Ms. 45

Ms. 45 is part of "my canon," a totally arbitrary and subjective list of my 100 favorite movies. For reviews of other movies on this list, look for the Top 100 category on the right sidebar. 

In 1981, the grindhouse theatrical circuit—which had been holding steady for more than a decade in New York, where the sex shops and pornographic theaters of Times Square served as a dreary reminder of the city’s mounting seediness—received an electrifying shot to the head from Ms. 45. The predominantly male moviegoers who frequented such theaters at the time must have expected a tawdry rape-revenge fantasy, in which a beautiful, mute seamstress is raped twice in one day, sparking her to go on a bloody and sadistic shooting spree in Manhattan. In the most simplistic way possible, this synopsis describes Ms. 45—but it doesn’t suggest the film’s surprising intelligence and humanity, which ironically might be Ms. 45’s most shocking and unexpected elements. 

Ms. 45 was Abel Ferrara’s third feature, after the little-seen pornographic film 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy and his self-starring 1979 film The Driller Killer. While the latter movie presaged most of the stylistic and thematic elements that would reappear in Ferrara’s later work (including Catholic iconography, gritty urban settings, and social pressures instigating violent retaliation), Ms. 45 is an evolution in practically every way. Ferrara’s stylistic wit is on display immediately, as a brief expository long-shot of New York’s Garment District smashes unexpectedly into a handheld sequence in a fashion designer’s office, where a female model attired in the latest style is being appraised by her employers (only one of whom is male). Instantaneously, the movie reminds us that the fetishization of female beauty is not only a lustful pastime in America—it’s a profitable business.

Thana (Zoë Tamerlis) is a mute seamstress here, tagging along with her beautiful female colleagues without really seeming to connect with them (though there are touching moments of solidarity, as when Thana writes a note to one of her co-workers reading, “I wish they’d just leave me alone”). Walking home from work one day, Thana is pulled into an alley in broad daylight and raped by a masked assailant (played, perversely, by Ferrara himself). Though the film is too kinetic to linger on Thana’s ensuing trauma for very long, it does include a lengthy extreme high-angle shot to emphasize her vulnerability and isolation, and it’s a sign of Tamerlis’ quietly affecting performance that Thana’s rage, fear, and bitterness truly register. 

Finally returning home, she discovers that the world is even crueler and more unforgiving than she could have imagined: she interrupts a burglar in her apartment, who proceeds to rape her a second time. But she’s no longer willing to play the victim: after bludgeoning him with a bizarre paperweight, Thana beats him to death with an iron and wields his .45 pistol appreciatively. Unsure of how to dispose of a corpse in Manhattan, she dismembers it in her bathtub and proceeds to hide the body parts throughout the city, leading to a few gruesomely funny sequences (such as a clogged drain spitting out the revolting detritus from her fumbling attempts at corpse disposal). Ferrara’s twisted and often absurd sense of humor—epitomized, perhaps, by a prattling landlady character and her meddling dog, sublimely named Phil—prevents the film from becoming too repetitive or mean-spirited, though it knows when to indulge in comedy and when to remain resolutely serious. 

An extreme close-up of a dead man’s eye superimposed over bloody water circling down a drain is a direct reference to Psycho, though Ferrara raises comparisons to Hitchcock in other ways: a series of cuts following Thana’s first murder—first to a close-up of eggs frying, then to a graphic match of a pug’s protruding eyes—acts as a morbidly amusing transition reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972). This montage also suggests the perilously close proximity of Manhattan’s residents, wherein a rape and murder can take place next door to an unwitting neighbor—another one of Ms. 45’s recurrent themes. 

We may expect Thana to immediately embark on her murderous rampage, but the movie is surprisingly sensitive to her emotional anguish. A nightmarish scene occurs as Thana stands before her bathroom mirror, slowly unbuttoning her blouse: given Ms. 45’s grindhouse reputation, we may expect some gratuitous nudity at this moment. Instead, however, just as her blouse comes undone, a gloved hand suddenly shoots into the frame, violently clutching Thana’s wrist. It’s an incredible moment, frightening and complex: a visualization of the aggressive male gaze, extending into the shot at its very peak of sexual titillation (in conspicuously phallic manner). This unforgettable scene respects Thana’s mounting anxiety while caustically turning the audience's voyeurism back onto itself.

