Cher Scholar and Robrt Pela Discuss Chastity, the Movie

Time and Date of Conversation: August 2 and August 15, 2026

Robrt: Hi, Mary. So, I just watched Chastity for what has to be the two-dozenth time. I have Chastity fatigue.

Mary: Oh no. Well, I went to my first dispensary today so we are both compromised. It’s legal here now. Used to be just medicinal.

Robrt: Well, as Chastity would say, about marijuana, “I know I don’t want this anymore…”

Mary: Right? I didn’t even know that was pot in that scene until my husband, Mr. Cher Scholar, told me. Can we talk about that? Why is she smoking pot when Sonny and Cher were so against that the drugs?

Robrt: I know! I want to know when you first knew about this movie.

Mary: I didn’t know about it until I read about it in J. Randy Taraborrelli’s Cher bio in about 1986. It was in the mid-2000s when I found a bootleg VHS on eBay. I watched it in LA with my friend Julie and we laughed a lot and scratched our heads a lot. I was shocked there was a lost Cher movie out there. How about you?

Robrt: Well, I was sitting in the kitchen eating lunch one day in 1968 and my sister came home and said, “My friends and I were just at Jack in the Box and we met Sonny and Cher! They’re in town making a movie!”

Mary: OMG. That should have been you.

Robrt: Well, I was 6 years old. My sister was 21.

Mary: Were you into Sonny and Cher yet?

Robrt: Yes. I had Look at Us (which had been my sister’s copy) in mono and the Atco Best of.

Mary: It makes sense Cher would want to eat at Jack in the Box. She loves their tacos.

Robrt: Here’s the other memory I have about Chastity, which would be the first time I would have known about it: It was December of 1971 and I was at Kmart with my parents. I was nine. And in the record department they had the Chastity soundtrack album in a cut-out bin.

Mary: Wow…you saw the album in the wild.

Robrt: I did. I didn’t realize it was the movie shot in Phoenix that my sister had mentioned a few years before, I don’t think. And here’s my precise memory of that album cover: The photo of Cher pumping gas.

Mary: Yes! Great picture. Arm akimbo pumping gas.

Robrt: So, those are my Chastity origin stories.

Mary: When did you get to finally see the movie?

Robrt: I didn’t see it until the DVD was coming out. I got the press release from the releasing company and requested a review copy so that I could write about it for my job at New Times here in Phoenix.

Mary: 2004? Really?

Robrt: Yes, because my review of Chastity was published in early 2005. So, I hadn’t seen it before then but I did know about it and knew that it was lost.

Mary: 2005. That’s a long time to wait.

Robrt: 36 years! Okay, let’s talk about the opening credits. Could Sonny’s name be any bigger?

Mary: Cher’s name was pretty big.

Robrt: He’s a space hog. She’s the star!

Mary: But he did all the work! (I’m channeling Sonny here.)

Robrt: You are Sonny.

Mary: I love that little yellow petal because….the sunflowers! One of my favorite images.

Robrt: You recently pointed out, in your new Chastity essay, about the artwork used in the opening credits. It made me really look at the drawings of Cher this time. My husband watched with me last night, and during the credits he was like, “Ugh! Are we at a student art show?”

Mary: One thing I saw yesterday that bothers me: There’s the final card of the opening credits (“Color by Deluxe…”) stuck in the middle of the opening credits. That seems like a mistake.

Robrt: Yes, that’s weird. And I need to talk about how, over the opening credits, Cher is running toward the camera for what seems like a full hour. Still, I love that shot, as dumb and way-too-long as it is.

Mary: I had never noticed this before, in all my prior viewings, but Mr. Cher Scholar commented on what a challenging shot this must have been, to keep Cher in focus as she’s running toward the camera from far away.

Robrt: And can we talk about how this running footage was reused in the Sonny and Cher “Nitty Gritty Hour” special in 1970? She was singing “Danny Boy” and there was the running and then there were scenes from Chastity going to the church. Which kind of makes me want to take an aspirin.

Mary: I have never understood what Cher Chastity movie footage had to do with a TV performance of “Danny Boy” unless Sonny just couldn’t let his movie go. The song is not in the movie. Why use it for a movie plug? I never liked those 1980s MTV videos that were also movie theme songs and tried to incorporate scenes from current movies into their videos. But at least those songs were in those movies. The Cher “Danny Boy” TV special video is both ahead-of-its-time and even more ridiculous than those annoying videos to come.

Robrt: Yes, I think you’re right. Maybe Sonny wanted to use that footage, somehow. And they already had it, and no one had gone to the drive-in to see Chastity, so…someone (probably Sonny) got the bright idea of sticking it in the TV special while Cher sings an Irish folk song.

Mary: So, in your published review in 2005, you wrote that Chastity was “beguilingly awful.” Same assessment?

Robrt: Yes. Sort of. So, about the movie as “good” or “bad”: I think it’s too easy to dismiss this as a “bad movie.” I know I’m always talking about context where Sonny Bono is concerned, but context here is so important when you’re talking about this movie’s quality. Because you have to consider the time in which it was made.

Mary: I agree.

