The Naked Kiss (1965) Shock and Shame, the story of a Night Girl.

Let me say that this is one of my favorite films. I think that it’s such a bold concoction of visual style, specific alienation that we as spectators experience along with Kelly our female Protagonist. The undercurrent of sexual pathology of a perverse nature and a raw energy that fuels some crude reactionary moments on film. Normally I wouldn’t write about the ending of a film as not to ruin it for the viewer, yet Constance Tower’s remarkable performance and Fuller’s raw cinematic veritae must be experienced, the story will not lose anything by my relating it here. I actually consider this part of my women in peril series, but more aptly put, it’s a womanhood in peril film.

Samuel Fuller’s B post noir films are not like anyone else’s. Fuller’s work is often confrontational and visceral considered the kinkiest of all the B post noir auteurs.

From Alain Silver and James Ursini’s Film Noir Reader 2 “Fuller’s Naked Kiss “boldly offers a different kind of descriptive pause. Fuller takes on Patriarchy and directly assaults the spectator with a bizarre opening”

In their book they inform us that Fuller actually attached a camera to actor Monte Mansfield who plays Kelly’s pimp Farlunde, the guy she pummels in his swanky apartment right from the tip of the film.Thus creating an off kilter and disorienting mood. The opening of The Naked Kiss, is perhaps for me one of the most audacious beginnings to any cinematic work. It sort of punches you right in the face along with Farlunde.

The greater theme of the film is it’s narrative of womens’ role within society. In a way not unlike Elia Kazan, Fuller has created a sociological framework, to lay out questions of what womanhood, as well as motherhood, means discursively. While at the end of the film, Kelly is relegitimized as being a savior and not a whore, she is still not allowed to live amongst the clean town’s people. She is still an outsider. Silver and Ursini also correctly bring out in their noir reader the  fact that the context of the film is a “discursive-based attack on men and how they define women as well as the limits they place on them”. Also notable is the displaced female rage that only became better articulated later on with  feminists during the 60s and 70s.

The Naked Kiss written, directed and produced by Sam Fuller, opens wide like a steel trap, with Constance Towers as Kelly viciously beating up a pimp Farlunde in his swanky apartment, smashing away at him with her handbag. Hitting his face and neck, it’s like watching a brutal choreographed dance. Fuller creates this wavering movement to give us a sense of the dizzying brutality. Farlunde begs “I’m drunk Kelly please,” “enough Kelly please.” The savage jazz riffs underscoring the bashing. Her wig comes flying off, and now we see a bald Kelly still attacking the man relentlessly. The jazz more coherent with hyper active saxophone.

Stripped of her hair looking like a mannequin (perhaps to show us Kelly as an “object”) she beats him till he staggers to the floor, spraying seltzer water in his face. He’s wasted by the beating, she rifles through his pockets and grabs some cash from his wallet. “Eight hundred dollars… you parasite… I’m taking only what’s coming to me.” She starts counting out bills, throwing them down upon his chest, “fifty, sixty, seventy-five… I’m not rolling you, you drunken leech, I’m only taking the seventy-five dollars that’s coming to me.”

She crumples up her share, shoves it into her bra and kicks him while he’s lying there. She stares at us like we’re her mirror. Gratified she puts her wig back on and the title rolls, The Naked Kiss. Sam Fuller’s story of alienation, gender subjugation and the question of immorality and deviant sexual pathology, opens up in a big way.

The Paul Dunlop score becomes more dreamy, with melodramatic strings and Kelly brushing her wig. getting it right. The credits roll and Kelly is applying her eye pencil transforming herself back into a woman and not blood thirsty she-devil. Now the blush is applied, the music fades back into the jazz number and we see Farlunde knocked out, lying on the floor.The saxophone is hurling trills at us, Kelly grabs a photograph down from a collection of beauties and she starts tearing it up to pieces, throws them on the ground, the Farlunde stirs, coughs a bit and starts to get up, Kelly slams the door.

As he starts picking up the debris Kelly has left in her wake he puts crumpled up bills on top of a calendar and we see the date July 4, 1961. A quick cut, flash forward to a banner in the street touting August 12, 1963 and the melodramatic music is serenading us again. The camera pulls out for a wider angle, we can see the entire banner now, it reads 2 years later. August 12, 1963 Fashion Show for Handicapped Children Grantville Orthopedic Medical Center

The top of a bus moving through the street, a parked car, a mostly empty street, with a few people crossing it, and mulling about. This is the suggestion of a quiet, quaint American town.

Then a car horn toots, 3 men standing outside a Bus Depot, Griff (Anthony Eisley) says “Ten bucks, that right Mike?” Mike says “why spend your own money on that punk?” Griff turns to the young man and says while stuffing it in his pocket “Here’s your ticket” smiles at him and shoves some money into his pocket as well. All the time the young man is looking down as if ashamed. He says “Thanks a lot Griff… I’ll pay you back.” Griff looks at him sternly, “I’m giving you a break, cause your brother was in my outfit… I don’t want to see you in this town again.” The young man looks down again.

Then a Greyhound bus pulls over to the curb. We see the marquee of the movie theater is playing Shock Corridor, a nod to Fuller’s other psychologically wrenching film about a newspaper reporter going undercover in a lunatic asylum, only to become one of the patients.

