Wild Orchid 2: Two Shades of Blue (1992)

*** / ****
In 1958 Sacramento, Blue (Siemaszko) loses her horn playing jazz musician father (Tom Skerritt, taking some cash for little screen time) to heroin overdose/car crash and has no future or home, lured into call girl brothel life by a persuasive (in more ways than one) madam, Elle (Wendy Hughes), capitalizing on her poverty and desperation. But this life just isn’t for Blue, even as she tries to adapt and survive, eventually receiving help from Elle’s bodyguard and groundskeeper, Sully (Davi, in one of his nicest and surprisingly warm performances/roles) when a terrible senator (Christopher McDonald; who else?!) wants to abuse her in a stag film. Can Blue truly get away from Elle, who is quite invested in her ability to bring a lot of clients and profit? Will Sully even be capable of stopping her?

The film includes Josh (Brent Fraser), the high school quarterback, as Blue’s love interest, and bar owner, Jules (Warhol alum, Dallesandro), who is so contemptible and sleazy he agrees to provide Blue heroin for her father if she sleeps with him (even worse is that he had watched her grow up from childhood!). Josh has an overbearing father demanding so much from him, while Blue’s past at the brothel might be used against her thanks to Elle’s desire to get her back into the fold.

If you know Zalman King or are familiar with “Red Shoe Diaries” then his style and flavor, his attraction to soap opera melodrama and revealing the worst (but not always) of human (mostly men’s) behavior, attention to provocative themes (how sex can be used against people, how terrible situations pull people into a world they otherwise might never enter if things were different, the difference in sex and love and how it can get muddled and messy), and how his central characters navigate the most intense feelings and passions, Wild Orchid 2: Two Shades of Blue follows that same mold. With King, though, there is a lot of cringe and problematic elements certain to provoke eyerolling reactions, perhaps discomfort, and yikes. King’s use of certain songs, in particular, inevitably crack me up and how serious he approaches the material (often silly and cheesy) can be a bit much. King fills his films with shadowy noirish lighting, smoke-filled rooms, blasting horn, slow, sensual stripteases (if you are seriously troubled or frustrated with the male gaze, King is certainly and probably not for you), prurient tastes of clientele satiated by the madam’s finest (many of whom are old with a lot of money and power), and a potential future for at least his main lead despite setbacks.

Siemaszko is a stunning blonde with a sad face, perfect for King’s dreary stories where loss and longing often plague his characters, while others exploit and victimize in order to gain advantage. These stories are nothing new, but King has his own personal touch that is recognizable if you watch enough of his work, his productions. I was actually surprised of how much Siemaszko gives of herself. I was just expecting King to use body doubles for her nude scenes. But she is willing to go to a certain point, while I think if he ever had a great muse to build melodrama around, Siemaszko is perfect in the role. His camera captures the nuance in her ache, the yearning for something more, the disappointment in her father, the battle inside to submit her body to the bordello life, and the frustrations of having no place to go. And King establishes Blue just wants to be a teenager (she’s said to be 18 when her virginity was given up for her father’s addiction habit, and clearly enters the brothel at that same age) and have that high school life. King lays out how Blue had to grow up way before her time.

King is an acquired taste and his films will be seen as dated and maybe not fitting for the appetite of modern audiences. King has that approach that can be quite alluring or campy depending on the viewer.

Skerrit has that epic rage fit where his cane tears a room apart. Siemazsko mocking an obnoxious blowhard in the middle of a room full of people, dropping to the floor and howling, as he feels humiliated is perhaps my favorite scene in the film.