Robrt: It was 1968 and I think Sonny was trying to make a New Cinema movie. He wanted to make a “now, with it” movie for the young audience, as has been documented, to get Sonny and Cher “relevant” again with the youth market by making one of those gritty, morally ambiguous, arty films that were about to take over Hollywood. Again, I’m going to call him iconoclastic and I’m going to call him slightly ahead of the curve. As I’ve done before about his engagement with World Music in the 1960s.

Mary: Yes. But do you have the same reaction every time you see it? Are you pretty solid in your like/dislike amounts?

Robrt: No. Last time I watched it I thought, Huh, this isn’t as terrible as I recall. Last night I watched it and felt less generous.

Mary: For me it’s like listening to Cher’s 1979 Prisoner album. Sometimes I think, This is not so bad. And sometimes I think Oh, this is very bad.

Robrt: Yes, I agree about Prisoner. But isn’t that true with so much Cher product?

Mary: Yes. There are good bad Cher things, good good Cher things, and some plain bad Cher things, and the borders are a bit fluid over time. So, your “beguilingly awful” comment almost sounds like a definition of camp. And I asked you this about Good Times so I feel I have to ask it again here: Does Chastity rise to the level of camp?

Robrt: Camp is only camp when it’s unintentional. This film was not trying to be what we would come to call “campy,” and therefore, since you’re asking, I guess it is camp.

Mary: But this could be unintentionally camp. Especially the Barbara London areas.

Robrt: The lesbian love scene can be seen both ways: Camp, or Art Film.

If we say that Easy Rider is the movie that defined that era of New American Cinema—and that movie came out literally the week before Chastity—then I think we can also say that Sonny was at least in lockstep with the youth culture and the hippie creatives like Dennis Hopper. And he wasn’t young, and he wasn’t a hippie! So I remain impressed by his insights into pop culture of the time.

Mary: But Cher says she and Sonny didn’t see many movies at that time. Was Sonny stepping out to cinemas on his adulterous nights?

Robrt: My take is that Sonny was very tied in to what was happening in everything in show biz. He was always a good businessman in that way.

Mary: He did have director friends. Friedkin and Coppola.

Robrt: He read the trades. His songwriting reflects his awareness of “the times.” And Friedkin and Coppola were involved in New Cinema. Does Cher say “We didn’t go to movies much” in relation to Chastity, or just in a general way? I don’t recall.

Mary: She said they saw very few movies, but that The Graduate was one they did see (at least together). If he would have just taken her out to the movies more often, we might have had a few more years of Sonny and Cher.

Robrt: Sonny was totally aping the New Hollywood auteur director thing, even though Sonny didn’t direct this movie, which I can finally say with some confidence, despite all the conspiracy theories you and I have cooked up over the years. Which we can talk about later.

Mary: Okay. Let’s discuss Cher’s performance. How is it? And is she just playing Cher?

Robrt: You and I have talked endlessly about the variations on Cher, and I think all of them are grounded in truth, which may be why she’s a good actress: She does that actorly thing of calling on parts of herself. When I watched her performance this time, I was of two minds, and at different points: There were times where I thought, She’s awkward and mumbly and stiff and fey, but…wouldn’t a “teenaged girl” actually behave that way? So then, yes, the performance is “good.” And I have to say this: That is one excellent crying scene. I mean, she really falls apart in a very “real” way.

Mary: Cher is a good actress, even in this raw state. When the time came and called her…she arrived. I think her performance in Chastity is okay. It’s not bad. She’s not charming the screen as she would do in the 1980s. But she’s also not embarrassing herself. She’s better than she was in Good Times, which wasn’t bad either. She’s so watchable. So photographable.

Robrt: I think Good Times was easier for her because she was playing Cher. Or, “Cher.” But with Chastity, this was the first time she was asked to create a character. And I agree with you about how commanding she is. While we were watching the movie, my husband said, “You can see the actor she was going to become by watching her in this movie.”

Mary: Yes! I agree with Todd there. This might be a good time to get back into the idea of Cher myths that are perpetrated in these films. At breakfast today I was listing out the graduations: Cher as Cher as character: Chastity, Witches of Eastwick, Burlesque, the Mamma Mia sequel. Cher as ostensibly Cher: Good Times, Stuck on You. Cher as a real character: Moonstruck, Suspect, …Jimmy Dean, Mask.

Robrt: Okay. But outside of the hype about how Sonny wrote parts of Cher’s story into Chastity, I don’t know that she’s doing much “playing Cher” here.

Mary: Do you think this view of Cher is true?

Robrt: No. I don’t see much of Cher’s life story here.

Mary: Her naive curiosity maybe? Sometimes naive cluelessness even?

Robrt: Well, but those are character traits, not story elements. I don’t see Cher’s story as coinciding much with Chastity’s story. I see where she might be drawing on her life as part of her performance, but that’s just Jeff Corey acting school stuff.

Mary: Ah, okay. I wonder if Sonny took his view of Cher and tried to create a new fictional story around it.

Robrt: Or Sonny cast her as Everyyoungwoman and wrote around that. Like, “All young women today are dealing with the following issues during this unusual transitional time in American culture…” and he was writing to that.

