Scorchers

Rating: 6
Tony Rating: 8

Summary/Review:

I didn't think I liked this movie early on, but the further I got, the more I did. It seems more of a stage piece than a film, somehow. Set in a small town in Louisiana, the film alternates between two sets of characters in the course of one evening/night. One group consists of a girl who's just gotten married and refuses to sleep with her new husband. Her father and husband try to convince her it must be done, but she finally reveals that she's scared she'll die. Her mother died giving birth to her, and she's afraid that if she has sex, she'll have a baby and die too. In a surprisingly touching scene, the father helps the girl make peace with her dead mother.

The other group of characters appear at the town bar. Denholm Elliot plays the town drunk who likes classical music, and he and James Earl Jones, the bartender, have several good scenes. At one point, the town prostitute (Faye Dunaway) joins them. Later, she is confronted by a girl (Jennifer Tilly), the preacher's daughter, whose husband doesn't sleep with her anymore but instead sleeps with the prostitute. The ensuing scene of the prostitute's advice manages to stay away from cliche, and the two have some good exchanges. Tilly's character goes home a changed woman, and she and her husband make love.

Anthony Geary:

Tony himself made this a must see when he said in an interview his butt was "all over the screen" in this one. That scene opens the movie, when his character, the preacher known only as "Preacher," is late for a wedding because he's getting his daily fix from the town prostitute. The scene is a scream, because after...er...taking care of business, Preacher immediately falls to the floor asking God for forgiveness, then takes off running, naked under his robe, to make it to the church on time. After that, Preacher only makes a couple of brief appearances in the crowd at the wedding party. Geary wears glasses, and his hair is straight and greying in this one; he brushes it back from his face, and it's cut even across the nape of his neck.

Scorchers on the IMDB