Now that I have your attention...
(spoiler in final paragraph)
This curious nudie film is an early pre-ASTRO ZOMBIES item from schlock king Ted Mikels, which surprisingly enough, is a rather sober film compared to the wild Grade Z crud like CORPSE GRINDERS. This tale of disintegrating suburban mores concerns the exploits of Cliff and Mindy, who have moved to another city due to his big promotion. Before long, they fall prey to the debaucherous goings-on of two swinging gals who work down at the local peeler bar (one of them conveniently lives across the hall).
The film opens titillatingly enough (well, as tantalizing as this flick gets, anyway) with Cliff getting it on with some as yet unknown woman, only to be interrupted by a spiked heel crushing his sweaty hand. Before you can draw allusions to Kenneth Anger and Fassbinder, this tale takes you back to the past to witness this couple's downward slide.
Even though this film was made solely for the raincoat crowd (with ample cut-in's of anonymous breast grabbing to keep people interested), this sordid picture indirectly succeeds in capturing the suburban ennui of the high-rolling crowd circa 1965. How much one buys the calculated characterizations is strictly a matter of personal taste, but pre-Women's Lib, this picture nonetheless possesses a disturbing reminder of how women were regarded as property or playthings. Cliff, for instance, makes remarks about his neighbour's attractiveness... right in front of his wife! And later, after Mindy is "liberated" by the bisexual neighbour, her drunken striptease at a party, in order to get back at her philandering husband -while being far from innocent herself- is equal parts embarrassing and sad.
Despite the typically crude mise en scene (many moments are embarrassingly underlit), and the canned sound which captures all the heavy breathing (sometimes this rather innocuous nudie picture thinks it's a roughie), this picture succeeds despite itself in painting a bitter portrait of executive life. The characters seem to operate in one long lonely alcoholic fog which makes them susceptible to the ways of the flesh to relieve their boredom.
Finally, the film creaks along to the scene which opened, in which Cliff's interrupted tryst finally makes the characters realize the immorality to which they have descended. But rather than end the movie on a silly wrap-up moment in which the characters become goody-goody, the makers give us a GLEN OR GLENDA montage, with plenty of underexposed freeway scenes, as the tired narrator talks about how this picture should serve as a lesson about people escaping their ill repute, but ends with, "maybe some people won't want to". A bizarre touch to a turgid, but not uninteresting movie.
(spoiler in final paragraph)
This curious nudie film is an early pre-ASTRO ZOMBIES item from schlock king Ted Mikels, which surprisingly enough, is a rather sober film compared to the wild Grade Z crud like CORPSE GRINDERS. This tale of disintegrating suburban mores concerns the exploits of Cliff and Mindy, who have moved to another city due to his big promotion. Before long, they fall prey to the debaucherous goings-on of two swinging gals who work down at the local peeler bar (one of them conveniently lives across the hall).
The film opens titillatingly enough (well, as tantalizing as this flick gets, anyway) with Cliff getting it on with some as yet unknown woman, only to be interrupted by a spiked heel crushing his sweaty hand. Before you can draw allusions to Kenneth Anger and Fassbinder, this tale takes you back to the past to witness this couple's downward slide.
Even though this film was made solely for the raincoat crowd (with ample cut-in's of anonymous breast grabbing to keep people interested), this sordid picture indirectly succeeds in capturing the suburban ennui of the high-rolling crowd circa 1965. How much one buys the calculated characterizations is strictly a matter of personal taste, but pre-Women's Lib, this picture nonetheless possesses a disturbing reminder of how women were regarded as property or playthings. Cliff, for instance, makes remarks about his neighbour's attractiveness... right in front of his wife! And later, after Mindy is "liberated" by the bisexual neighbour, her drunken striptease at a party, in order to get back at her philandering husband -while being far from innocent herself- is equal parts embarrassing and sad.
Despite the typically crude mise en scene (many moments are embarrassingly underlit), and the canned sound which captures all the heavy breathing (sometimes this rather innocuous nudie picture thinks it's a roughie), this picture succeeds despite itself in painting a bitter portrait of executive life. The characters seem to operate in one long lonely alcoholic fog which makes them susceptible to the ways of the flesh to relieve their boredom.
Finally, the film creaks along to the scene which opened, in which Cliff's interrupted tryst finally makes the characters realize the immorality to which they have descended. But rather than end the movie on a silly wrap-up moment in which the characters become goody-goody, the makers give us a GLEN OR GLENDA montage, with plenty of underexposed freeway scenes, as the tired narrator talks about how this picture should serve as a lesson about people escaping their ill repute, but ends with, "maybe some people won't want to". A bizarre touch to a turgid, but not uninteresting movie.