Mary: You said in your New Times review that Chastity was Cher’s Purple Rain. And this was great…you called it “a semiautobiographical exploitation film.”

Robrt: Oh, did I say in my review that I thought Chastity was semiautobiographical? I should go re-read that. I hate reading my own writing. But I can say that my opinion has changed since I wrote that.

Mary: Maybe the first date with Eddie or her interactions with Eddie, I could see Sonny drawing on personal material from Cher’s life.

Robrt: Huh. Well, I was at least buying into the hype about how this movie was somehow “about” Cher, which I think Sonny was telling the media at the time.

Mary: They did pitch this movie that way.

Robrt: I still think Cher is captivating in this movie. But I’m not always sure she’s doing a great acting job.

Mary: Me too. Good not great.

Robrt: I also think it doesn’t always matter that you nail a performance, so long as the audience is looking at you.

Mary: That’s maybe the secret to her longevity. She can be interesting even before she gets the hang of it.

Robrt: Right.

Mary: Can we talk about the house in Chastity?

Robrt: Yes. My friend Gary Naylor’s house.

Mary: Because we talked a lot about the Good Times house. You said you wanted to live in that house. I think I would rather live in the Chastity house.

Robrt: Well, so much about Gary’s house reminds me of being a young man, because I lived not far from there in downtown Phoenix in my early 20s, and those houses all kind of look alike.

Mary: Mr. Cher Scholar keeps talking about the long tracking shot through the bathroom, that blue tile, the stained glass in the door and bedroom windows. He thought that was extra impressive to do that long shot in a tiny house. Not a breakaway set.

Robrt: Yes, how did they do that shot? That bathroom was a box. Maybe it was done in editing? It was a tiny house, but a wonderful house.

Here’s the story: Gary and I met in the late 80s, because he was close friends with one of my best friends, Paul Braun. And Gary had also been married to another of my friends, JoAnn. These people all were in local theater together in the 60s here in Phoenix, they were all friends who did plays together and lived on Third Street, where the Chastity house was.

Anyway, Paul and I were friends and Gary and I became friends and at some point he mentioned that he and Paul had lived on Third Street in the 60s, right after college, and that he had lived in the Chastity house—Eddie’s house in the movie. Paul and JoAnn lived next door or across the street or something. Then she and Gary got married and she moved into the Chastity house with Gary.

And someone from the Chastity movie—whoever it was who would have handled such things—asked Gary if they could rent his house to shoot scenes for their film, and he was like, “It’s Cher and it’s free money, yes!”

Mary: A hundred dollars!

Robrt: A fortune in 1968. He had to sleep in his Volkswagen during the shoot, because they didn’t want anyone in the house with them during filming. It was a tiny house. His favorite memory was that Sonny sent someone out to the Volkswagen to ask Gary if Cher could borrow a t-shirt while they were filming the bathtub scene.

Mary: Did you get to see the inside of Gary’s house, or pictures of it?

Robrt: No. Chastity was filmed when I was a little boy living on the other side of town. I befriended these people 20 years later. And they hadn’t ever taken photos of inside the house. It had been torn down by the time I found out about where the Chastity house even was. The little office building that got built on that lot, after they tore down Gary’s house, is also now gone.

Mary: Did he say why the Chastity people wanted to shoot in his house?

Robrt: Yes. Because he had decorated it “very trashy and tacky,” which they loved. Even though, now that I think about it, doesn’t fit the character of Eddie, who’s “straight.” But all the decor and the wall colors are Gary’s. JoAnn told me that her friend Jim Matz (who appears in the Chastity cathouse scene) painted a mural on the fireplace in that house when they lived there.

Mary: The guitar hanging on the wall? Was that Gary’s?

Robrt: Yes, all of it.

Mary: I love that.

Robrt: The posters and really just all of it.

Mary: You’ve located a lot of the Phoenix locations in the movie. I remember you taking us on a Chastity tour the first time we met in person. Have you kept track of what’s still around?

Robrt: Yes. The gas station is gone. The building that replaced Gary’s house is gone. Los Olivos Resort, where the couple stayed during filming, is gone. The Los Olivos restaurant where Eddie works in the movie as a valet is gone, too.

Mary: Ah, boo.

Robrt: Believe it or not, Macayo’s is gone! It was an institution! And that Jack in the Box is gone; the most recent Chastity site to be torn down.

Mary: Wikipedia says that there is a scene where you can see Camelback Mountain…but is that a scene in the beginning or end of the movie?

Robrt: It’s the scene where she leaves Eddie the second time and is walking along the road. That’s 35th Avenue. But then they’re over by the outdoor flower market, I believe, in the east valley when she collapses.

Mary: The movie Phoenix doesn’t really match the real Phoenix.

Robrt: There’s a lot of jump-cutting. The whole Scottsdale sequence is at an outdoor shopping mall in downtown Scottsdale—that first night when Chastity and Eddie meet and they’re supposedly in downtown Phoenix, near the diner that was never there.

Mary: How about Encanto Kiddieland?

Robrt: It’s still there, with a new name. And no petting zoo and fewer rides. It’s in Encanto Park, which in the movie doubles as Mexico. Sonny knew about Encanto Park because the duo did a concert there in the 60s, in the bandshell. Which is also gone now.

