Corrections to Joe Bob Briggs' commentary on the Guilty Pleasures DVD
0:00:35 JBB expresses uncertainty about the amusement park's specific California location (Long Beach, San Pedro, or Santa Monica). It was in fact located in Long Beach, and was known as "The Pike". In several early scenes where Jerry, Angela, and Harold romp on the beach, you can see the just-opened-in-1962 Long Beach Arena to their left (as they face the ocean). It's painted in pink and white vertical stripes, and if you freeze-frame the film at the right moment you can see rectangular glass protrusions (blisters) periodically jutting out from it's base. Those are for the stairwells that take patrons between the lower and upper bowls. The pink and white vertical stripes were replaced by a huge aquatic mural in 1992, but the protrusions (blisters) will always be there and are the unique fingerprint that distinguishes this arena from all others. Readers need only type "Long Beach Arena Long Beach, California" into GoogleImages and GoogleMaps for more proof. The 1963 Roger Corman movie "X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" also features stock footage of this amusement park for the sequence where Ray Milland goes to work for Don Rickles.
0:30:00 These dancers are 3rd-level amateurs from Hollywood's fringes. They are not from Las Vegas, and especially not from the Frontier Hotel (this film didn't have the budget to transport anybody from Nevada to the Masonic lodge in Glendale where the dance numbers were shot).
0:31:03 JBB says that Toni Camel is the lead dancer in this number. She is not. Toni Camel is a brunette supporting dancer (the ones wearing red capes), and is the first one to enter from behind the doors, furthest to the viewer's left. As "Stella", she becomes more important to the movie later.
0:33:25 This date-asking scene serves to get Stella out of the amusement park and to a quieter locale, which provides Madam Estrella (and Jerry) with another killing opportunity that carries less risk of detection. The death of her innocent date (carnival barker Neil Stillman) illustrates The Law Of Unintended Consequences. I think it's very ungentlemanly of JBB to impugn Toni Camel's character by speculating "nefarious reasons".
0:33:36 This "particular train wreck / little nervous gal / poor little lambchop" is Carol Kay, the same girl who sings the classic "Shook Out of Shape" number. Paying attention much, JBB?
0:46:33 The reclining girl who starts the dream sequence is Marge, not Carmelita. Carmelita might be the one up on the stage furthest to the rear, in whiteface, and wearing a black cape.
0:47:09 This is not Angela. The blond shown here is a supporting dancer in some of the production numbers. She has no other spoken lines as far as I can tell.
0:48:47 It's Stella -- not Carmelita -- who is "whimpering a little bit".
0:53:49 It's Marge -- not Carmelita -- who is briefly revealed when Angela's twirling umbrella is pulled away.
0:56:26 Titus Moede's closeup reveals him to be clean-shaven and with absolutely nothing unkempt about him. In what way is he supposed to be a Hobo? Everything says "regular young man reading a newspaper & listening to the radio" to me. I'd expect a Hobo to reserve his meager coins for coffee & soup . . . not newspapers, radios, batteries (for radios), or shaving supplies.
0:59:22 Stella most certainly IS a supporting dancer in the "Shook out of Shape" number. She spends most (but not all) of it's run time in her usual spot to the left (as the audience views the stage).
0:59:44 Stella's function in the film is to communicate to Estrella that people have noticed who's coming & going in/out of her fortune-telling establishment. i.e., Eventually the police will trace one or more disappearances/murders back to Madam Estrella, thus uncovering her Zombie Zoo. This serves to alarm her into attempting to cover her tracks by Zombie-fy-ing her most recent hit-man: Jerry. i.e., get him off the street and into her cage.
1:00:12 Madam Estrella initially denies remembering anything about the previous nights' clientèle (Marge or those not Marge). Then she becomes more certain that Marge was never there the previous night.
1:00:26 In this scene, Stella and Estrella are talking about Marge and Estrella (the previous night). None of those three are minor characters. Examples of minor characters in ISCWSLABMUZ would be the sober-up-Marge nightclub owner, Stella's paramour carnival barker, Bill Ward, Angela's mom, etc., and none of them are referenced in this scene.
1:07:08 Estrella & Ortega are either wrapping LSD tabs for distribution, or preparing the next bottle of Zombie-creation acid.
1:09:45 The Zombies are not wearing football jerseys, referee jerseys, pajamas, nor prison uniforms. They're just striped shirts. The subconscious mind let's us see what we want to see.
1:12:19 It's a different carnival barker, not the one who got killed at Stella's apartment. Different uniform, different face, and different voice. This new barker can be seen & heard 57 minutes into the film, as, presumably, the previous barker Neil Stillman is off-duty preparing for his date.