The roughie was a peculiar feature of the American sexploitation cinema of the mid-60s. It emerged because although you could get away with nudity you could not get away with very much at all in terms of actual sexual content. There was however virtually no limit to what you could get away with in terms of violence. The obvious way to spice up nudie movies was to add lots of violence. Some roughies were more extreme than others. Some were much more extreme. And then there were the roughies of husband-and-wife film-making team Michael and Roberta Findlay.
It wasn’t so much the violence that made their work distinctive (although there was plenty of violence). Their films were just positively bizarre and twisted. Their most celebrated achievement was the notorious Flesh trilogy, beginning with The Touch of Her Flesh (1967), continuing with The Curse of Her Flesh (1968) and culminating with The Kiss of Her Flesh (also 1968). I’ve already reviewed the first two movies in the trilogy. It is The Kiss of Her Flesh with which we are now concerned.
Michael Findlay directed and edited, Roberta did the cinematography and the music and they share the writing and producing credits.
Richard Jennings, the psycho killer of the first two films, is back and he’s still intending to take revenge on all women, because his wife betrayed him. But for Jennings it’s not enough to kill. He has to kill in bizarre and imaginative ways. His first murder in this film is by electrocution but he has other much weirder methods up his sleeve.
Maria (Uta Erickson) hears the news that her sister’s best friend has been murdered and she just knows that Richard Jennings was responsible. She hurries to her sister’s house so they can make plans to kill Jennings. But before doing that they take time off to have sex. Then Maria returns to her hotel.
Meanwhile Jennings strikes. Posing as a doctor he commits two murders, one employing a method that is certainly original - poisoned semen. The other woman is disposed of by means of an acidified douche.
And oh yeah, he also commits murder by blowtorch. There’s also torture by lobster.
Maria is now determined to stop Jennings by any means necessary.
The content sounds disturbing and misogynistic but oddly enough it isn’t really offensive. Partly that’s because it’s so cartoonish. It’s also a bit like Russ Meyer’s movies in which men think they have the upper hand but actually they don’t. All their violence really does is to establish their powerlessness. No matter what Jennings does he’s still a loser.
Like Meyer the Findlays seem to be enjoying themselves, constantly trying to top their own outrageousness. There’s some deliciously campy dialogue (and it’s obviously deliberately campy) which constantly undercuts the violence. We’re not expected to be horrified, we’re expected to be amused and amazed. Which we are.
As in the previous two films Michael Findlay plays Richard Jennings, with trade-mark eye patch and maniacal laughter.
The Findlays were also quite technically competent, much more so than many sexploitation film-makers. They are genuinely trying to make things visually interesting. They don’t just shoot a sex scene, they use things like mirrors and key holes. These were the days when the better film-makers in the genre were still actually trying to make movies.
As with the other movies in the Flesh trilogy the opening credits are clever, with the credits on lip-shaped pieces of paper placed strategically on a woman’s naked body.
There’s a lot of nudity and it’s far more explicit than in the previous films but the overall effect is high camp rather than titillation.
And there are in-jokes that only cult movie fans would pick up on, such as Jennings masquerading as Dr Esumab (which is of course Mabuse spelt backwards).
Something Weird’s DVD release includes all three movies in the trilogy, with the transfers ranging from pretty good to excellent. You can check out my reviews of The Touch of Her Flesh and The Curse of Her Flesh.
I’d describe the movies in the Flesh trilogy as bizarre black comedies rather than proto-slasher movies. The Findlay roughies, like Russ Meyer’s movies, exist in a weird cartoon universe of their own. That was the great thing about the sexploitation genre. There were no studio execs telling film-makers they couldn’t do things because they were too weird or too silly. If you had a vision you could put it on film. And the Findlays had a vision. You might like it or not like it but it was strangely compelling. If you take it seriously you’ll probably hate. If you just go with the sleazy outrageousness you might well enjoy it. Recommended.
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