The bus door opens, from our vantage point, we see a woman’s foot taking a step, long slender legs attached,the screen flirts with us, a little more leg with skirt now, the scene is taking it’s time, showing us the woman. Skirt holding suitcases and the characteristic horn plays a sexy VaVaVa Voom riff. The bus porter meets the woman we see her face in silhouette, wearing a nice lightly colored tailored suit. He comes to greet her and help with her bags. Griff’s expression looks interested. “Please check my trunk” she says. It’s Kelly, with what looks like a fully grown head of blond hair, nicely coiffed. She’s smiling pleasantly, “lady like”, “I’ll send for it later” she says in softly spoken tones. She tips Mike, he blushes and says “thank you ma’am.” She smiles back.

Kelly and Griff make eye contact. She inquires where the wash room is. Griff says as if gritting his teeth, “inside, to the right.” She lilts her head, using her eyes to convey her gratitude, “thank you.” She walks off, Griff’s eyes following her all the while. The VaVaVoom sax as signature theme which characterizes her sex appeal. Now Griff breaks his gaze and turns to the young man. “Get on it, and get lost.” He picks up his bags and gets on the bus, then a Mike the porter and his little girl Bunny with her mother walk over. Mike’s wife is holding a bag of groceries, “pot roast tonight Griff”, he says “oh not tonight” the man says “oh I wanted to finish that game Griff.”
“Danny’s been taken to the hospital…I’m pulling duty for him for tonight”

The little girl fingers the letter embossed on the trunk and asks “what’s this K mean?” Griff tells her, “that’s the name of the owner.” The little girl Bunny giggles “K is no name,Uncle Griff”Mike says “Bunny…don’t you fool around with that” the little girl says “yes dad” Mike’s wife says “see ya at home Mike.” Griff is smiling with pride, this is a lovely little family he’s thinking.”By daddy.” “Bye.”

Sensual washes of music bring Kelly back onto the screen. Coyly leaning up against the wall, shooting eyes at Griff and Mike, the sax flirting out tones.Kelly smiles over at them. Tilts her head and walks away, swinging her hips. Griff watches her walk, “that’s enough to make a bull dog bust it’s chain.” Griff starts to follow her. Kelly passes two little girls playing jump rope by a baby carriage. Kelly looks into the carriage and smiles placing a baby bottle into the infant’s mouth.

Does this sexualized figure have a mother instinct? Is this act of caring for the infant alluding to a maternal aspect to Kelly?

We don’t hear sexy horns anymore, now it’s sweeping strings, romantic swells, of the grandiose potential for the American Dream. A normal life ahead? Kelly continues to walk through the park with her bags. Passing yet another woman on a park bench with a baby carriage. The visual narrative lets us know that this is a family town. Now we see Griff still following her. Fixes his jacket and checks to see if anyone notices that he’s tracking Kelly.

The scene cross fades into Kelly and Griff sitting on a park bench. Kelly’s reading a book and Griff is leaning on her suitcase. He asks “traveling saleslady? she says” “uh ha” “Staying long?” Still looking at her book “long enough to cover this territory.” Griff says “Well there’s one Hotel in town, special rates for salesmen…” Looking down at her case “what’re you selling?” She puts her book down grabs the case and says “Angel Foam” opens up the case and reveals 3 bottles “champagne.” Griff seems delighted. Kelly tells him “best on the market.” He asks “what are the pens for?” She gives a little shake of her head “customers.” A strange undertone to the way she says “customers.” A few years back or as recently as present day “customer” means something very different for Kelly.

Griff asks “How ’bout a sample.” She slams the case closed. We hear the clasps jingle as she says “uh uh, no free sips.” He readjusts himself and leans in and tell her “well I’m pretty good at popping the cork…if the vintage is right.”

The sexual double entendre is blatant. Kelly’s looking at her book again, he’s trying to get her attention. He looks like he’s trying to find a word and says “Angel Foam… never heard of it.” She smiles but still doesn’t look at Griff. “It’s an exclusive line I’m introducing in this state.” Griff asks  “domestic or imported?” Now Kelly looks at him, with piercing eyes, as if to say you couldn’t handle my goods.

“Angel Foam goes down like liquid gold.. .and it comes up like slow dynamite… for the man of taste.” Again the sexual innuendo is clearly part of their dialogue. The cover of the book shows a woman in peril, trying to flee some unseen assailant the title reads. Dark Rage. Here the word rage is introduced subliminally, also the fact that Kelly is selling something associated with romance with a name like Foam…is this code for climax or ejaculation? For 1965 Fuller rips the surface right off the film, and doesn’t hint around the issue of desire, the male gaze and sexuality at all in Naked Kiss.

Kelly asks “Do you think you can afford it?” And Griff says “how much for a bulls eye?” “Ten dollars a bottle.” “Ten dollars, well that’s dirt cheap.” She closes the book. “Well we practically give it away to the first customer.” He looks puzzled she tells him “it’s called, good will in business” looking at him, still in control of the conversation.