Mary: That reminds me I wanted to circle back to two things Gary Naylor said in your Chastity article: that the movie crew was tiny, and he could tell it was a super-low-budget film.

Robrt: Yes, I remember him saying that. Later I read that Sonny shot the whole movie on the fly, with no permits. Gary also said Cher’s sister was there, and they looked very much alike. But I think he must have meant her body double, the woman in that candid photo on the back of the soundtrack album.

Mary: And was he the one who told the life cycle of The Chastity Couch?

Robrt: No. That was my friend Robert X. Planet, also part of that Phoenix Little Theater crowd.

Mary: That was fascinating.

Robrt: The Chastity Couch, which was Gary Naylor’s couch and therefore “Eddie’s couch,” wound up in the scenic department at Phoenix Little Theater, which is in the same neighborhood where most of this film was shot. Most of these sites are in the same half-mile.

Mary: Couches have some kind of extra meaning. My writing group at Sarah Lawrence was at a house in Bronxville, New York, and the owners liked to tell us we were sitting on David Bowie’s old couch.

Robrt: So, according to legend, PLT apparently had a set designer who painted the couch. I don’t remember if Planet said that the guy painted the fabric or if he meant the wooden part.

Mary: Did you tell me there’s a cameo by Nick Nolte?

Robrt: Oh, yes. He was part of that group of friends: John Sanko

vich and JoAnn and Gary and Paul.

Mary: How did you forget to mention an uncredited Nick Nolte? What is his Phoenix connection?

Robrt: He was living here and he started his acting career here, on stage at Phoenix Little Theater.

Mary: Was he a popular actor? Was he born there?

Robrt: He was a fledgling actor, who left Phoenix for Hollywood. He was born in Nebraska. Like I said, he was hanging out with JoAnn and John and Gary. Just one of that gang. But he left for LA to get discovered, and he eventually did.

Mary: His movie career looks like it started for reals in 1972.

Robrt: Yes. And he’s an extra in the Chastity cathouse scene. He walks in with John Sankovich and Jim Matz. And Nolte’s recognizable, too. He looks like Nick Nolte in Chastity.

Mary: And is PLT still there?

Robrt: Yes. They went Equity and dropped the “Little” about 20 years ago.

Mary: I wonder if Nick Nolte ever had a conversation with Cher, post-fame.

Robrt: Like they run into each other at the Oscars and he’s like, “I was in your first movie!”

Mary: You told me once that John Sankovich scammed his way into Chastity.

Robrt: Yes. He found out that the other PLT actors were getting paid as extras in the cathouse scene, and he went with them to the movie shoot that day and said he was with the same talent agency that Nolte and Matz were with, and they believed him and let him be in the movie. He told me it was filmed inside one of those old mansions over on Central Avenue, and once again it’s a house that’s been torn down but it was just up the road from most of the other locations.

Mary: What did John remember about being in the movie?

Robrt: He accidentally stepped on Cher’s foot and she tore him a new asshole. That’s how he put it. He said Sonny pulled John aside and apologized for Cher’s behavior and told him, “She’s not feeling great. She’s pregnant and she has morning sickness.” John said that later, Cher apologized to him, herself.

Mary: So I’m kind of revising my idea of her portrayal in light of knowing how sick she might have felt. How grumpy.

Robrt: Right. Did she have morning sickness?

Mary: Maybe this was just the best she could do under the circumstances. I was born in 1969 too (although months after Chastity) and my mom always told me what a miserable year that was….the heat, the news, her morning sickness. Sonny and Cher having a baby…exciting stuff, though.

Robrt: And hasn’t it been reported that she’d had a series of miscarriages before this?

Mary: How public was that?

Robrt: At the time? I don’t know. I think your timeline fits in better that they found out she was pregnant during filming.

Mary: Yeah I was trying to make that distinction. They found out she was pregnant while they were making the movie, versus the baby was conceived then.

Robrt: And then, that would explain why they’d name their baby after a bomb. Because why would you name your baby after a movie that was a total flop?

Mary: Well didn’t the movie bomb afterwards?

Robrt: After the baby was born? Yes.

Mary: When she was born they might have still thought it would be a hit.

Robrt: Oh. That makes sense.

Mary: Maybe that was part of the promotion.

Robrt: Ha! That’s actually something I never considered but that would be very Sonny. To your point: Who would name any kid that?

Mary: Don’t hate our movie, we named our child after it.

Robrt: Like, she better not grow up to be a teen runaway!

Mary: Or sullen and snide. But to be fair, it must have been hell to do a movie with morning sickness. Should we talk about the co-stars?

Robrt: Please.

Mary: In your New Times review, you called Barbara London “thrillingly dreadful,” which is also very on the mark.

Robrt: Oh, she’s just the worst. I love her in this movie. And her dialogue is just so horrible.

Mary: Creeps me out every time. I honestly don’t know why she didn’t have a bigger career.

Robrt: Didn’t you tell me she stopped acting after this?

Mary: She is compellingly scary…especially in the whorehouse scenes. I thought Stephen Whitaker quit after this but was wrong about that.

