Raquel Welch’s 1969 thriller Flareup might be worth watching for the amazing opening credit sequence, which is good, because you certainly don’t want to watch it for the actual film. Don’t get us wrong—anything with Welch in it is worth a glance but this one is really bad. First clue? The theme song, in which Les Baxter backs a cheeseball singer intoning, “Gonna be a flare up… flare up!” Since the intro sequence seems visually inspired by James Bond movies, maybe the idea of using the actual title in the theme song à la Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger,” or Lulu’s “The Man with the Golden Gun,” seemed like a logical next step. Bad idea, though, because the song is laughably terrible.
Immediately after the credits the story opens with that most American of events—an attempted mass killing—as a Vegas go-go dancer is shot in a restaurant by her estranged husband. Welch plays Michele, the victim’s friend whose advice helped spawn divorce proceedings. Because of this the husband tries to perforate her as well, never quite managing to get a clear shot as she dodges amongst the restaurant’s ferns and potted palms. The husband escapes the scene of the crime and when the police arrive they agree that vengeance will continue to be on his mind and Michele should be extremely careful.
But a girl has to earn a living even if she’s the target of a maniac. Even if she’s refused police protection for reasons that aren’t clear. Even if she works into the wee hours and parks her car in the Plutonian nether reaches of the public lot. So that night she goes to the club and gyrates
onstage to the groovy strains of a song called—care to guess?—“Micheeeeele… I like the way you move… I like the way you dance … I like the way you groove… Oh! Micheeeeele… Call your mama… Michele call your papa… I got something to say…. Hey hey hey… hey hey hey…. Heeeeeeeey hey hey hey hey hey hey…” You get the idea.
onstage to the groovy strains of a song called—care to guess?—“Micheeeeele… I like the way you move… I like the way you dance … I like the way you groove… Oh! Micheeeeele… Call your mama… Michele call your papa… I got something to say…. Hey hey hey… hey hey hey…. Heeeeeeeey hey hey hey hey hey hey…” You get the idea.Welch suffers a near miss from her stalker and at that point skips town for Los Angeles, where she falls into bed with the first guy she meets—the valet at her new go-go club, because valets are well known for pulling the hottest women on the planet. In between enjoying copious helpings of Welch’s passionfruit juice the new boyfriend promises to act as bodyguard, but it’s Welch herself who must take matters into her own hands and dispatch her tormentor in brutal fashion when he shows up in town.
Everything with this movie is off—script, direction, action, everything. The acting is uniformly horrific too, including from Welch, though she’s orders of magnitude better than her co-stars. Put Flareup on around even your dullest friends and they’ll all be shining comedic geniuses by the second act. The script lobs up softball after softball, serious MST3K level material. In fact, hang on, let us check—nope, looks like Mystery Science Theater never spoofed Flareup. Well, they should have.
There are too many great lines and ridiculous moments to enumerate but the one that really got us came at about a hundred minutes when a character asks Welch if she works at the hospital down the road. Welch giggles and says, “Yeah sure—I’m a brain surgeon.” Aww… don’t put yourself down like that Raquel. You may not be a brain surgeon, but you sure do a number on people’s heads. Flareup premiered in New York City in November 1969 and hit Japan today in 1970, where it was called Denjâ, which means “Danger.”