Fade out, then fade into:

Griff lying on the couch drinking from a champagne glass. Kelly’s on the floor brushing out her beautiful blond hair. As she brushes she remarks “wonderful, just wonderful.” Griff bleets “thank you.” “Not you, I’m talking about my hair.” We hear Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata playing in the background. He says “you’re crazy mussing it up that way” she glows “you’ll never know what a thrill this is…it’s all new.” He furrows his brow “new?” Still brushing, “mmh hmm, it’s just grown back.” “Did it fall out because you were sick?” She shakes her head no “Uh uh.”Griff starts to rise up on the couch “don’t tell me you had your head shaved?” She turns and smiles “it wasn’t my idea.” He looks concerned and asks her “what happened?” She tells him “It’ll keep.”

Then the tension breaks and he smiles, puts his arm around her and kisses her neck. There’s a shot of money on a small table, next to a chilled bottle in an ice bucket.”Well at least you made a ten spot on Angel Foam.” “I thought you gave me a twenty?” “Isn’t that enough wine to make you see double?” he answers. He starts rubbing her neck and cheek and she says “Ah, Moonlight Sonata… my favorite.” He kisses her neck she says “I see myself in a boat when I hear that… a boat… on a lake… and the moonlight… leaves lazily falling on me… what do you see?” He’s still kiss her, hand on her neck, “I’m tone deaf” he says.

Kelly obviously aspires for better things. She has a sense of refinement. Appreciation for the classics. This is a woman with many layers. She is not just a whore.

Cross Fade, Griff is now getting dressed. He tells Kelly that she can sleep at his place, just for the night. She’s still sitting on the floor. Leaning up against the couch contemplative. She gets up and asks “How long have you been a cop?” He turns around after taking a sip of coffee “is my badge that obvious?” Kelly says “is mine?” Griff says “well I was taking no chances.” She says “in my business I have to.” These are two marked people, Griff and Kelly. The user and the used.

He puts his jacket on “Well I don’t see any battle scars.” Kelly says “that’s ’cause I practice the first rule of the house… end with the local law first, break the ice for later.” But Griff looks down at her “they’ll be no later… this town is clean.”

Kelly takes the remark like a slap in the face. She gets up angered “what do you mean by that?” “That means that you and me will get along like noise and a hangover if you pitch tent in my bivouac.” She looks so harmed by his insult. He has lost his lazy carefree demeanor and has now donned the cop uniform with Kelly. She tells him “for a cop, you oughtta read books… Goethe (she pronounces it Gotha, but at least she tries to appear intelligent) for instance.” “Go who?” “Goetha the poet… he said nothing is more terrible than an act of ignorance and mister you proved him one hundred percent right.”

She mispronounces Goethe but now we see a scrapper, who is trying to better herself, by opening up to philosophical ideas and poetry, looking for meaning in life. Representing her desire to improve her station in life. Griff’s insult isn’t lost on me either as the viewer. What hypocrisy, that she was good enough to use for his sexual pleasure, but now she’s not good enough for the town. As if Griff’s hands were clean. As if he isn’t a willing participant in the act of prostitution. This is one instance where Fuller challenges Patriarchy, and the double standard that it practices.

She continues “I’m not going to start the Bubonic plague here” Griff grabs her “Now listen, it’s nothing personal Muffin…if I let you set up shop in this neighborhood, people’d chop me like a ripe banana.” she comes back at him “then why’d you buy my merchandise.” She now joins in objectifying herself as a commodity. A thing she can sell. Her body and sex are equal components to her total worth.

Griff fumbles for the words “I, I was thirsty.” He puts his arm around her, she smiles a little, he starts walking her around the apartment like he’s about to give her fatherly advice.He says “Across the river, there’s a wide open town… Delmar Falls… it’s not in this state.. .there’s a salon there, and I don’t mean a beauty parlor.. .Candy Ala Carte…(he smirks)… Candy’s a personal friend of mine”. He grabs her neck affectionately tough, she looks at him, he says “I’ll buy a bottle from you now and then.”

She nods, and then he finally asks “What’s your name?” She answers “Kelly.” He’s still holding onto her with his hands. He barks at her “Your real name!” She jabs back equally on par with his tone”K E double L Y.” He tells her she’ll be his sounds like “ichi van” that’s a Japanese expression, he picked it up in Tokyo. She knows what it means, tells him “means number one..” He looks at her approvingly as if surprised that she’s intelligent. Now she asks”what’s your name tiger?” “Za, I mean Griff.” Now she says “your real name” as he puts his hat on he spells out “G R I double F.” She asks “rank?” “Captain.” She looks over his suit “no uniform?” “Everybody knows me.” He tilts his hat down over his eyes. Is that a gesture of shame?

Kelly hands him a pen “a reminder not to change brands.” Another innuendo, he reads the writing on the pen “Angel Foam guarantee’s satisfaction.” He snickers, “it’s almost as good as Candy’s trademark.” Kelly crosses her arms and looks skeptical “Oh what does Candy guarantee?” Griff answer “indescribable pleasure…(Kelly nods)… she got it out of a book, it’s stamped on all her glasses… tell her I sent you.” He tilts his head and looks at her and with a stern voice and says “Kelly” as if asking a question. She replies “Yes sir?” “Didn’t you forget something?” She pauses then acts like the light bulb just went on, “oh, thank you for the room Captain” she says in a wispy voice. Griff says “you owe me ten bucks change” she says “uh uh” as she fixes his tie. “I never make change” just then the sexy vava voom sax starts playing,

Kelly is identified again as call girl, night girl, as the DVD cover says “the story of a night girl.” Griff lightly thumbs Kelly’s chin and kisses her on the nose, nods to her and sticks the pen in his hat. The sexy music a little more playful and less seductive at this point. He walks away and Kelly smiles after him. Griff is very content having Kelly remain as she is “a night girl”.