Robrt: Stephen Whitaker should have stopped acting. I mean, he sort of did stop acting, about halfway through this movie.

Mary: Ha! I actually thought he was very good. He played nice guy well. He’s a little vague. But, yes, milk-toasty. I wondered, does Sonny see himself in Whitaker?

Robrt: No! He has disdain for Eddie because he’s straight. Because he was making a point: These guys are losers. What’s your least favorite performance in this movie?

Mary: You go first. I’m still thinking.

Robrt: Oh, okay. I think the most unnerving and out-of-sync performance comes from the Boy Scout.

Mary: I was just thinking Boy Scout!

Robrt: Well, we can both hate his work here. He creeps me out. His performance really bothers me.

Mary: I’m creeped out a lot, watching this movie, to be honest. The hooker who gets slapped. The final truck driver.

Robrt: I need someone to explain the scene where Barbara London handles the prostitutes and then slaps one. I don’t understand this. Ever. Is this the madam’s way of telling Chastity she’s a lesbian?

Mary: I think so, but I’m not sure. They were all women in that room.

Robrt: Or is she saying, “I’m the madam here,” without saying so?

Mary: I think she was asserting her authority, too. The other women seemed afraid of her but Chastity just walks right out. Tells her she stinks and leaves.

Robrt: And heads back to Eddie!

Mary: Can we talk about the movie, for a minute, in a general sense? Because Sonny saying it’s about “manhood” and “lost manhood” is just bonkers to me. I mean I’m seeing everything through a post-Gisèle Pelicot manosphere lens now. I can’t help but look at the world differently this year. And I’m sure that influenced my reading of this movie. But there’s nothing more proto-manosphere about Sonny saying this (about the very movie he wrote, even)—that it’s about lost manhood. I see this as about a lost woman with mental problems. And the fact that the movie is populated with creepy men (and one creepy woman) but that the only man Sonny felt threatened by behind the scenes was Stephen Whitaker, the only non-creepy guy….I can’t. I just can’t. I lose respect for Sonny here. I fully see this as a movie about a vulnerable woman having a breakdown after running away from an incestuous situation and now getting real help out in the wide world.

Robrt: Sonny’s defending his manhood with this story. Men are “supposed to be” in charge, and women are asserting some autonomy in the late 60s, with the ERA and refusing stereotypical female roles, all of it. He’s among the billions of males who were scared by this in the late 60s.

Mary: Sonny says “Girls are spinning their wheels”—Well, yeah, they’re figuring out life without needing a man. Men were losing their power. Some spinning will happen.

Robrt: Right, and again we’re back to talking context: In this case, the times.

Mary: And Sonny’s Italian identity.

Robrt: Sonny’s writing a movie that condemns female power. Yet his heroine is literally in control of every situation in this movie.

Mary: Is she? Maybe in Sonny’s head. What power does she have? She’s acting out a lot, but I don’t see that as real power. Everyone treats her in a bemused way.

Robrt: Yes. But she runs away from home. She figures out how to make money by scamming guys.

Mary: She does ruin that guy’s car…but accidentally.

Robrt: She is in control of men in obvious ways: The Mexican pimp; The Boy Scout; the madam (because lesbians are coded “males”).

Mary: This might be a woman/man thing but I see her attempts at control as pathetic and ineffective.

Robrt: I disagree. She takes charge, is what I’m saying. She doesn’t ask for either permission or forgiveness.

Mary: But she has to operate from a position of always offering sex as a lure. That’s not real power.

Robrt: She does what she wants to do. A very proto-feminist move for a woman of any age.

Mary: She may scam in the short term but she’s doomed in the long term. She’s in charge because she’s deciding to use her body to get things she needs (i.e. money; a ride). She doesn’t know what she wants—the single most frustrating part of her character. But that’s such a limited idea of her options in the world. She doesn’t feel she can get a safer job. She depends on scamming men for money. She has no access to mental health care.

Robrt: But she’s in charge. She is the decision maker in all these instances, and doesn’t care that she knows females are made to feel powerless.

Mary: I disagree. They could do what men traditionally do: use force. The guy in the car could drive after her. The trucker could force himself on her. I see the men as temporarily giving her charge because she’s like a child. They could and would revoke that power easily, at any opportunity. Eddie could throw her out. Any of the drivers could demand sex. The madam (in the real world) would hold her prisoner. She could have gotten herself killed and been blamed in the process.

Robrt: We’re saying the same things here but from two different perspectives. I see that Chastity is demanding and taking what she wants, and she’s doing it up against knowing she’s not supposed to make demands because she’s female. Yet she’s succeeding. She tries being cared for by a woman and when that doesn’t work, she bolts. Powerful.

And what do we make of Chastity taking money from men and not giving them the service they’re paying for? The guy at the gas station, the Boy Scout…

Mary: I see the gas station scam and the cathouse scam as the same scam. I thought the movie was about a girl running from abuse and PTSD and/or mental issues. Not about womankind and the cultural revolution and Sonny’s opinion of it.

Robrt: Is this a commentary on feminism or control, or is it meant to show us that she’s disreputable?

Mary: I wonder if it’s Sonny’s commentary on Cher, her scrappiness during her time being “homeless” in L.A.

