Inner Sanctum

December 07, 2012

Inner Sanctum

Word of warning should be expressed, review will have written material and have screen caps that will feature adult themes and images.

Baxter has just had it with his clinging, belly-aching, sexually-resistant wife, Jennifer (Valerie Wildman) who suspected he was cheating on her with a new employee working at his firm, Anna (Margeaux Hemingway). While her suspicions are accurate, the main reason behind the adultery is her persistent nagging, needy, and affection-groveling nature which has driven him into repulsion towards her. Jennifer takes some pills, decides, out of fear, to ascend her stairs to Baxter for help, loses coordination and falls. Her legs are said to be fine yet Jennifer is confined to her wheelchair; a trick of the brain, something wrong with her, perhaps why she can’t walk. Whatever the case, Baxter is fed up and rarely answers her call to him. Her mere presence, and especially her voice, makes his skin crawl. He and Anna have announced their love to each other while screwing their brains out in his office, so Jennifer might be in a heap of trouble if he decides to get rid of the baggage weighing him down. If Jennifer wasn’t already self-conscious and ill at ease about her husband’s wandering libido, his new hire to be her caregiver certainly will encourage further suspicion: nurse Foster (Tanya Roberts, at the height of her sexual powers), a delectable looking woman definitely easy on the eyes.

I felt Inner Sanctum was the cinematic equivalent of a dimestore trash novel; you know, the kind that has the babe with the blouse sliding down her milky soft flesh as her stud’s 12:00 shadow, perfectly groomed bearded face presses his lips against her bosom?

The movie does Jennifer no favors. She’s always whimpering, pitiable, and weak. Baxter isn’t exactly a softhearted husband, his hardened assholish attitude won’t ingratiate himself to viewers, but because Jennifer demands so much from him. I’m guessing he’s never exactly been a model husband or an affectionate life-partner to her, so there’s zero empathy for Baxter but his straying kind of makes sense in a way, considering she is presented as exhausting. Being as she wants attention gravitated towards her direction, perhaps intentionally tossing her body down the stairs, Jennifer’s plight may earn little sympathy. The crux of the plot is that Jennifer seems trapped, compassed about with potential murderers all around her. Nurse Foster has a dark past involving her husband that Baxter seems to know about and her behavior indicates she might can be encouraged, for perhaps the right price, to get rid of a problem plaguing him..Jennifer. With Jennifer contained by a “mental paralyses” that keeps her in a wheelchair, married to a husband sexually involved with someone else, and under the care of a nurse who could kill her in a number of ways, some maybe untraceable, this movie sure places her in quite a predicament.

Fred Olen Ray’s directorial style isn’t that invasive. He shoots the plot, gets around showing too much during softcore scenes (he has it down to a fine art now), and his lighting is soft. There’s nothing extraordinary about the story, characters, or dialogue.

This is, however, definitely a vehicle for Tanya Roberts. The opening credits certainly establish that she’ll be having sex in the movie, a hook to keep you watching when the opening doesn’t exactly spark the flame. Valerie Wildman’s bleak face, her narrative voice (what’s going on in her head) lamenting her husband’s lack of interest in her, and the trip down the stairs. Roberts’ presence shakes things up and her character’s loyalties seem schizophrenic as it appears at times as if she is on the side of both parties, the man planning to murder his wife for her estate and deceased father’s inheritance, and the wheelchair-bound young woman who doesn’t know who to trust, quite paranoid of the nurse but unsure of her husband. Then the hunk moves in next door in the mansion and has a love connection to the new nurse. Could they be in cahoots together? What are they planning? Could their association soon involve the shaky married couple? Then there’s the husband’s extramarital affair with a business associate, the possible murder of his snooping firm employee, and the dubious nature of the nurse who might have murdered her husband with designs on getting her hands on some more dough if her new client were bumped off by the tired and embittered husband.

Fred Olen Ray understands that the appeal of this film will be the titillation factor of Roberts, her seductive power, how she’s shot in various stages of undress or with little on. Roberts is costumed in tight dresses, in a robe, her nurse’s uniform, in lingerie, and gown to fully acknowledge her fab figure. Roberts’ Bond Girl fame did little for her considering A View to a Kill (not by me) was one of the worst James Bond (and Roger Moore) films of the 007 franchise. She was unable to follow this up with much success, but her stunning looks assured she could still make some money, although I figure films like Inner Sanctum & Sins of Desire did little to boost her steadily declining career. Thankfully That 70s Show led to a career resurgence and proved she had solid comedic timing, not to mention, Roberts was comfortable parodying her sexpot image. I remember Roberts’ temporary gig (I often looked at this “host” roles as a thank-you for contributing to softcore) as the radio talk show host regarding sexual sexcapades called Hotline that featured relatively less-than-erotic tales on Cinemax. This was, to me, a means to make a little coin before a better gig came along. I don’t look down on her for capitalizing on her slight fame with Hotline, but it did say that her career had hit a snag.

