Taglines: The story of a woman’s courage and a woman’s revenge.
Lipstick movie storyline. When super model Chris McCormick is brutally raped and sodomized by her sister Kathy’s music teacher Gordon Stuart, she presses charges against him. He is found innocent by a jury much to the chagrin of District Attorney Carla Bondi. When Stuart rapes Kathy, Chris must avenge both horrible acts.
Lipstick is a 1976 American rape and revenge thriller film directed by Lamont Johnson and starring Margaux Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, and Anne Bancroft. Mariel Hemingway also has a supporting role as Margaux’s onscreen sister. The film follows a fashion model who is raped by her sister’s music teacher. Upon his acquittal in court, he rapes her sister, leading her to enact a brutal revenge.
The soundtrack of the film was by French singer Michel Polnareff who released the album in 1976 on Atlantic Records. The soundtrack became a disco success on its own in the United States and internationally.
About the Story
Twenty-one year-old Chris McCormick (Margaux Hemingway) is a top model for a company selling lipstick. McCormick has responsibility for her 14 year-old sister Kathy (Mariel Hemingway) as their parents were killed in a car crash. They share an apartment and Kathy attends a private, Catholic school.
Kathy invites her handsome, young music teacher, Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon) to come to one of Chris’s photo shoots along the ocean because she wants her older sister to hear his somewhat avant garde musical compositions. The shoot runs long, so Chris does not have a chance to hear it, but arrangements are made for him to stop by her apartment the next day to play it for her.
The next day, Stuart arrives at the apartment, but Chris has forgotten the appointment and this causes her to greet him fresh out of the shower dressed in nothing but a robe. Stuart obviously hopes that if she likes his music she might be able to use some of her musical connections to help him. While he is playing a selection from his tape recorder (the composition uses a lot of environmental sounds with electronic synthesizers) Chris is interrupted with a phone call from her boyfriend Steve Edison (Perry King) and retreats to her bedroom.
The interruption and Chris’s apparent apathy toward his music enrages Stuart and he enters her bedroom smashing things and hitting her. He then throws her naked across her four poster bed and secures her spread-eagle on her stomach with silk scarves to the posts and sodomizes her.
Toward the end of the rape Chris has stopped struggling so when little sister Kathy arrives home from school she enters the apartment and hears nothing amiss. She walks into Chris’s bedroom via a connecting balcony and sees the scene, but does not realize that Chris is being forced against her will, so she leaves quietly, shutting the patio door behind her.
Chris hears the patio door shut and realizes that Kathy must be home and begs Stuart to release her. After half-jokingly suggesting they make it “threesome,” he does, noting that Kathy must think “her sister just made it with her favorite teacher.” Stuart leaves and a crying Chris stumbles to Kathy who finally realizes that something is wrong. The police arrive and gather evidence while Chris talks to a rape-crisis counselor. Later that night the police pick up Stuart and take him to jail.
A few days later Chris, Edison and Chris’s priest/brother, Martin (John Bennett Perry) meet with district attorney Carla Bondi (Anne Bancroft). Bondi warns Chris that getting a conviction under these circumstances (she invited him to her apartment) will not be easy. Edison also has his doubts about pressing charges as he fears it may damage Chris’s career. Chris makes it clear that she want to go ahead, however.
Stuart’s attorney Nathan Cartright (Robin Gammell) does everything he can to raise doubt in the jury’s mind about whether the encounter was consentual even bringing in Chris’s sexy pictures from the photo shoot in an attempt to besmirch her reputation. However, in the end it is Chris’s own sister’s testimony that gets Stuart off the hook: despite Kathy’s protests that she believes her sister’s story, it is clear that the afternoon of the attack Kathy’s failure to call the police after seeing them together in the bedroom is a clear indication that she did not think at the time that her sister was being raped. The jury acquits Stuart.
Lipstick (1976)
Directed by: Lamont Johnson
Starring: Margaux Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, Mariel Hemingway, Anne Bancroft, John Bennett Perry, Perry King, Francesco Scavullo, Inga Swenson, Lauren Jones, William Paul Burns, Catherine McLeod
Screenplay by: David Rayfiel
Production Design by: Robert Luthardt
Cinematography by: Bill Butler
Film Editing by: Marion Rothman
Costume Design by: Jodie Lynn Tillen, Donfeld
Set Decoration by: Donfeld
Music by: Michel Polnareff
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: April 2, 1976
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