We see a street scene again, this represents the town, the clean town. but we quickly switch to Kelly, stirring in bed. Left arm over her eyes to block out the light. It’s morning. As she starts to arise, she looks over at a newspaper clipping GRANT SAVES GRIFF IN KOREA; WOUNDED says the Grantville Gazette. She smells some of Griff’s cologne, approves and then splashes some on her neck. She stops by a mirror, then suddenly looks sullen, she touches under her eye and follows the cheekbone. She goes to the other side of her face. there shows a level of discontent at the image in the mirror. The music tells us she’s disturbed with harp chords that cascade, the contrast of light music rather than darker score makes the scene more powerful. Until now Kelly has exuded confidence and strength. What is Kelly thinking? Is she reflecting upon who she’s been, and where she’s going? The mirror symbolizes self-recognition.

Now from a distance, a far off lens, we see her walking down the sidewalk lined with trees, she seems so small in the scene. She’s closer now, we hear her heals clicking on the pavement. She looks up, there is a sign, Madam Josephine Seamstress. Kelly smiles, then we see that she is reading a sign Pleasant Room For Rent a closer shot, emphasis on the word Pleasant.

Kelly shakes her head and smiles with a joyfulness. She walks up the steps and rings the bell. With her back turned looking out over the town, she shakes her head like “yes, this is for me, this is the place for me.” An old woman Miss Josephine played by Betty Bronson, opens the door, and says good morning. Kelly says “you have a room for rent.” “Please come in” Kelly walks into the house, and looks pleased. The kindly old woman wearing an apron says”here let me take that” and grabs Kelly’s bag.”Thank you” “I’ll show you the room…this is the room…it has a beautiful view, it faces the river.” Kelly gets excited and walks around a four poster bed. “it’s a family heirloom…do you realize we spend about a third of our lives in bed?”

Kelly smiles ironically at that statement, she starts to comment then just looks down and loses the words. The old woman says “to sleep in comfort is very important…I used to say a little verse about it, like to hear it?” Kelly says sure, a little music box tinkling begins “Four corners to my bed, four angels round my head, one to watch, and one to pray, and two to bare my soul away.” Kelly beams, “I’d like to rent this room…and the four angels that go with it” “Oh I’m so delighted.” “I’m a stranger in town, don’t you need my character reference?” The old woman waves her finger to gesture no, and grabs Kelly’s hand and walks her to the mirror.” Again, the film is utilizing a symbolic mirror.

“Your reference is that face Ms Kelly.” Kelly laughs “Oh” the woman looks adoringly at her, still holding her hand.”Good heavens I forgot, I’ll have to move Charley out of your room”" Charley?”"I wouldn’t want him to bother you while you’re asleep” She move a screen to the side and exposes a dressing dummy with military medals and hat. “I named him Charley after a gentleman I was to marry… I kept this room ready for him ever since I got the president’s wire that Charley was killed in the war.” She’s holding his hat. “That was 20 years ago, oh I come up here all the time and talk to Charley.” She replaces the hat on the figure. “Last week I realized the president was right and Charley was dead, and I’d never get married.” Kelly looks sympathetically at her. “Well I’ll move him downstairs.” “Oh he won’t be in the way.” Kelly asserts with a kind smile. The old woman’s eyes brighten “you don’t mind?” “No in fact it’ll do me good to talk to him now and then.” “Well he’ll always agree with you.” Both woman laugh together.

Fade to black

Continued in Part II

The Naked Kiss (1965) Part II

The scene opens with Griff sitting at the bar in Candy Ala Cart’s girlie establishment with “bon bon” girls dressed sort of like hat check Playboy bunnies, wearing fuzzy hearts on their heads instead of rabbit ears. The girl behind the bar says “hello Griff” and he says “hello Marshmallow” Swing music is playing on the jukebox.” “Say Griff I can earn more from the refined types than the ones who work in this rat hole…I’ll put Grantville on the map”Griff turns to her “You will, you really think you can?”he says sarcastically, which goes above Marshmallow’s head.” “well sure, how can I lose with John ‘Law’ on my team.” another scantly clad girl comes over to Griff and touches his face.

Griff condemns prostitution in his town, but he frequents Candy’s club as a customer, as well as procuring girls right off the bus for Candy’s stable. That would make him pimp by proxy right?

There is a brazen double standard being perpetrated here. Women objectified, then women reviled. Even the use of nicknames for the call girls in Candy’s stable are demeaning and denigrating.Hat Rack, for instance,something you’d hang an item on. It dehumanizes these women. Candy even refers to Hat Rack clashing with her “upholstery.”Later on Kelly is called “new stuff”

The other girl asks “Are you sure you don’t want a bon bon Griff?” just then an older woman Candy dressed in a long sequined gown walks over. “Get back to the stable” she says in a sandy  voice that’s been abraded by years of smoking, reaches over and grabs Griff’s face and kisses his cheek. Marshmallow, tells Candy”he’s not buying your chocolates Candy.”

