JoAnna did a topless scene in a lame Graduate knock-off called B.S. I Love You (1971). The Graduate (1967) was the Pulp Fiction of its day in that it was simultaneously so hip and so successful that it was widely copied. This film came close to being a Graduate clone. Our young hero romances a mother-daughter team, and in the end he runs desperately against the clock to prevent his true love from slipping away with another. He dashes for the pier, calling out her name, as he imagines her in a wedding dress, sailing off with her hunky boyfriend. It’s such a blatant rip-off that the producers of The Graduate might have considered suing – in the unlikely event that this made any money.

Fat chance of that. According to TV Guide it was never created to make money in the first place. That probably would have ruined the tax breaks! The Guide summed it up as follows:

“Independently made Canadian film apparently designed to be a tax-shelter for its investors.”

If it had been sued, I think the defense would have been that it was meant as a parody of the Graduate’s genre, focusing on the mother of all Graduate-style pics, the original. I guess there could have been some justification for that. Some reviewers have identified this as a comedy, notably the N.Y Times, which gushed, “Some gifted people are involved in what turns out to be a neatly organized morality comedy with bright contemporary trimmings.” Based on that, I guess it was considered hip and funny at the time, but looking back from today at the films made in the 67-71 period, it’s pretty damned hard to tell which ones are comedies and/or parodies. If I ever had the cultural context necessary to make that determination, I have lost it in the intervening years. For example, I really can’t tell you whether this film’s topless go-go dancing scene with the runaway zoom lens was hip or was making fun of other films which tried to be hip. It’s stuck in the back of my head that for some reason we used to think it was groovy when the camera would zoom in and out rapidly on some action while bad rock songs played in the background. Like, it was psychedelic, man.

Suffice it to say that the film is no longer hip.

Or funny.

Peace, brother.

It did have one thing goin’ for it. Joanna Cameron, aka The Mighty Isis, topless. Beautiful smile. Beautiful body.

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It was announced on the Merv Griffin show decades ago that JoAnna held the record for the most screen time in national commercials because of her “perfect face.” According to ol’ Mervin (see below), if you ran all of her commercials back-to-back, the show would run for 150 hours.

4 thoughts on “R.I.P. The Mighty Isis

    1. Scoopy’s typically excellent review of that movie:
      does not mention Cameron by name. Was she the “anonymous pretty little maid” who took her dress off in Rock Hudson’s character’s office?

      1. As Dalton would say, “Opinions vary.” Some people say that is Cameron. Others disagree. I played it safe in my review.

        Here it is:

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        For reference, here is Mighty Isis in that film (far right), and here is another of her from that film. That seems to be a different woman from the anonymous topless maid.

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