Emotionally stunted child woman Jamie Godard (a solid and touching performance by adorable brunette Marcia Forbes) not only suffers from an unhealthy fixation on her whoring no-count long absent father Philip (well played by Peter Lightstone), but also has an obsession with all the toys her wayward pop gave her as a kid. After getting a job at a toy store, Jamie decides to marry co-worker Charlie Belmond (a sturdy and likable portrayal by Harlan Cary Poe). When the marriage doesn't work out, Jamie runs away to New York City and becomes a prostitute who specializes in servicing perverted old men who like to play daddy with her.
Although the seamy premise sounds like ideal grindhouse fodder, director Stanley H. Brasloff and writer Macs McAree surprisingly deliver very little nudity and no simulated soft-core sex. Instead they tackle such dark and disturbing themes as incest, pedophilia, sexual repression, childhood trauma, kinky fetishism, and arrested adolescent syndrome gone tragically wrong in an unflinchingly stark and head-on confrontational manner. Naturally, this makes for decidedly grim and uncomfortable viewing, but the sordidly engrossing story and alarming array of almost universally miserable, messed-up, and unsympathetic characters give this picture a certain bitterly potent sting (the uncompromising bummer ending in particular packs a devastating downbeat punch). Moreover, the fine acting from the capable cast holds the movie together, with especially praiseworthy contributions from Evelyn Kingsley as brash and worn-out hooker Pearl Valdi, Luis Arroyo as scuzzy pimp Eddie, Fran Warren as Jamie's shrewish mother Edna, Tiberia Mitri as the frail and vulnerable little girl incarnation of Jamie, and N.J. Osrag as jolly toy store owner Max Geunther. Rolph Laube's competent cinematography and the brooding score by Cathy Lynn and Jacques Urbont are both up to par. Beautifully haunting theme song, too. An unusual and interesting little curio.
Although the seamy premise sounds like ideal grindhouse fodder, director Stanley H. Brasloff and writer Macs McAree surprisingly deliver very little nudity and no simulated soft-core sex. Instead they tackle such dark and disturbing themes as incest, pedophilia, sexual repression, childhood trauma, kinky fetishism, and arrested adolescent syndrome gone tragically wrong in an unflinchingly stark and head-on confrontational manner. Naturally, this makes for decidedly grim and uncomfortable viewing, but the sordidly engrossing story and alarming array of almost universally miserable, messed-up, and unsympathetic characters give this picture a certain bitterly potent sting (the uncompromising bummer ending in particular packs a devastating downbeat punch). Moreover, the fine acting from the capable cast holds the movie together, with especially praiseworthy contributions from Evelyn Kingsley as brash and worn-out hooker Pearl Valdi, Luis Arroyo as scuzzy pimp Eddie, Fran Warren as Jamie's shrewish mother Edna, Tiberia Mitri as the frail and vulnerable little girl incarnation of Jamie, and N.J. Osrag as jolly toy store owner Max Geunther. Rolph Laube's competent cinematography and the brooding score by Cathy Lynn and Jacques Urbont are both up to par. Beautifully haunting theme song, too. An unusual and interesting little curio.