitation flicks can be works of art – see any starring Pam Grier and the Ilsa series. Sadly, The Abductors’ budget constraints and lack of a meaty storyline doesn’t quite propel the movie into my exploitation favourites but that’s not to say it doesn’t work as-is. It’s cheap and cheerful and ticks the boxes it needs to without any extra padding… well, besides from a dance scene that goes on and on forever. Much like lead character Ginger, it gets what it wants and is then on its way. Nothing too taxing on the brain but a bit of detective fun all the same. As a genre film, this film is to the exploitation greats what Adam West’s Batman series is to Christopher Nolan’s franchise. It’s bare-bones but it works.
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