Candy played salty by Virginia Grey snaps back “Go count your money, check the stock.” “Who you looking for Griff?” “Kelly” she asks”Kelly?…no Kelly here, do I know him?” “Well I sent her here.” Candy looks slightly perturbed, “another female?” “a pro and she’s got class.” “Well we could use a little class in this shop.”

“Just get a look at my bon bons, they’re all a broken down flock of bimbies, all except Hat Rack.” Griff seems surprised, “Hat Rack?” “the name suits her alright, there ain’t a customer here that doesn’t want to hang his fedora on her.” Candy calls over to the tall girl. “Hey Hat Rack,come over here.” “Did I do something wrong?” asking in an ultra feminine tone. “The beautiful brunette realizes that it’s Griff at the bar, “Oh Griff! How are you Griff?” She puts on an even more seductively whispery voice, “So glad to see you again.” He looks confused “Do we know each other?” “we met in a park in Grantville, near the fountain…on a Thursday?”Pouting she adds “don’t you remember me?” Then a smile breaks free.

“Oh sure you came in by bus… (Sound Familiar?) sure I remember.” “It was very kind of you to recommend me to Candy… I just love selling bon bons.” Griff says “you were a platinum blond” as he puts his hands on her tray, Candy pulls him away and says “well she was, but the color clashed with my upholstery, I made her go back to her own natural peasant color.”

Then Candy points and tells Hat Rack “the customer in the booth has a sweet tooth.” “Are you going to stick around for a while Griff?” Candy interjects strongly “the customer!” Hat Rack bends over and kisses Griff on the cheek, walks away and says “bon bon sir?” Candy says “boy you sure pick em Griff.” Pleased with himself he says “I sure can”Candy asks “then why that hang dog look when you found out that this Kelly didn’t show?” He stays silent, she says “how about a snort in the office?” He looks at her with a gaze that means something else, and tells her “I’m not thirsty.”

We know from before that when Griff  uses this expression thirsty it is what he uses to mean “wanting sex” He used the same term with Kelly in the beginning. Candy gestures with her hand as if to say, she’s disappointed but what ever. Apparently Griff in the past has sampled some of Candy as well.

Back at Miss Josephine’s “Paris…have you been to those places?” looking at beautiful garments in her suitcase” Kelly says no, but the old woman says “but these are originals…ultra ultra expensive.” The trunk with the K on the side, almost like Kelly’s own scarlet A.After all she is a marked woman, like Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne.

“What about that factory outside of town?” “Oh I’m afraid there’s no job opening at Grant Mill.” “Grant” Kelly says “Grant this, Grant that.” Her hair pulled up in a lovely classic bun, looking through her wardrobe “he seems to own everything around here.” “His great great grandfather founded this town.” “JL Grant is our most famous citizen.”

Here is the developing back story of a founded patriarchy in Grantville. The old woman continues, “everybody calls him Grant” Kelly says “JL Grant,yes I’ve read about him, international playboy,chateau in Normandy, Villa along the Riviera, private Yacht in Monte Carlo, societies most eligible bachelor.” Josephine comes back “he’s a hard worker Miss Kelly… he’s no playboy, his very name is a synonym for charity… he’s got the biggest heart in the world. Why he built our hospital… he built the Orthopedic Medical Center, and sponsors it all by himself. And it’s open to all handicapped children, with no racial or religious barriers.”Miss Josephine equates Grants kindness with his fame and outward appearance, and reasons he’s beneficent.

Kelly starts to contemplate what the old woman is saying. She asks “Handicapped children?”Josephine says “It’s a haven of hope for those angels, so little, so helpless and so pitifully crippled.”

Kelly is telling the children the story of the White Swan Queen who wishes to be transformed into a woman. The film is predicated on the notion of transformation/redemption.

Cross fade from Kelly’s face to a single chiaroscuro shot of a nurse’s shadow, the central focal point is now on an empty wheelchair. Two nurses come into focus, the formidable Patsy Kelly (Rosemary’s Baby) as Nurse Mac, says in that broiled steak voice of hers “one more operation and that baby will have straight feet.”

They continue to walk and talk about the various children in the hospital, then we see an office with a nurse seated at a desk. Griff is standing.”That Kelly is some woman Griff” Nurse Mac comes into the room.”One day she walked in here out of nowhere and “Mac chimes in “I’ll fill in lover boy with all the facts June.” Griff turns to face her. He says “Hello Mac, Dusty, where is this new nurses aide I’ve been hearing about?”Mac says ” You Too?!”

Mac takes Griff for a walk down the corridor. Tells him that “she came out of the clouds one night, without a single reference” There are several allusions to angels in this film. Is Kelly a Whore or a Madonna? How do we perceive her character, how does she perceive herself. How do the towns people distinguish her? Is she a whore because she is beautiful? or is she an angel because she is beautiful.The messages are mixed.

