Sheila Ross (Alaina Capri) is a secondary antagonist in the 1967 exploitation film "Common Law Cabin", which was directed by Russ Meyer.
At the beginning of the movie, we see a nurse named Sheila Ross and her husband, a doctor named Martin Ross (John Furlong). They are arguing alongside a pool. This is nothing new, as Dr. Ross is an isecure yet abusive husband. They are approached by an old salty man named Cracker (Frank Bolger), who tells them of a nice cabin to get away from it all. It is called Hoople's Haven, located along the Colorado River, and surrounded by desert and isolated from civilization. The couple agrees to make the trek, and they are joined by Barney Rickert (Ken Swofford), a man who pays for a seat to join them.
On the long journey, Rickert makes several passes at Sheila, and she does nothring to shut it down. The two suggestively stare most of the way. Martin gets more and more irritated with his wife, but there is nothing he can do, as he is very timid to say anything against his wife.
The group finally makes it to the cabin, and they are introduced to the owner, Dewey Hoople, an ex-military man, his French wife Babette (Babette Bardot), and their teenage daughter Coral (Adele Rein). Babette was his second wife, and their seemed to be a little sexual tension with his daughter Coral who remided him of his first wife. For entertainment, they play music from a turntable and Coral shakes her ass, to the displeasure of Dewey.
It is later determined that Rickert is a city cop who's stolen a suitcase-worth of unclaimed jewels and is hiding out at Hoople's Haven until the heat is off. He's a vile man driven by bestial needs. Rickert offers to purchase the dude ranch from Dewey, but is told it isn't for sale.
Martin shows signs of mental and physical abuse to try to control his sex-crazed wife. The more he does so, the more wild she becomes. When she comes onto Dewey, Martin tells her she needs to drink less, because she is being ridiculous. Eventually, Martin asks to return to the resort they came from, but Sheila is intrigued by the possibilities.
Rickert then pays Cracker to take off in the boat and not come back for 48 hours. Originally, this was advertised as a day excursion After he leaves, he stuffs the suitcase full of jewels in the reeds. When Cracker leaves, Dewey tells his guests that their sleeping quarters will be prepared.
Sheila decides to slip into a bikini and do some exploring of the compound. The next thing we see is Rickert and Sheila have a rendezvous in a hidden pool of water. Sheila tries to play hard to get, and the two of them move into the water.
After he little romp, we see Sheila come across Babette, who is using her machette to chop wood. Sheila insults her telling her that she is fake, and that her husband is a broken down sailer. Babette threatens Sheila with the machette, and tells her that she better watch it "or you'lll be wearing that bikini like a bow-tie. With that she said, Sheila walked away.
Soon we see Babette go for a skinny dip in a secluded pool, and Rickert joins her. Rickert has his way with Babette, and after raping her. Rickert than sets his sights on Coral. Coral agrees when she is offered one-hundred dollars. They head down to the water hole.
While listening to the radio, Babette and Dewey hear about Laurence Talbot II, who is a young millionaire. He is said to be on the loose in the area. All of the sudden, they see a boat, and Dewey uses his rifle to get his attention. Coral gives Rickert his money back, and tells him that the tour is over. However, Rickert is not interested in giving up, and he tackles her from behind.
Coral is escued by Laurence Talbott III, who emerges out of nowhere in his boat. Rickert convinces him that he is a cop, and shows him his badge.
Meanwhile back at the cabin, Martin is smacking Sheila in the face multiple times. Dewey has to hold him back.
Rickert returns alongside Coral and Talbot, just in time form dinner. Dewey throws out the red carpet, since he knew that he was worth over 40 million dollars. While he was eating, Talbot passed out in his soup.
While the group was playing altogether at a watering pool, Sheila and Rickert challenged Babette and Martin to a fight of chicken. As the girls sat on the guys shoulders, a good old fashioned catfight took place. Sheila won when she kicked Babette, which caused Martin to fall backward. Somehow, Martin was killed from the fall in the shallow mud. Babette tried to give him mouth to mouth, but Sheila told her he was dead. Babette thought she was being incencitive, but Sheila said that since she was a nurse, she knew what a dead person looked like. The two nearly began brawling, but they were broken up by Rickert.
After asking sad back at the cabin, Rickert cornered Sheila. He called her out for having an angle on killing her husband. At first, Sheila was offended, and tried to deny it. However, Rickert kept pestering her that he knew she had planned putting him in that situation, knowing that Martin had a bad heart. He told her that since he helped her with the deed, that she needed to help her, and the both of them could escape with millions. He told her that he needed to hole up until the heat was off, and couldn't allow anyone to get to Yuma and alert the cops. She agreed to help distract the rest of them, while Rickert figured out a plan. In doing so, she figured that she would make a big score and share in Rickert's jewels.
Sheila headed down to the beach where she ran interference with Dewey. She began to seduce him, and keep him from fixing the motor in Talbot's boat. She argued that everyone else was hooking up, and if he didn't someone else would. Dewey eventually gave into the seduction, and the two of them rolled around in the sand.
Babette found Rickert spying on Coral and Talbot, and tried to call him out. Rickert then knocked her out and left her in the bushes. Then he told Martin that Coral was out in the weeds with Dewey making love.
Just then, Cracker showed back up with the boat. However, Rickert shot him with the rifle. When Sheila complained that he had promised no one else would get hurt, Rickert hit her across the face. He reminded her that if she wanted to share in the jewels, she would need to do what he told her to do.
Cracker died after telling Dewey and Talbot about Rickert and the jewels.
Rickert had Sheila keep the rest of the group at gunpoint while he secured the getaway boat. However, Rickert soon double crossed her. After getting the suitcase of jewels, he took Babette as hostage with his pistol. Then he exchanged them for Talbot and Coral and took off in the boat. When Sheila noticed that he was leaving her, she went running toward the water. Rickert yelled at her "go buy yourself another husband, baby".
Sheila aimed a small pistol at Rickert as he took off in a boat, and missed wildly. Rickert laughed at her incompetance, and with one shot, hit her in the stomach. Sheila fell to the ground and died face first in the 1/2 foot of water. Before she died, she said that she "was only kidding".
Talbot was able to distract Rickert and then tackle him into the water. The boat continued to go in circles, and it ran over the top of Rickert, killing him. The kids survived, and the last we see of Sheila is Dewey lining her corpse along with Cracker's on the shoreline.
Trivia[]
- Alaina Capri appeared as Angel Boland in the 1967 exploitation film "Good Morning... and Goodbye!".
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