The Hot Spot (1990)

In director Dennis Hopper's contemporary, nihilistic erotic thriller and neo-noir - its themes were blackmail, adultery, murder and double-crossing twists and turns within a love-triangle amongst a trio of shady characters in a steamy and hot-house atmosphere, emphasized by its taglines: "Film Noir Like You've Never Seen," and "Safe is Never Sex. It's Dangerous." It was based on Charles Williams' 1952 tawdry and pulpy novel "Hell Hath No Fury."

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a financially-failing film. On a budget of $13 million, it only grossed $1.3 million.

• in the film's opening, Harry Madox (Don Johnson), a 36 year-old scheming drifter, and a slick loner and womanizer, suddenly arrived in the sun-baked town of Taylor, TX; during his stay at the Landmark Inn, he happened to notice that the Landers State Bank was completely unguarded when a fire broke out nearby in a hamburger shack. (All the bank employees were volunteer firemen.)
• Harry took a job at Harshaw Motors as a smooth-talking, used car dealer salesman, by showing his skill in closing a deal; there, he worked alongside the dealership's troubled, but sweet, wholesome and soft-spoken 19 year-old brunette Gloria Harper (future Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly), the office secretary-bookkeeper

Opportunistic Womanizer and Used Car Salesman Harry Madox (Don Johnson)

Used Car Lot Secretary-Bookkeeper Gloria Harper (Jennifer Connelly)

• Harry admitted: "My life's just been a succession of jams over floozies of one kind or another," and carried through on his philandering by starting an affair with his new boss' sultry wife Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen in a sizzling, vampish performance as a Lana Turner-like femme fatale seductress)
• Dolly was the hot-blooded, bored, trampy, predatory and opportunistic, sinful blonde wife of the used car-lot owner George Harshaw (Jerry Hardin), who drove a pink Cadillac open convertible; after helping her, she drawled: "There are only two things to do around here. You got a TV?" When Harry replied: "Nope,' she added: "Well, now you're down to one. Lotsa luck!"

Femme Fatale Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen)

• Dolly pursued him for sex - in her own bedroom when her husband was away for the weekend; they also had sex in the back seat of a parked car on display in the lot where he provided her with oral sex; she quipped afterwards: "That was more fun than eatin' cotton candy barefoot"

Dolly Seducing Harry in Her Bedroom and In a Parked Car in the Lot

• shortly later, Harry created circumstances (by setting a fire in one of the town's buildings on a hot afternoon) that provided him with the opportunity to rob the bank; later, he buried the cash in the ground in a wooded area; while engaged in an on-going highly-sexualized affair with Dolly, he also began a relationship with Gloria, beginning with a swimming-birthday date
• due to his on-going affair with Dolly, she was able to provide an alibi for his exact whereabouts at the time of the bank heist, but then blackmailed him into further involvement in an affair; she used her leverage to pressure him to keep seeing her, including skinny-dipping at the sawmill: "Wasn't that lucky I saw you there the other day at the fire? Just supposin' I had missed ya"; she jealously teased him: "You thought you could leave me for that Sunday-School kid. Thought you could leave me for her"; she emphasized: "I always get what I want, Harry," and then hinted that her weak-hearted husband could possibly die - if she had her way: "Anything at all too excitin' will just kill him"
• one of the side plots told about Gloria's troubled orphaned past with one of the menacing hillbilly townsfolk - unscrupulous, deadbeat, seedy backwoodsman Frank Sutton (William Sadler); according to her account, the girl that she had grown up with was her sister, and due to Sutton, she had committed suicide over the threatened blackmailing revelation of a lesbian affair with a teacher --

"Sutton drove her to it. He did it. She was my sister, Harry...She'd been havin' an affair with a woman who was a teacher of ours. They'd been meeting in Houston. Somehow Sutton found out. He seems to know what people's weaknesses are. And he was blackmailin' her."

• in addition, Sutton had taken incriminating sexual pictures of Gloria with her sister Irene Davey (Debra Cole) (before the suicide) when they went skinny-dipping together, seen in flashback; he threatened to also spread rumors of other sexual improprieties if he wasn't paid to keep quiet: "And what had we been doin' in that bedroom we shared when we were girls?"; after Irene's suicide, Sutton continued to blackmail and extort Gloria; she had been embezzling money from work ($500 each time) to pay Frank off, to prevent him from publicizing nude photos of her with Irene; however, now she was ready to quit the pay-offs and admit her guilt to Harshaw
• to defend Gloria who Harry was falling in love with, he roughed up Frank Sutton for blackmailing Gloria over the nude photos
• after Harry refused to run away with Dolly, she became very spiteful and jealously enraged: ("If you think you're gonna ditch me for that saccharin little candy-ass, you've got another thing comin'"); she deliberately intended to cause her husband George's death from over-excitement; Dolly confessed to her betrayed husband that she was "a bad wife" and was having an affair with Harry: ("All these things I'm doin' to you, I've done to your boy, Harry Madox, down at the sawmill, over and over again"); she engaged in vigorous sex with her elderly husband: ("l'm f--kin' you to death, George"), sending him with a lethal heart-attack to the hospital (off-screen)
• to avoid suspicion and further efforts by Frank to continue blackmailing Gloria - and also his questioning of Harry's own whereabouts during the bank robbery (although Frank wasn't even there), Harry planted the bank heist money on Frank to frame him
• during a second physical struggle with Frank inside his shack, he caught Frank having sex with Dolly!; she was identified by her shoes, although Frank delivered a misleading line: ("She ain't half bad for a girl that goes both ways, you know?")
• Harry killed Frank and made his death appear to be a suicide; he turned Frank in to the authorities, and was eligible for the $25,000 reward for allegedly solving the bank crime

Harry's Murder of Frank Sutton

Harry's Marital Proposal to Gloria

Harry Threatening to Choke Dolly - After She Pressured Him to Be With Her

• Harry's intention was to immediately whisk Gloria off to the Caribbean to be married - and he proposed: ("Just you and me and a wedding ring"); however, Dolly (now a widow) phoned with news of her husband's death: "You might say he died in the saddle"; she pressured Harry to be with her - with a letter (to be opened upon her death) that would incriminate Harry for both the robbery and Frank's death, and would condemn Gloria's theft of blackmail money to pay off Sutton
• the double-crossing Dolly revealed that she had been in cahoots with Frank (he hadn't witnessed the second fire at all), and was the one having sex with him in his shack; Dolly had also stated how Harry had betrayed Gloria twice -- he turned her in for theft of car-dealership funds to pay off Sutton, and also behind her back had engaged in a secret affair with Dolly; therefore, Gloria decided to break up with Harry by refusing a ride back to the dealership
• although tempted to choke Dolly to death when he now realized that she had informed Frank about Harry's involvement in the theft and bank fire, Harry ended up with her as they drove away from town - conversing in voice over:

  Harry: "In this life, you gotta take what you want."
  Dolly: "I always get what I want, Harry."
  Harry: "Yes, indeed. I've found my level. And I'm livin' it."