Nurse Mac tells him that she hired Kelly on the spot. He thought orthopedics called for specialized training. He’s obviously upset that she didn’t take the job at Candy’s. Mac tells him that “it does, some people are born to write books, symphonies, paint pictures, build bridges, but (Mac holds up her hand to the sky), she was born to handle children with crutches and babies in braces.” He looks visibly skeptical “sounds like one of those sweet Florance Nightingales.”

Griff is clearly fixed on objectifying Kelly as a fallen, marked woman with no potential to be a woman of quality. There is a patriarchal hypocrisy in this town, where the the most influential man is actually a despicable pedophile and has most of the power. Kelly who is truly virtuous and compassionate is labeled a pariah even though the men who judge her are the very people who simultaneously use her, without taking responsibility for their own participation.

“Ha, Kelly she’s tough, runs her ward like a pirate ship… she makes Captain Bly look like a sissy.” Now we see framed in the scene from the knees down, the boy Kip is slowing walking with crutches along the floor. On screen we study the child walking for several seconds, and then we see a Kelly’s legs. Full screen shot now, the boy stands stiff in front of Kelly dressed in a nurses aide uniform. Kip drops to the ground.Kelly asks to see him touch his toes. Griff and Mac are watching them from the doorway.Kip is trying to touch his toes.He says “they’re too far away.” He takes a deep sigh and tries again and does it!Kelly seems so relieved.Kip looks at her smiling with pride. Griff is hiding behind the door watching all this in secret.

Cross fade Kelly is sitting at a table with a toy sailing ship. We hear Griff speaking off screen “That’s a new low, using crippled kids to front your trade”Kelly insists “I quit my trade” He grabs her arm,”you’ll have a problem breaking in those little girls to walk the streets on crutches”Kelly looks disgusted with this accusation and slaps Griff in the face. “I washed my face clean the morning I woke up in your bedroom.”

He says to her contemptuously “You got morals in my room?”She shakes her head reviling him “you had nothing to do with it…Nothing!…it was your mirror.”Griff says “You must have taken a long look.” She asserts “it was the longest look of my life…I saw a broken down piece of machinery.” Here Kelly herself objectifies her body as something that other people utilize. She continues “nothing but the buck, the bed and the bottle for the rest of my life…that’s what I saw!”

He turns away, “A hooker moving in with the town virgin, what an act.”He is so indignant “how much did you score honey?…how much did you tap at the hospital?” his hands in his pockets looking down on her like trash.”How much Angel Foam did you peddle?”Kelly’s furious now,”oh you ask, you ask the doctors if I made a play for any one of them, ask them!…You were the only buyer I had in this town and my last one.”

“Are you coming with me or I am going to talk to Mac myself.” She grabs his arm and pleads “Look Griff, I’m trying your side of the fence, is there a law against it, is there anything wrong with it?” All Griff says is “your face might fool a lot of these people, but not your body.”

Griff slams her with “Your body’s your only passport.”Kelly says “you’re right” instead of defending herself. She says “I can renew a passport, but I can’t renew my body…or my face” she shakes her head, tears in her eyes,”or my health, oh look Griff I’m trying to change, please help me” she beseeches him. “Give me a break.”

Fade To Black

Kelly is surrounded by children dressed up in costumes. She’s telling them a story of the White Swan, a story about wishing to be turned into something else. This is what lies at the core of and is the veritable crux of The Naked Kiss.

Kip, is fantasizing about doing cartwheels outside with Kelly.He is shouting “I have legs, I have legs.” We see a daydream sequence, every little girl and boy running as if they had no handicap. The idea of handicap being a metaphor for Kelly’s past.The film equates her being a prostitute with having an affliction, an illness, an abnormality? That question is put to us again, towards the end of the film.

Fade To Black

Now at Grant’s house. This is a very short scene introducing us to Grant. Griff is there, Grant has just come back from traveling. His servant Barney, has been given a gift. It’s a skull, used as a drinking cup from some ancient city. A rather bizarre item to give his servant. Barney seems uncomfortable with it as well. Grant asks if everything is set up for the party tonight, Griff and Grant go to make themselves a drink, and we Fade To Black

Fade in Kelly’s in a beautiful long black gown at the hospital. The camera views her from a distance, rows of wheelchairs lined along the walls. Kelly is framed in darkness with a single band of light along the floor, like a runway. She pushes a wheelchair up against the wall. Then she walks over to an infant sucking on a bottle. She strokes the babies hair so gently, looking upon her with  a maternal gaze, then gently touches her little foot in a cast,in traction.The baby looks up at her.We keep seeing glimpses of mothering in Kelly.

Cross Fade now at Grant’s party. Grant is quoting something in Italian, to a room filled with the elite socialites of the town, he says “this means, All things by gentleness may be made smooth“

Nurse Mac and Kelly arrive, and then Grant focuses his gaze on Kelly, he sees something in her. Their eyes meet. We hear romantic strings, something is stirring. Griff  looks up, the camera closes in on Kelly’s face, then Griff. The sensual motif of horns are there to remind us who Kelly really is. Kelly looks stopped in her tracks by Griff’s expression.

But we switch back to Grant and Kelly exchanging pleasant looks with each other. The romantic strings play once again. Mac hugs Grant and introduces Kelly to him by saying, she wants him to meet the lady that’s making history with orthopedics. He tells her everybody calls him Grant. Then Griff pipes in “And everybody calls her Kelly” obviously annoyed that she is at the party.Griff spells it “K E double L Y” A dig about their sexual interlude.

