Marquee Gazing: SAVAGE SISTERS at the Woods

Eddie Romero's action-packed fighting femmes flick SAVAGE SISTERS (1974), now available as an MGM Limited Edition DVD-R, has been a TOS favorite since its occasional appearances on Commander USA's Groovy Movies beginning in August 1986. So imagine our surprise when we spotted it on the marquee of Chicago's legendary Woods Theater during a recent viewing of the Michael Keaton-meets-Maria Conchita Alonso romcom TOUCH AND GO (1986).

About an hour into the movie, 12-year-old Louis DeLeon (Ajay Naidu), streetwise son of single mom Denise DeLeon (Alonso), skips school to see SCARFACE in one of the last of the Loop theaters.

However, the establishing shot in this open matte VHS source reveals the actual program at the Woods that week: THE BOUNTY (1984), starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins and released by Orion Pictures, paired with the decade-older AIP release SAVAGE SISTERS.

We knew Orion had kept many of the '70s AIP films in theatrical circulation until 1987, so the appearance of SAVAGE SISTERS on a marquee with a then-new Orion release didn't surprise us.

What did surprise us was the realization that TOUCH AND GO -- an August 1986 release evidently filmed during the spring of 1984 -- was in theaters at the same time we first caught SAVAGE SISTERS on the USA Network!