Moving from the dusty western setting of Powder Burns, Alex de Renzy and his troupe of lovable weirdos took their action to more bucolic digs for Little Sisters, made and released in the sun-bronzed year that was 1972. A ragged and tough twelve months for the counterculture as they watched George McGovern get dog-walked by Richard Nixon in November, and with little energy or recourse to do much about it, Little Sisters seems cheerier and brighter than some of the dourness and cynicism that underscored even the most popular entertainment of the day. After all, this was the year that also gave us The Godfather, a rather unflattering (if true) view on the American Dream, and Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones’s magnum opus that, upon release, sounded to many like it had been murkily recorded while the band was in a heroin slouch.
Told as a dirty fairy tale, Little Sisters begins by introducing us to a mom and her two daughters, Emily and Kandi (Clair Dia and Kandi Johnson, respectively) live in a trailer on the edge of the woods where they scour the wilderness for food, feed the animals, and live a peaceful life. All is not well in the kingdom, though as the two young girls are routinely and sternly warned to not go beyond the woods as there are are dangerous folks afoot. And, sure enough, there is a rough group of miscreants nearby who have taken to raping and pillaging everything in their path. When the gang stumbles upon the trailer, the girls are soon kidnapped and the mother embarks on a mighty quest to get them back.
One Little Sisters’s greatest strengths is that it comes on strong like a delightfully perverted fairy tale, something de Renzy would toy with and perfect with Femmes de Sade a few years later. The idea of a kingdom in which a troupe of antiestablishment freaks plays out a wild tale of debauchery is much like what John Waters was doing in Baltimore at the time (and would semi-perfect with Desperate Living), but the added attraction of non-simulated sex obviously gives Little Sisters a slightly more anarchic edge. To this end, the film has de Renzy’s most varied cast and it really represents the best of the sexual spirit of San Francisco of the time. There is a real “anything-goes” attitude in this film that never really casts as wide a net in any of de Renzy’s future work as it is here. Little Sisters reflects de Renzy’s commitment to variety as everything is included here such as a ribald Jack Sprat scenario with a rubenesque woman and her diminutive lover (both of whom were also seen in the audience scrum in Behind the Green Door). Also included is the mother’s visit to a religious sect of monks headed up by Dale Meador (who is hilarious as usual) which culminates in an all-male orgy.
A great wealth of imagination and play is devoted to the costuming and props found in Little Sisters. From the peacock-colored drag queens in the woods to the cornucopia of goofy weaponry such as plastic baseball bats, water guns, and dildos, everything in the film feels fired by the best kind of hallucinogenics and inspiration. The stolen music from Santana, Miles Davis, Jack Nitzsche, and Pink Floyd gives effective assistance and is spotted beautifully.
De Renzy also gets to show off another one of his talents in Little Sisters which is an employment of his zany humor. For the first time in his career as a feature director, de Renzy pulls off something that’s genuinely hip and funny, two traits that would also mark his best work going forward. This attitude also ensures that the rougher parts of the story are still treated with a spirit of a fun put-on, and any untoward behavior between the characters usually melts into either a two-way passion in short order, or everyone on screen is fighting mightily to keep their composure. Though it’s a movie that features kidnapping, rape, pillaging, and revenge, never is any of it supposed to be taken seriously and the audience can clearly hear it in Kandi Johnson’s tone when she pleads with the tormenters to leave her sister alone as “she’s only twelve!” There probably aren’t many viewers out there who won’t chuckle at the ridiculousness of the statement given that Clair Dia was around twenty-four at the time (and looks it).
To be sure, Little Sisters is Alex de Renzy’s first great adult narrative feature and it contains his most joyous, freewheeling filmmaking since the Canada trip in Weed. Watched in 2025, the rousing, off-kilter rendition of “America the Beautiful” that closes the film out via the wide net chorus of misfits, aging hippies, and sex workers still gets a smile, but it also has become a little bittersweet in our divided times. But maybe it should give some glimmer of hope? For if this ragtag gaggle of characters can be united in a quest to monetize cinematic hedonism and have some fun, surely there is a chance, however seemingly slight, that the same kind of joyous spirit of camaraderie can be found again someday.
(C) Copyright 2025, Patrick Crain
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