Griff still looks so bottled with anger.Grant hands Kelly a package and tells her it’s something she might like from Venice. It’s blown glass. He tells her it’s Venetian 17th century.” “From Venice?” Kelly is very impressed by his breeding, and worldliness. This is something that has been brewing in her all along. The desire for a life with finer things. Grant has an almost childlike exuberance. He is not an archetypal masculine/male figure at all. Not a naivete, yet an icy calculating kind of assumed innocence.

Cross Fade , we see a reel to reel analogue tape machine ( I can’t help it, I’m a musician) the music on the tape is playing once again Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata the camera pans to a bust of Beethoven, and then we see Grant and Kelly lying back on a leopard print sofa, taking in the beauty of Beethoven’s piece. eyes closed. Grant is waxing poetic about the moonlight and Beethoven’s hands playing the sonata. “he carved that sonata out of moonlight” Grant is wearing a silk ascot. There is something so plasticine about his appearance.

Kelly asks “was he in love when he wrote it?” “Yes” “Did he marry her?” “No, he never found the wife he was looking for” “How do you know he was looking for a wife?” “What man isn’t…a sweetheart is a bottle of wine, a wife is a wine bottle” Kelly turns and faces Grant “Did Goethe write that?” “Baudelaires (Flowers of Evil)” “Beethoven and Goethe were good friends”

Kelly sits up, Grant smiling says “Griff doesn’t go for Beethoven” Kelly spurts”Griff is tone deaf”Grant looks over at her”How did you know?”"Well I…I watched his face when we were singing the other night”Grant looks away from her, smiles again “you sang very well”she says “I was happy” Grant spouts some more verse, “Happiness was born a twin” Kelly turns to him, leaning on her arm, “Lord Byron” Grant looks over to her as if surprised and she says “my favorite poet.” Grant has been trying to impress Kelly with his knowledge of literature, art and music.

He sits up “Kelly you baffle me, intellect is seldom a feature of physical beauty”Grant is surprised Kelly is”a woman”, a “beautiful woman” who possesses an intellect and understanding of culture.

Grant continues”And that makes you a remarkable woman…the most interesting contradiction I’ve met in years, with a love of poetry, rare in this age of missiles…”

“Would you like to visit where Byron wrote many of his famous sonnets?” “Venice?”"I’m going to take you there right now. He shows her a movie projector with a travel reel from Venice, and men in gondolas and fishing boats. They sit and watch the movies which Grant took from a gondola. He turns to her, and says don’t you hear the man in the gondola singing. He tells her “If you pretend hard enough and if you listen hard enough, you can hear his fine Italian voice.”

Pretend is an active verb for the characters in The Naked Kiss, no one is what they seem to be. It comes down to image, embodiment,perception, class and gender.

She has been taken under Grant’s childlike spell. She smiles and we see her as she imagines the tenor voice singing Santa Lucia. Her desire to inhabit a world with culture and refinement blinds her to Grant’s true identity.She escapes into a daydream where a man in a gondola is rowing she and Grant are lying on silken pillows.Flower petals are falling on her, as they flow through the canals of Venice, and Grant is making love to her.

For Kelly,Grant is symbolic of worthiness,success and virtue. This is perpetuated by the town which is rooted in these beliefs. Grant is powerful and well bred, so he must be the epitome of integrity and virtue. She wakes from the dream her hands on Grants shoulders, we see now that they are kissing on the couch.

For a brief moment of clarity,she pushes him slightly away, something in her gut reveals his true nature.She has the most curious stare on her face, she senses a tinge of the unnatural.Her hands and fingers splayed like claws on either side of his face. He looks confused. She studies his face. There is a prolonged pause while we hear the travel reel clicking in the background. She’s breathing uncomfortably, and Grant is looking more concerned. His gaze turns almost dark.

Ultimately she dismisses her intuition and gives way. A smile comes over her face, and then Grant’s darkness begins to clear up. Her right hand holding his head now.He goes back in for an embrace, and the camera stops on Kelly’s long legs, her shoes have come off, set against the leopard skin fabric of the couch. We’re left with the movie projector’s blaring lights in our eyes as it spins off it’s reel. We are blinded and so now unfortunately is Kelly.

Back at the hospital the children are singing Old MacDonald. Kelly and the nurse Buff played by Marie Devereux are bathing 2 of the kids. Buff tells Kelly that the job is for the birds.”I”m not like you Kelly, I don’t got steel in my veins…I get sick just looking at these poor little babies, let alone handling them…I’m gonna quit, I’m gonna quit this job” she starts to cry,”it’s gonna hurt Griff, it’s gonna hurt Griff bad” Kelly asks “why Griff?”"he’s been like a father to me, ever since mine was killed in Korea…Griff got me this job, and he’s so damn proud of me”

All the women in this town, need approval from these men, in particular Grant and Griff, as Father figures.