Though she now carries her assailant’s .45 with her wherever she goes, Thana still resists the urge for vengeance building within her: the next murder only occurs when she is chased down an alleyway by a male pursuer (who has found one of her discarded bags containing a severed arm). A lecherous fashion photographer and Thana's handsy boss push her further into the realm of vicious (justifiable) misandry; if she becomes a vision of rampaging female fury, she is pushed there entirely by the exploitation and sexual entitlement of the men around her. Before the film's bloodstained climax, she has slathered on lipstick and donned a sexy nun’s outfit in preparation for a Halloween party—all the better to entice the sex-obsessed men who fall obliviously into her trap. Thana’s climactic murder spree in this blasphemous get-up offers a perverse and provocative image—an indication of Ferrara’s wicked deployment of Catholic iconography, his blurring of the line between redemption and damnation, and his flair for concocting larger-than-life visions.

Through it all, though, Ms. 45 remains anchored in humanistic territory: unlike the simplistic revenge fantasies Tarantino enjoys rehashing, Ferrara’s film finds nothing gratifying about Thana’s rampage. As the movie progresses, our sympathies deftly (and temporarily) shift from Thana to the men she intends to kill: a teenager who makes out with his sweetheart (which Thana mistakes for another sexual violation), or a lonely man whose wife has cheated on him (a scene which culminates in an unexpectedly poignant reversal). Though we always empathize with Thana and the brutality that she’s faced, Ms. 45 recognizes that there’s nothing glorious about a bloodthirsty killing spree; her need for retribution has made her stop seeing people and start seeing monsters. It’s an incredibly agile balancing act, crafting a thrilling revenge fantasy that never comes close to condoning vengeance, and Ferrara is able to pull it off dynamically.

Character development is among the least of Ferrara’s concerns—we hardly get to know Thana, or any other supporting character for that matter—though Ms. 45 achieves such an iconic, larger-than-life style that this surface-level identification seems appropriate. As suggested by one witty composition in which Thana stands in front of a restroom door that simply reads “Men”—the word hovers over her as though it manifests male violence itself—the characters are intended in part as metonymic symbols for manhood and womanhood. (This is even suggested by Thana’s name—it’s short for Thanatos, the male Greek god that personified death.) It may seem contradictory for the film to evoke characters that are both human and broadly symbolic, but Ms. 45 somehow manages this duality: the affable performances by a mostly amateur cast and Ferrara’s grandiose compositions mesh perfectly. A scene in which Thana encounters a gang of leering roughnecks in a geometrically-patterned courtyard—only to gun them all down with the ruthless efficiency of Dirty Harry—adopts a visual scope that lends the scene a mythical sense of abstraction, as though Thana's bloodshed were taking place in an ancient Greek agora.

It all culminates in a sad and gruesome climax jam-packed with intriguing visual metaphors: the death of a man dressed as a woman in a virginal wedding dress, whose wig falls off at the very moment he meets his demise from Thana’s bullet; or a female character blatantly holding a butcher’s knife at crotch-level, manifesting the phallic imagery so often associated with penetrative weapons (at least as far as psychonanalytic readings of horror movies go). The fate that ultimately befalls Thana is unexpectedly powerful, and it indicates an admirable refusal to abide by the simple male-female antagonism that the film might have harbored. 

A complex, sensitive exploitation flick—imagine the surprise of some of the moviegoers who might have originally checked out Ms. 45 in 1981. As crime rates and economic inequality continued to intensify in New York—at least for the next decade, until political initiatives began rehabilitating (and gentrifying) the city in the 1990s--Ms. 45 utters an angry shriek in response to the city’s pervasive violence and hostility. In its sordid evocation of a bygone New York and its tragic story of a murderous rampage ending with a bloodbath, Ms. 45 shares something in common with Taxi Driver (1976)—though for my money, Ferrara’s film is more intricate, fascinating, and exhilarating than Scorsese’s. It’s been called many things—perverse, crude, asinine, simplistic—but hopefully Ms. 45 will start to be seen for what it really is: a rough-around-the-edges masterpiece.      

Originally published by Joyless Creatures (March 31, 2014).  

Top 100

Ms. 45

Grade: A

Runtime: 80m.
Country: USA
US Release: April 24, 1981

Director: Abel Ferrara
Producer: Arthur Weisberg
Writer: N.G. St. John
Music: Joe Delia
Cinematography: James Momel
Editor: Christopher Andrews
Cast: Zoe Tamerlis, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto, Helen McGara, Nike Zachmanoglou, Jimmy Laine, Peter Yellen, Editta Sherman