Overview: Wealthy old coot Shugfoot Rainey wants to trade in his over-the-hill mistress for his young niece, Baby Doll Jonelle, a pouty-faced stripper from New Orleans. But Rainey’s mistress, Linda, has a surprise for both: according to Texas law, she’s Shugfoot’s COMMON LAW WIFE and has no intention of leaving quietly!

Jonelle, however, is so eager to get her greedy mitts on Uncle Rainey’s loot that she ups the ante by having a moronic moonshiner put cyanide in Shugfoot’s whiskey! All of which lead to the two women eventually squaring off in a surprisingly violent showdown.

With its small-town setting and hilariously rotten characters, Common Law Wife is an overripe slice of Southern sleaze courtesy of cult director Larry Buchanan, the outrageous auteur of Mars Needs Women!

Also included is the feature, Jennie, Wife/Child, a twenty-year-old is unhappily married to the way-too-old-for-her, Albert Peckingpaw. Jennie is so unhappy she puts the moves on Mario, the hunky hired hand. But when Albert realizes Jennie and Mario have been makin’ bacon in the barn, he drugs them, chains them in the cellar, and digs their graves!

Which is when Lulu Belle, the cheerful town floozie, unexpectedly pays Albert a visit. From the director of The Sadist and featuring music by Davie Allan and the Arrows, and photography by Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Jennie, Wife/Child easily exudes the long-lost charms of an evening at a Carolina drive-in!

Blu-ray Verdict: Common Law Wife is indeed a rather weird film that was sold as an exploitation movie, but it barely fits into that genre, if truth be told. I guess the idea of you living with someone and then legally being considered married was a shocking subject to some back in 1963, but the film itself isn’t quite as good as one would have hoped. With that said, there are enough weird moments to make it worth watching, trust me on that!

Personally, I thought the first half of the film was better than the second half. During the opening we get to have fun meeting all of these strange characters, including the niece who seems to have no problem being sexual with her old uncle. This is a rather creepy, but funny moment and we also get some rather funny dialogue dealing with the lover character seeking revenge as the new wife.

The second portion of the film gets bogged down in a bunch of melodrama, but it does lead up to a rather shocking ending. Oh boy, does it! That said, sure, this may be a somewhat rough slog for some viewers, seeing that the principal trio of characters are not exactly nice people, but this will only add to the experience for others; for the performances suit the material, believe me.

Also included is a movie which was alternately called The Tender Grass, but is known today as Jennie Wife/Child and whilst the first title is just strange, the second seems to connect it to the old rural roadshow hicksploitation movies like Child Bride and Poor White Trash; where horny, slobbering hillbillies try to marry twelve-year-old girls!

The female lead here though is actually twenty (and played by an actress who looks even older than that), so this is really more of a conventional sexploitation potboiler about a younger woman who is married to a much older dirt farmer, but lusts after his hunky but dimwitted farmhand - who is himself rooting around with the town tart!

Although the acting is not too great, all the roles are played fairly straight, but the goofy intertitles and even goofier songs suggest that the filmmakers themselves weren’t taking this thing entirely seriously, one feels. It isn’t ever exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but it seems to have the kind of wry, self-conscious irony of an Andy Warhol film, which I personally loved.

However, the great black-and-white cinematography by renowned Hungarian cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond is well above the level of either a typical roadshow flick OR a Warhol factory art film, of that you have my word.

However, as a sexploitation flick it’s pretty tame for 1968, not showing much more than one of the old roadshow films of the 40’s - much like long shots of the cute little backside of the heroine as she skinny-dips in the local waterin’ hole; and to the catchy tune of a song called My Birthday Suit (but at least she isn’t twelve years old like the girl in Child Bride).

In truth, I’m basically a sucker for any of these rural hicksploitation flicks, but I’d especially recommend this one for the incredible cinematography ... and because it’s just so damn weird! [L.R.]

Special Features:
Archival commentary for Common Law Wife from Director Larry Buchanan
That’s Hickploitation new feature by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures
Original new commentary for Common Law Wife by Millie De Chirico and Ben Cheaves
Original new commentary for Jennie Wife/Child by Millie De Chirico
Lisa Petrucci from Something Weird Video provides our liner notes

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