Robrt: But why does Chastity pretend to work in those places? For fun? Or to get money? Or to do both and also subvert male power? I still feel it’s that, plus Sonny’s male chauvinism.

Mary: I think just to eat. Would she have hustled a woman? I think she would have.

Robrt: I think she did. Barbara London!

Mary: True. Interestingly about London, Chastity let herself be taken care of by London but was almost threatened by the care of men in the movie (the good ones). It’s hard to untangle Cher and Chastity as far as the sexual characterization.

Robrt: We are left with no idea of whether Chastity liked the lesbian sex.

Mary: Right…no idea. Except that she wasn’t upset by it (according to her own monologue), at least until the next scene. But really we still don’t know what she was upset about when she had that tantrum in front of Barbara London. All that is unresolved. And maybe, according to Sonny, that was also unresolved in Cher.

Robrt: Exactly: Why is she crying?

Mary: That’s where I get all tangled up.

Robrt: It’s not well explained. But: New Cinema!

Mary: Yeah the sudden outburst is so shocking you laugh at it. You laugh at it for like years after watching the movie.

Robrt: Deliberately vague in order to be “cool.”

Mary: How do you feel about these vague movies?

Robrt: I hate vague movies even while I understand their purpose. It’s the same reason I don’t like punk music. No melody.

Mary: I just hate being confused and having to guess.

Robrt: It’s because you and I were raised on linear stories. Full of exposition.

Mary: Yes for sure but also because I am confused a lot of the time and don’t appreciate being confused for fun and entertainment. I was very manipulated and gaslit as a kid and I feel like these movies are gaslighting me with plot points. Or a lack of plot points.

Robrt: They are.

Mary: But I also love post-modernism and so if I can, I hang my hat on that. I don’t care if there aren’t many plot points….or if the movie is slow…just not this “I don’t know what my movie/play/novel is about…you figure it out. Here are some disconnected scenes or lines in a poem…you make the meaning.”

Robrt: The humor in this movie we’re discussing isn’t topical humor. Did you notice? The humor comes from the woman’s sense of sarcasm and turn of phrase and attitude. The archetypes in this movie aren’t meant to be funny. Which is why they’re offensive. The predatory dyke…the hookers…the Mexican pimp with the giant sombrero and the handlebar moustache. And to your point about confusion: Yes. But remember that New Cinema was just happening in Hollywood, and this is a Hollywood movie, made during that transition. (Sorry to be mansplaining, if I am.)

Mary: It’s funny that the scene with the pimp is supposed to be funny all of a sudden.

Robrt: But is it? I mean, I always laugh at his line, “You mean to tell me you want to be a whore?” but I don’t think it’s meant as a punchline.

Mary: But the music is suddenly kind of silly.

Robrt: Oh. I’ll have to look at it again.

Mary: And Chastity makes the offensive joke at the tourists about “having sex with my sister.” And the whole exchange about the pornographic photos. Not really funny but I felt it was meant to be.

Robrt: That’s what I mean: That’s Sonny’s idea of “funny” and lightening the mood in his dramatic story. It’s gross today…was it funny in 1969?

Mary: I do feel Cher might have a very alternative sense of humor. Very dark.

Robrt: I agree.

Mary: Very cutting. Occasionally offensive. About the character of Eddie: Do you think Eddie should have stayed home that day when Chastity had her psychic break?

Robrt: No. He had a law school test. At ASU.

Mary: Could they have had a life together?

Robrt: Nope. Chastity is doomed. She’s an archetype. In Sonny’s mind, anyway.

Mary: I see the last act as a moment of mental illness, not independence.

Robrt: I don’t think she’s mentally ill. I think she’s experiencing the trauma of having been molested by a man. But let’s enjoy the irony of Sonny’s character named Chastity: He wants to show that women are screwing things up by trying to have power, and yet she’s fully in charge of her life, however misguided her choices.

Mary: What do you think this movie is about? Do you see this as a road movie?

Robrt: It is a road movie.

Mary: A psychological exploration of Chastity? What about that name/title?

Robrt: Well, it’s meant to be provocative, I guess. Or ironic? Here’s something I think is askew: We never find Chastity sympathetic. That’s imperative in a character study like this.

Mary: Yes…she’s not very likable.

Robrt: She’s too sarcastic and she does things that look mean or careless, not carefree and “necessary.” And so we’re not necessarily rooting for her.

Mary: She says mean things. You have nowhere to throw your sympathies. But I feel that way watching other New Cinema movies, too. Like, I don’t like Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces.

Robrt: Maybe, again, we’re not supposed to like him. Or Chastity.

Mary: Who do you think directed Chastity?

Robrt: For a long time, I was convinced Sonny directed it but made up the name Alessio DePaolo, maybe because of some filmmaker’s union rule that said he couldn’t direct a film without joining the union. But then I read Cher’s memoir, and I’m convinced she would have copped to it. She’s Cher; it was so long ago; he’s dead…she would have just told us, “Sonny directed…”

Mary: And Vincent Canby snidely reviewed the movie by saying all DePaolo did was keep Cher in focus…but he kinda did that well. Lighting that hair and everything. And I agree. She was candid about how Sonny threw his money into Good Times and this movie and I think she would have also been candid about the director/editor debacles.

