Pam Grier

And then God created Pam Grier. Does anyone else possess such female warrior power as this cinematic Amazon? And this girl has worked! Even in the 80's she did uncredited work in flicks such as Something Wicked This Way Comes (she plays the witch!), and she was Madonna's second choice (after Rosie) for the role of Mama Morton in a movie incarnation of Chicago that would have taken place in the mid-90's starring Madge herself.

"Long Time Woman" is featured on the Jackie Brown soundtrack, but originates from a grindhouse flick called The Big Doll House. The track is mono, and I was a little pissed off because I thought it originated from the Foxy Brown soundtrack. But now that I know it was true grindhouse, it makes the sound all the more authentic. We're talkin' reeeeal low-budget. Raw.

Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner is an interesting topic when it comes to the dubbing of female movie stars within Hollywood's studio system. Ava recorded her own vocals for MGM's splashy Technicolor remake of Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat. The studio chiefs decided Ava was to be dubbed, and so she was by Annette Warren. Then when the soundtrack was released Ava's original vocals were reinstated so her name could be used to sell more vinyl.

Here she sings in a non-musical: Pandora And The Flying Dutchman. "How Am I To Know?" has an exotic feel accompanied with clever-yet-soul-searching lyrics penned by Dorothy Parker(!).

Michelle Pfeiffer

The respective universes of Grease and Grease 2 collided when John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer filmed the family-friendly movie version of the Broadway musicalization of John Waters' Hairspray. Ms. Pfeiffer lacquers it on in the role Debbie Harry originated: Velma Von Tussle. Belting out "Miss Baltimore Crabs" to her teeny-bopper dancers as she teaches them to be tame tame tame (and prejudiced) for The Corny Collins Show, Ms. Von Tussle contaminates the air with layer upon layer of gloriously delusional self-worship.

Hugely reworked for the film, there is a line cut from the song that I miss: "Childhood dreams for me were scrapped when that damn Shirley Temple stole my friggin' act!"

Also, there's a weird rattlesnake sound effect that happens all through the song that reminds me of the death rattle you hear in Terror Train whenever somebody's killed. Freaky!

Tori Spelling

Trick, a time capsule of pre-9/11 New York, casts Tori Spelling as the consummate musical theater fag hag/jealous girl friend to cute cute cute Christian Campbell's young gay man growing his wings in NYC. Spelling's rendition of the movie's theme song "Enter You" really keeps me on edge. I just don't know if she's gonna make it through the song! But she does, screaming her way to the last note. Raw.

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton officially became Hollywood's "It Girl" when Annie Hall was released in 1977. I'm old enough to remember the look that became all the rage. Her look. Love it or hate it, everyone was wearing it.

Ms. Keaton does sing. She was in the original cast of Hair, singing "Black Boys."  In Annie Hall she does a sweet rendition of "Seems Like Old Times," which I'm choosing for my compilation. The song, like the film, captures the nostalgia and longing a battered generation grew to have for an era long gone by. Later in another Woody Allen film Ms. Keaton would make a cameo as a nightclub singer singing "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To." And when Franco Zeffirelli was approached to direct a film version of Evita he said he would do it on the condition that Diane Keaton would star.