Thanks for the memories!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Having just watched the little people musical western The Terror of Tiny Town, I decided to go next to fancast.com to watch Little Cigars which stars two of TTOTT's players: Billy Curtis and Jerry Maren. Other members of their gang include Frank Delfino, Felix Silla, and Emory Sousa. There's also a statuesque blond played by Angel Tomkins who reluctantly joins their carnival act when she runs from her former gangster paramour's henchmen. At this point, the movie becomes a series of heists that provide some suspenseful moments. Most of the time, however, there's some highly humorous moments involving size and sex and fighting. In fact, I loved the scene when the Curtis character attempts to get "girlfriend" Tomkins out of the bar by beating up on the guy sitting next to her especially after previously seeing him doing the same to "Little Billy" Rhodes in The Terror of Tiny Town! No great shakes but Little Cigars comes highly recommended for anyone with a taste for the unusual. P.S. Angelo Rossito was another little person who appears here as part of a member of those his size put in a police lineup. His best known movie was Freaks. Also in continuing to point out actors with connections to my birth town of Chicago, Simmy Bow was also born there and Walter Beakel was a founding member of The Second City there.

This movie doesn't fit neatly into any category. It has elements of comedy, including slapstick, puns, sexual innuendo, and "witty" lines, but also contains foul language, brutal murders, robberies and assaults. Added to this lack of focus is terrible pacing. Some of this is the fault of the editor as he holds to long on a close-up of a character who has just said a "funny" line, but those extended pauses for laughs are present even when the scene does not cut away. I suppose the humor of the movie was supposed to derive from the surprise of seeing little people who are as nasty and cruel as everyone else. Even in 1972, this would not have surprised many people. This would probably have been a lot funnier if made a few years after the Wizard of Oz. The plot is nothing more than a series of "capers" that demonstrate the many clever ways you can smuggle a bunch of midgets into an establishment you are planning to rob. There's no indication of how or why this group of con artists suddenly become brutal armed robbers. There is nothing of the con artist subtlety in their later capers. What dramatic tension there is comes from trying to decide if Cleo (Angel Tompkins) really cares for Slick, or is just stringing him along. Since neither of these characters is sympathetic, it's hard to care to much about this.

A gangsters former mistress (Angel Tompkins) is on the run from him after robbing him. She falls in with a midget acting group (called Little Cigars) who are also robbers. She teams up with them and starts falling for the head of the group (Billy Curtis).As you can see this is an odd film---even for American International Pictures (AIP). In many ways this is an fun but ordinary caper film--the dialogue and plot would not be out of place in any generic film. It's just this is done with midgets. You think that might play with that more but they don't. There is some pretty explicit sex talk for a PG film and it's pretty obvious that Tompkins is sleeping with Curtis. And get a load of the very obvious sexual animation during the opening credits! The acting is just OK but Tompkins is pretty good.All in all a strange film. It is fun and it moves very quickly but why have midgets in it and not use that aspect at all? Still it was enjoyable. I give it an 8.

Angel Tompkins(grrrrr.....)stars in this dodgy modern retelling of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", portraying a shifty waitress who falls into a life of crime with a band of midget grifters. Together, they turn their initial petty thefts into big-time capers which ultimately lead to very serious consequences. Not at all the light comedy it was marketed as, though there are giggles in spots, the mien of LITTLE CIGARS borders more on seedy noir in a rather nontraditional and semi-exploitive way. Miles short of masterful, but a unique and quirky as hell B flick with considerable cult appeal.5/10