Robrt: She would’ve just told us. It’s old news and frankly you and I might be the only people still talking about whether Allesio de Paolo is a real person.

Mary: Maybe.

Robrt: The thing that finally changed my mind for good is that my friend Kyle Lawson told me about how one night in 1968, during a PLT production of Mary, Mary, “…this guy came backstage and offered the lead actress a Hollywood contract…” So people saw de Paolo.

Mary: Someone besides Sonny and Cher witnessed him. I still love our conspiracy theories though.

Robrt: Well, they’re more interesting than an Italian dog food commercial director.

Mary: It’s just so weird that Sonny was friends with really good directors, and he picked this guy.

Robrt: I know. But maybe because this was a guy he could control… He liked control.

Mary: Sonny usually picked really good musicians and supporting people.

Robrt: That’s true.

Mary: So why not just direct the movie himself?

Robrt: Maybe he felt he lacked the talent? Though that never stopped him before…

Mary: I do think, after this viewing, that Chastity is a better-made movie than I had previously believed.

Robrt: That’s how I felt last time I watched it. You know, I watch Chastity with a lot of distractions: my affection for Cher; my interest in movies of that era; the Phoenix thing (“Oh, look, there’s Macayo’s!”). So sometimes it’s hard to just focus on the story and the way it’s being presented. Plus the writing is sometimes so bad. I love how there’s a total Sonny Bono line in the movie: “You made the gamut.” It’s classic Sonny. He was always mixing his metaphors and garbling things. Like him saying “We wanted to break a president…” when he meant “We wanted to set a precedent…”

Mary: So many Sonny things come out of character’s mouths in Chastity. That is one I didn’t catch. But “gamut” seems like a Sonny word. I agree with you that you can hear Sonny’s voice in the writing. Like, “I don’t know why I got myself involved.” And Eddie saying, “I just happen to be a guy that likes a little conversation.”

So, do you notice the soundtrack when you watch this movie?

Robrt: I do notice it.

Mary: I didn’t notice it at all (outside the opening and closing credits and driving scenes) until I paid attention. There’s a quiet guitar solo during the bathroom scene and final love scene with Eddie that I like that isn’t on the soundtrack.

Robrt: I don’t like soundtrack albums where it’s all the incidental music and maybe one song with a vocal. So I never play this record. So, you’re the expert on this record. I don’t really know it at all. I always get confused, too, which Cher song is on it. I sometimes think it’s “I Walk on Gilded Splinters.”

Mary: There are two songs I can’t map to the movie: “Motel II” and “Flowers (Love of a Family).” And there’s no credit saying who is singing in “Flowers,” and AI keeps A.I.-splaining me on the question.

Robrt: I always forget there’s another vocal on that record. Shit.

Mary: I don’t hate the songs though. I wasn’t bored to tears doing the mapping. I liked the music better when I could understand what scenes they related to.

Robrt: I wonder if the parts of the movie where those two songs would play are among the scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, as they say. Because isn’t it true that Sonny cut like 30 minutes out of the previous final cut? Like, where’s a second motel? In the movie, I mean. And there’s another bit of evidence about all the stuff that was cut from the final print: At one point, in monologue, Chastity references all of Eddie’s “talk about God,” which is a scene we never see.

Mary: I wondered if that was a badly written script or a cut scene.

Robrt: I think it’s stuff that’s been cut, though I can’t say why.

Mary: The missing songs is a good clue about the cuts. Good call there.

Robrt: You know, every time I watch this movie, during that scene where she’s running back to Eddie, and she drives on McDowell over the hill toward 44th Street, I notice the sunset behind her. Sunsets still look like that here in Phoenix. So at least that hasn’t changed.

Mary: Sonny, for serious purposes, could have refrained from having Cher sing a song on the soundtrack, but he didn’t.

Robrt: I want there to be a Chastity soundtrack song about Barbara London’s eyelashes. Or else one about Cher’s French manicure. Her nails are perfect!

Mary: The nails are too out of character for a homeless waif.

Robrt: I think the sex scene is one of the best bits in the movie. Not just because it’s very New Cinema perfect, but because it tells us something we need to know without being either overt or too vague.

Mary: I hated it.

Robrt: You hated the sex scene!

Mary: In your article you called it “the lamest lesbian sex scene ever committed to film.”

Robrt: Well, as lesbian sex scenes go, it’s not really one at all. Which I now like. But so much water imagery!

Mary: And I would have to say a little skin would have been nice. Some body parts other than eyelashes and lips. An elbow, even. This reminds me, we got more boobs and ass in the house scenes. I’ll say no more.

Robrt: Yes, but whose boobs and ass?

Mary: The boobs at the beginning of the movie are not the boobs at the end. And there’s a cut in the first boob scene I never noticed, when we get to those larger-than-expected feet, which I do believe are Cher’s.

Robrt: Please don’t judge me, but I never notice boobs. So I’ll have to believe you that these are two different bosoms.

Mary: I previously thought the feet confirmed the boobs belonged to the same person. But I wasn’t watching closely.

