source: Lovely But Deadly

Mary Ann Lovett((Lucinda Dooling)is called by her friends Lovely.Her younger brother drowns in a drug related accident.Mary becomes angry and decides to stop drugs in her high school via martial arts."Lovely But Deadly" was directed by David Sheldon,who also directed quite effective horror flick "Devil Times Five" in 1974.The acting is amateurish but full of enthusiasm and the fight scenes are unintentionally funny.I loved girl fight scene between Mary Ann Lovett and some blond cheerleader during the party.The film is quite violent but not bloody at all.The body count in this supremely cheesy vigilante flick is surprisingly low.If you enjoyed "Coffy" with Pam Grier you can give "Lovely But Deadly" a look.7 karate cheerleaders out of 10.

LOVELY BUT DEADLY is an indie action revenge drama with a youthful female lead. She's a cheerleader who loses her brother to a drug overdose, only to discover that half the squad are also addicts. She decides to square up to the drug pushers and fights back using her karate skills to take them down. Sadly, this is an inept little movie that's only good for laughing at rather than being wowed by. The action scenes are slow and poorly staged although the main actress certainly puts a lot of effort in; the supporting performances are quite amusing. Altogether this reminded me of the Thai action flick CHOCOLATE albeit nowhere near as good as that.

I saw a few clips of Lovely But Deadly online and I just had to see it all so I got the VHS on eBay. It isn't a good movie but it's pretty entertaining. Lucinda Dooling is absolutely, um, lovely as Lovely. It really is too bad she wasn't in many other movies. The rest of the cast is okay. The writing isn't too bad, although there are definitely quite a few scenes that are unintentionally funny and the real jokes are only funny because they aren't funny: "I think you guys are too pushy." "Pushy? I'll show you pushy" *Gives first guy a light shove*. But I think the scene with the cat fight at the costume party and the scene where this one guy is steamed to death in a cardboard box (among some others) place Lovely But Deadly firmly in so-bad-it's-good territory. And as one of those kinds of movies it succeeds and that's why I'm giving it a 10/10. Some other reviewers here have noted that the score is kind of James Bond-like, and I must admit it does sound kind of discount-John Barryish. There's even a catchy song that plays during the opening credits. This movie kind of reminded me of the James Bond series in a few other ways. The ending in which the cheerleaders beat up a bunch of guards working for the bad guy kind of reminded me of the end of Octopussy, in which circus performer ladies beat up Kamal Khan's guards. Actually, Lovely But Deadly came out two years before Octopussy. Of course, I'm guessing the writers of the thirteenth James Bond movie probably never saw (let alone heard) of Lovely But Deadly. Also, Gomorrah (Seriously?) kind of reminded me of Jaws. Kind of. It's too bad Lovely But Deadly hasn't had a Blu-Ray release like some other cheesy low-budget movies from the '80s.

I fear that this was what passed for Hollywood trying to be 'feminist' in 1981, and while it was a step above Charlie's Angels in that, it missed the mark by a good bit. The movie opens with an utter looser drowning himself in the ocean while high on drugs, and oh boy, are we lucky he didn't live long enough to breed a bunch of children as stupid and whiny-faced as he was; to me, this moment was most likely to win my applause. (please don't rescue him, I thought, pretty please?) Then his sister goes on a revenge spree toward the drug dealers (as if tuna boy hadn't decided to and chosen to and hunted down dealers and spent his own money on drugs, but whatever, let's not blame him in any way). And she kicks ass, in a vaguely pretty sort of way. Some of the other actresses are exploited more by the director, but the lead remains dressed and serious throughout. It all hangs together within the sphere of reality in this film, which bears no resemblance at all to the reality that you and I inhabit, or that we inhabited in 1981, but I suppose in these days of 50% of movies being about superpowers, I shouldn't be complaining about this level of unreality. I almost want to give it a third star for the character name "Mantis Manajian," which is the most original thought the screenwriters had. The extra star I did give is because the lead and her kickboxing girlfriends can kick high. Good for them. But it's a bad, bad film.

