Chastity

     This is the only movie that Cher ever made that she absolutely didn't want anyone to see. Unfortunately for her (but fortunately for us) Sonny owned the rights to the movie, not Cher. So when Sonny died, his heirs decided to make some money by releasing it on DVD. But before the DVD release, this was one heck of a hard movie to find, due to the fact that Cher physically set out to destroy all copies of it because she was so completely embarrassed by it. And it's hard to imagine Cher being embarrassed by anything.

      Cher plays Chastity, a wild child runaway who hitchhikes her way across America. With absolutely no direction at all.  She floats around, from finding a nice guy who can accept her obnoxiousness to having a lesbian affair with the madam of a brothel in Mexico, then back to the nice guy who is evidently the only person who can tolerate her for very long. 

      Chastity very boringly narrates her adventures in a very unnecessary way, she flips out here and there for no reason... and goes to church, just to check it out and see what happens there. I guess she didn't like it because, after a short while, she loses her shit, steals a car and is Mexico bound.  The view of her flying down the highway in a convertible with all 12 feet of black hair trailing behind her is a really cool sight to see.

     Much like the Beatles and the Who, Sonny and Cher figured they could make a movie too. But a very square duo attempting to make an edgy film does not a classic make. It failed miserably and cost them their dignity... and all their furniture. Cher also got pregnant during the making of this movie, hence their first child's name. It has a very clever tagline... Chastity, she's not just a girl, she's an experience.  Yeah, a very bad one.

     To be totally honest, I really liked this film.  I think Cher's acting, though obviously that of a newcomer, isn't really all that bad.  Anyone who can conjure up enough emotion to be able to cry on film without the use of onions or Visine is someone who really has a future in acting, which obviously she did, having eventually won an Oscar for Moonstruck.  I think the reason she hated this movie so much is because it wasn't exactly the movie she thought she was gonna make.  Chastity was supposed to be doing all sorts of salacious things, but Sonny was the writer and just couldn't handle seeing his wife play out these events so he kept changing the script on her.  By the time filming wrapped, Cher discovered that she had made a completely different movie than she had thought she was making.  I would love to have a look at the original script, I bet it was way better than what it ultimately became.