Robrt: Well, but why would the second breast scene be shot with that T-shirt-over-the-face thing if it wasn’t a body double? You can’t tell who it is in either of the naked scenes.

Mary: They are much more voluptuous in the first boob scene.

Robrt: Mary, you have hatched a new Chastity Conspiracy: How Many Body Doubles? We are never going to get away from talking about this movie!

Mary: I think the second body is Cher’s. But she’ll never have to cop to it because we never see her face. A perfect nude scene. So…how long before you watch this movie again?

Robrt: Um. Tonight? Never?

Mary: lol

Robrt: Hey, before we go, can we talk about how Cher is willing to let herself look bad in this movie? Or did she think she didn’t look bad?

Mary: Well, she’s written as if she’s a bombshell. So there’s a disconnect there. I think she looks appropriately grimy. Except the nails. And the belt she’s wearing.

Robrt: You manage always to mention Chastity’s belt. YOU ARE OBSESSED WITH THE BELT.

Mary: lol…I am. And I’m not even a belt person.

Robrt: Maybe we’re looking at “pretty” or “put together” from today’s standards, rather than from late 60s hippie-culture standards? I agree with you that Cher looks a little dirty, which is appropriate since she’s a runaway with no change of clothing. Speaking of which, do we know where Emily is running away from? Like, somewhere in California?

Mary: She could be running from New Mexico.

Robrt: Hmm. New Mexico. Like,  “I’ve got to get away from this Mary Ladd chick… She’s obsessed with my belt!”

Mary: It does make you curious. Is it metaphorical, psychological running?

Robrt: I always notice how there’s lots of looping in this movie. Necessitated by all the outdoor scenes, I guess?

Mary: What is looping?

Robrt: Where they go in, in post-production, and re-record the dialogue for scenes that were shot out-of-doors. Because there was so much local noise in the shot.

Mary: Aaah. I know that term as “dubbing.” Can you point those out?

Robrt: The whole gas station sequence is a good example. And the sequence in Encanto Park where they’re talking about “thinking.”

Mary: That dialogue! “…sometimes I think about my toes.” I use that at home.

Robrt: Oh my god, you quote this movie in your house! I hate the “Your house works” scene. It’s long and annoying and tells us…what?

Mary: Agreed. It’s almost upsetting. She keeps the faucets running. That makes me anxious. She leaves the burners on.

Robrt: And the salt and pepper shakers…just NO.

Mary: I saw that as one of her manic episodes. And then he says, “Did you have fun?” Why would that be the first thing out of your mouth? I would be like, “Do you need to sit down?” Or “Are you okay?”

Robrt: The church sequence is a riot. She goes up the stairs and through the doors of St. Mary’s Basilica and then the interiors are shot up the street and around the corner at the Methodist church! And the old lady who’s doing penance: Hoo boy!

I have two final questions: One: Is this ersatz New Cinema?

Mary: Let me look up the word “ersatz.”

Robrt: You have a PhD!

Mary: I don’t. I have an MFA.

Robrt: Well, I will always think of you as Dr. Mary. “Ersatz” means “fake.”

Mary: Oh. That is a very good question. I’m not an aficionado of New Cinema because I think it has a dearth of women in it. So I’m not the best one to ask.

Robrt: Or is it…earnest New Cinema, like Sonny was trying a new form and kind of got close but also failed? I think, in a way, it’s both.

Mary: What failed?

Robrt: Well, the acting. The dialogue! The lack of a solid narrative arc.

Mary: Like, what does a good New Cinema movie have that this doesn’t…except maybe better writing?

Robrt: A cohesive story or else a non-cohesive story that’s beautifully acted and filmed. My other question is this: Does Chastity die in the end? Does she get run over by an 18-wheeler? Or, in the tradition of New Cinema, are we supposed to be left… wondering?

Mary: I don’t think we have enough information. Why didn’t that trucker get out of his f-ing truck when he saw a “baby” crying and hugging an electric pole? Can we get some sympathy in the room?

Robrt: Because he noticed her manicure and thought, Oh, she’s rich and drank too much at lunch.

Mary: That is my favorite comment of this conversation, Robrt. Well…but the final card/shot shows black ink rolling down the outline of her head. That leads me to believe she was hit by a vehicle.

Robrt: Yes, my husband said he thought that meant she died.

Mary: It’s too vague, though.

Robrt: Well, I mean, Mary. Her nails! And on that note, we should probably stop talking about this movie. I’m going to try not to watch Chastity again today. Final thoughts?

Mary: I do think she’s a good actress and doesn’t need to rely on her Cher-ness to do a good performance.

Robrt: I agree. Look, Audrey Hepburn said Cher was a good actress, so I’m feeling confirmed.

Mary: What a validation from your idol. It’s like if Cher came over and said I was a good blogger.

Robrt: Like she said to you, “Mary, I like what you wrote about Black Rose.”

Mary: Thanks for talking with me about this film.

Robrt: I love talking to you about anything.

Mary: Thank you. I feel the same.

Robrt: Adieu!

 

Read More

For more on the movie, check out the Cher Scholar Guide.

Robrt Pela’s article on the movie from Cher Zine 3, “The Virtues of Chastity“