There are several fighting films that is all action. And there are some that have a lot of sex appeal to it. This movie is also a war on drugs. It deals with the sister waging a war on drug dealers moving in on the high school. The victim, her brother who was strung out and drowns at the beach. Mary Ann "Lovely" Lovitt(Lucinda Dooling) is a high school graduate whose brother falls victim to drugs, tries to the ones responsible for his death. Lovely puts her fighting skills to the test against anyone who would get in her way. This movie is rather humorous. There's a lot of puns and slapsticks. Other than that, it was very entertaining of some sorts. The fight scenes are amazing. Where the ladies take care of the workmen on the docks. A very good chick flick with surprises to it. A classic gem of its own way. Subtle. 2 out of 5 stars

The review contains small spoilers but a movie like this has no big surprises anyway. The acting and screenplay are poor throughout and the pointless musical interludes excruciating. The idea, a high-school senior battling a drugs organisation alone because the cops are useless and the school staff corrupt or ineffective, is certainly interesting. But as the film 'progresses', it turns out that's all there is to it. Little-known Lucinda Dooling in the lead isn't bad at all (though she doesn't have much competition). In a powerful opening scene, she overpowers a minor drug dealer and holds him helpless, while calmly forcing him to eat his own stash. A strong and disturbing representation of a schoolgirl, which promises a lot, especially as the movie is full of sleazy sexist characters, crying out for the same treatment or worse. Sadly it's all downhill from here. Dooling copes OK in her fight scenes, which are reasonably well-staged, but they are poorly thought out: at one point three heavies run away from her, later the same men overpower her easily – just whatever the 'plot' requires; there's a lot of shooting, but no-one ever hits anything; when women fight men, it's all kick-ass karate, when the same women fight other women, it's all ineffective rolling around, mostly in plates of messy food. The long action finale is particularly poor, with endless running around, shooting and missing, and driving speedboats in circles, all for no reason, and the hero is given no worthwhile opponent at the end. But to be fair to an otherwise somewhat sexploitative movie, she never needs rescuing, and has no male assistance at any point. If you can find this going cheap, it's worth the price to watch those terrific first five minutes and imagine what might have been. (Or watch it on Youtube – it was there at time of posting this review.)

An absolute classic for fans of mixed fighting. Actually, this is my favorite film of all time. A Young lady goes after a gang of drug dealers to get revenge for the drug related death of her brother. There are many nice mixed fight scenes in the movie. The greatest scene of all is after Lucinda has beat up a pusher, she pins his arms under her knees behind his back and rubs his throat forcing him to drink his own drugs. Simply awesome.

My review was written in July 1983 after a screening at Thunderbird Drive-In of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In an era when the B-grade action film market is dominated by lookalike martial arts pictures and vengeance mellers, "Lovely but Deadly" is an entertaining novelty, combining elements of both genres into a teenage wish-fulfillment format. It represents a tough sell commercially, but pic will provide pleasant diversion for both action fans and students of current trends. Filmmaker David Sheldon has adapted the current vigilante trend in films to teen pics, with pert young brunette Lucinda Dooling toplining as a California high school student, Mary Ann Lovett (nicknamed "Lovely"), mounting a one girl campaign to wipe out the drug dealers and higherups in her community, in order to avenge her kid brother's drug-induced death. Sheldon styles Dooling as an underage female version of James Bond (with topgrade martial arts skills to boot), a gimmick which proves to be fun since she is a normal-looking young gir rather han such macho femmes as Pam Grier, Cheri Caffaro, Monica Vitti, Cornelia Sharpe and Marilyn Chambers who have previously essayed similar roles. Also to the film's advantage is the staging of Bond-like action scenes in prosaic settings such as the school locker room. If you can't compete with $30,000,000 budgets, you can at least have fun with the format. Cast mixes old pros (Marie Windsor as heroine's aunt, Richard Herd and John Randolph as behind the scenes heavies) with young talent with generally effective results. Dooling, in particular, overcomes the occasionally preachy anti-drugs script with her forceful, physically convincing performance. Teen genre conventions such as cheerleaders' action and several rock songs belted on camera by the anti-hero slow up the narrative, but the final action payoff on the docks which karate teacher Susan Mechsner and her class of diminutive high school girls come to Dooling's rescue from assorted thugs is priceless. Lensing is cheap, using available light for many scenes. The musical score by Robert Ragland is in the same rousing bag as his recent "10 to Midnight" offering and features a scene-setting title song which has the tone of a Shirley Bassey-Bond theme.

The film starts out strong with a great scene of the female protagonist beating the crap out of a drug dealer and forcing him to OD, leading me to think this was going to be some sort of personal revenge flick. Instead, while revenge is a factor, it's a little less personal as she aims to take down the entire system and put people in jail. Ho hum, but drugs are a pretty big problem in her high school. How big? Well, gangsters are sending their thugs into the school to beat up students, cheerleaders are getting pimped out, and the drug consumption is apparently so high it needs to be brought in by boat in multiple crates on a regular basis. Or so we are led to believe, although I tend to wonder how anyone even managed to graduate in a situation like that. It grows increasingly ridiculous as the film goes on and comes completely unglued by the time it ends, but it's still fun, dumb stuff. Some decent chest meat on display and I actually liked a couple of the fight scenes--especially the beat-down at the beginning. Could have been better, but it's still good exploitation junk.