Friday, May 3, 2013

Only As a Last Resort


Tiny, little Ann Chapman strikes up a conversation with your eyes, and brings new meaning to the idea of a pocket companion. She is featured on two matchbooks, these unstruck, which in the novelty world means a good thing, and with their matches intact (an even good-er thing). These come from "Dick's Last Resort," a chain restaurant with locations now in Maryland, Tennessee, South Carolina, Texas (where these originate), California, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Florida, and Nevada. I couldn't find anything on the location history of "Dick's" in Dallas, but date of production is presumed to be early 1970s. 


Chapman was a Russ Meyer one-shot, in the 1968 sleaze thriller "Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!" and she would act in only a handful of films, all as a dancer. Perhaps Ann was a dancer outside of her Hollywood career, and perhaps she frequented other Southwestern establishments / public pools. Whether or not Russ Meyer shot the photos used for these matchbooks is debatable (likely not); the image of her in a wicker chair is decidedly not Meyer-esque. He did capture her decently in FKLW, resulting as one of the filmmaker's oddest heroines. She also is privy to having been in one of Meyer's best love scenes: sex in a pool with underwater footage! She slams home on several occasions with her male counterpart and gives us an experience we need to towel-up after.

She didn't smile much in FKLW. There is, however, nothing odd about lighting up with a smile. 

No comments:

Post a Comment