Today, you’re getting an education because you’ve probably never heard of Stacey Walker, either.
In a conversation I had years ago with Dave Friedman the director of this film [the legendary Russ Meyer looking on, no less], Friedman agreed with my assessment that Walker may have been the most erotic woman ever to appear in a skinflick.
Besides having a tempestuous body, Walker certainly had that Marilyn Monroe quality of innocence yet danger simmering and coiling just beneath the surface. The kind of danger that makes men stupid, and that factor is played to the hilt in A Smell of Honey…
Friedman likes to tell the story of how he was out walking on the Santa Monica Pier one afternoon, when Walker, a runaway from Texas, approached him and asked if he would buy her a hot dog. Best investment he ever made since Friedman got two pictures out of her [the other being The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill].
Friedman would have had more if Walker, obviously the flake that she was, didn’t take off and was never heard from again. According to Friedman, Paramount was very interested in her based on one of their execs having seen Walker in this little black & white, nourish-style film shot on the very cheap. By that time, though, Walker had flown the coop.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the realities of the skin trade that often sees the flickering entrances and equally fast exits of women with otherwise remarkable potential.
The camera loved her, and Walker’s bitchy, come hither performance in A Smell of Honey is one of those that begs the eternal debate of what might have been. More interesting fodder for inane cocktail party chit chat happens to be that the cinematographer was the legendary Laszlo Kovacs. Kovacs, who escaped Hungary during the Communist takeover, went on to the Hollywood A-list with Easy Rider, Ghost Busters and other notable fare.
The fact that Walker’s co-star was Sam Melville who went on to star in TV’s The Rookies makes it pretty hard to recall another skinflick with this kind of interesting pedigree.
Walker, playing a secretary by day, temptress by night, yells rape every time a man gets too close to her emotionally, but she does get naked a whole lot. In one of those instances when she doesn’t, Walker frustrates Melville to the point that his demons urge him to rape the first woman he comes across.
Ordinarily that sounds pretty shocking, but played out as pure skinflick opera, it’s more hilarious than not. Walker works up all her men like that, though at some point you gotta know she’s going to meet up with the wrong guy- one who won’t stand for her callous, manipulative shenanigans.