Tanya Likes to Smoke

Anyway, Inner Sanctum was that movie that sort of enabled her ardent admirers a chance to see her nude and in a sexual embrace with men. She sure takes to her scenes with an enthusiasm and gung-ho spirit that shows on screen. What didn’t work for me was her decision to give her character this rather odd accent, and the character is all over the place. It was, I guess, an attempt to place a cloud of doubt regarding her loyalties, but for me it was just too broad.

Joseph Bottoms is just this cretin. He somehow has this ability to win over Margeaux Hemingway who seems lost in this movie; for me, it was like the filmmakers didn’t know what to do with her. With a cast crammed full as it is, Hemingway’s role seems to be that character that causes further estrangement in an already dysfunctional marriage; her sex scene in Bottoms’ office left me extremely uncomfortable because it is supposed to be erotic in how she seems to resist only to succumb to her own inner cravings for this man but instead, because of how she performs it, seems to be borderline rape. He won’t take no for an answer, pressing her body against his office door as she tries to get out of the room, groping her body and hair, eventually his pinning her into an embrace leads to sexual pounding as the secretary outside listens with a look of “there they go again” on her face.

Wildman has two dream sequences relating her fear of the husband cheating: Bottoms gets to shag both Hemingway and Roberts in separate encounters as a helpless and agonizing Wildman looks on, pleading for him to stop, unsuccessful. In the first dream, she loses her mouth to a blank face, her wrist and throat sliced by him, a grin on his face. The second has Roberts and Bottoms getting hot and heavy on his living room couch as Wildman stretches forth her wedding-ring fingered hand, unable to sound, opining his passion. Both instances identify that she is anguished by the thought of losing her husband to other women, but this inability to surrender her own body to him also exists. It’s a no-win deal for both partners.

To me, it is set up like a modern noir with characters pining for ways out of their current lives, or away from particular people and situations. You see Bottoms sometimes weary and worn, outside smoking a cigarette, trying to conceal his plans to murder Wildman, while Roberts sees what he’s up to and calls him out on it. Eventually he is propositioned by Roberts to form a partnership—right out of Body Heat—getting rid of each one’s lovers. Then you see Roberts trying to convince Wildman she’s in danger, hoping to get her to realize that Bottoms is no good. Wildman, while bothered deeply by dreams of her husband’s cheating, still considers Roberts the threat. Brett Baxter Clark seems cast because of his Pecs and abs rather than his acting ability. You have to give Roberts someone to shag that is worthy of her ravishing. Their scene is basic softcore stuff. She dances for him in his trench coat (he’s a detective investigating Bottoms), removes her panties, tossed to him after slowly taking them off for his viewing pleasure as he sniffs them (!), and eventually allows this hunk to have his way with her (although, it’s obvious she’s in command as he is more or less the recipient of the pleasure Roberts provides..).

Strangely, I was most aroused when Wildman is needing help with her robe and Bottoms starts to remove her gown, her tiny shoulder straps sliding down, his hand slightly touching her breast as she resists, his reaction of abject rejection and bitter anger perhaps warranted considering this barrier keeping him from getting any sort of passion from his wife. I personally found Wildman quite an attractive woman, and denying a man his pleasure, particularly being her character’s husband, produces that extra bit of incentive needed to get rid of her. She loves this man yet isn’t able to provide—perhaps capable is a better word—what he craves in the bedroom, so he looks elsewhere. She wants affection but not what usually follows it. I guess that was the turn on besides the way the gown straps slide down her flesh. This was an interesting moment with Fred Olen Ray’s camera, too, in how it follows the straps as they slip down, scrolling down to her breast as Bottoms’ hand cops a feel, with her pulling away. This could be the very moment she forever loses him. Just before this, we watched as Bottoms would not take no for an answer when Hemingway tried to get out of the office, and so he really needed only a minor bump over the precipice to make the decision to plot to get rid of her.

While I didn’t think Inner Sanctum was 2.2/10 bad, I didn't think the movie was anything spectacular. And it just sort of ends with Wildman walking again (as you had to figure she would when properly motivated to do so when it mattered most), coming to the rescue of Roberts who finally proved whose side she was on, with the repeated use of a shovel, as Bottoms finally comes unglued (Hemingway's finally being through with him might have been the straw that broke the camel's back). It is just kind of there and has the two ladies walking away. The performances are rather flat although Roberts seemed to be having fun in her role as the babe who commands the attention of those who see her. And there's this wild side, as if caged and through Fred Olen Ray's film, was freed. This didn't seem to be enough, though, considering the rating. This says something; you can have Roberts nude and in the throes of ecstasy with two lucky guys, but if there isn't a story and characters of some worth, it isn't enough. Ultimately, it is up to the viewer to decide if her sex scenes are good enough, her naked flesh desirable enough, to sit through the rest.