Now we see Kelly pacing in her bedroom, in her nightgown. We hear a woman’s heels clicking outside.Kelly goes to the window and whispers “the door’s open Buff” In this scene Kelly is lit like an angel from the window light.Her white crepe gown flowing like wings, a huge divergence from the opening shot of her in black sexy underwear and shaved bald head. Like a mannequin, like an object. Like sexual “machinery” as she referred to herself earlier on.

Buff is wearing the lame’ gown that Kelly gave her, she grabs a box from downstairs as if it’s a tray and mimics the words “would you care for a bon bon” then she ascends the stairs to Kelly’s bedroom.

She enters Kelly’s room and tells her that she made $25 tonight,throws her bag on the bed, and shows Kelly the money. Kelly looks disapprovingly at Buff.”where’d you get that money?”"a woman gave it to me”Kelly steps closer to Buff “what woman?”"Candy she runs a club across the river”"What’s the $25 for?”"It’s an advance, I’m gonna be a bon bon”Kelly gets angry and shouts”take off my dress”, she spins Buff around, and starts grabbing at the zipper “I paid $350 for that dress, I’ll take it off myself”she then tells Buff, “those bon bon’s aren’t just there to serve drinks you know” Buff says “I know”Kelly spins her around to face her, then smacks Buff and she falls onto the bed. Buff starts to sob. Kelly says “you had that coming to you” but Buff says “Candy says I could make $300 a week.

Now Kelly sits on the bed next to her and sagely says “alright…go ahead…you know what’s different about the first night…?…nothing…nothing except it lasts forever that’s all. You’ll be sleeping on the skin of a nightmare for the rest of your life. You’re a beautiful girl Buff, young, oh, they’ll out bid each other for you ( Buff smiles)you’ll get compliments, clothes, cash. You’ll meet men you live on…and men who live on you ( now Buff frowns ) and those are the only men you’ll meet. And after a steady grind of making every john feel at home…you’ll become a block of ice.”

“And if you do happen to melt a little, you’ll get slipped a tip behind Candy’s back. You’ll be every man’s wife in law and no man’s wife. Well your world with Candy will become so warped that you’ll hate all men…and you’ll hate yourself, because you’ll become a social problem…a medical problem…a mental problem…and a despicable failure as a woman.”

Dressed in black Kelly shows up at Candy’s. A fight breaks out between one of the bon bon girls and Marshmallow, over a john. Candy rises from her seat and walks over to Kelly. She introduces herself and then walks around Kelly like she’s surveying merchandise. Candy says “Griff told me about you.” Then Candy asks where she’s been coasting. Kelly says she’ll tell her in her office. When one of the johns grabs Kelly, a bon bon comes over and says “Listen new Stuff” he’s my john exclusively, after she’s broken a bottle over his head. Candy remarks that he’s the 3rd guy she’s cold cocked this week.

Candy starts to tell Kelly to sit down to talk business, but Kelly sucker punches Candy with her handbag. She’s good at that, remember Farlunde the pimp in the opening scene. She keeps the onslaught going, bashing Candy with her bag, til Candy falls down on the couch. Kelly keeps hitting her, smashing the lamp.Candy pleads “cut it out” Kelly puts her knee on Candy’s chest and forces Candy’s mouth open. She counts the money like Buff did, reciting as she shoves the bills into Candy’s open mouth. “Ten, ten and five…now you stay away from Buff” and Kelly hits her in the face one last time.

Fuller’s gusts of brutal cinema veritae’ is as shocking as it is confrontational.Candy lies there whipped,pulling the money out of her mouth,looking destroyed like a beaten hag and not the powerful business woman who runs an entire stable of what she calls”Bimbies”

Continued in Part III

The Naked Kiss (1965) Part III Meaning it bares no emotion. It’s empty of real substance. It has the taste of perversion to it.

Cross fade, Kelly and Grant are slow dancing at Grants house. Kelly tells him that she wants to talk about something. Asks him to sit down and listen to the words. “When I came to this town, the first day I came… I was a prostitute. My first customer was my last one, next morning I quit. Now I’m in love with a man who’s the dream of every woman.” Grant is seated looking puzzled Kelly continues “every woman who has the right to dream…but the man has got to stop seeing me before the volcano erupts.”

Grant looks up at her and grabs her hand. Pulls her close to him.”I love you Kelly.. .will you marry me?” She says “I’ve got to think it out.. .(now cheek to cheek) Oh I’ve got to think it out.”

Kelly’s in her room drinking from the blown Venetian glass from Venice that Grant gave her. She’s contemplating the marriage proposal. We hear a voice over, it’s Grant’s monologue “I wasn’t cut out to be a monk and you’re not the type to turn nun… but together we’ll prove our whole existence for each other, the only woman I want for my wife.”

Kelly gets up from the bed, sighs and walks over to the tailor’s dummy and asks “Charlie, what should I do?” Again we hear Grants voice “If they condemn you for your past, I don’t want them as my friends, Kelly darling…no one could forbid you tomorrow, and I’m all your tomorrows, all of them.”Kelly raises her glass and answers to Charlie “that’s right!…why should Grant want to marry a woman like me?.. .confidentially Charley, (her arm around the fake soldier now) we girls are always chasing dreams… why shouldn’t I have a right to catch mine?”

Now Kelly has an internal monologue “many woman had a past like mine, and they made out didn’t they?” She answers aloud asking the question “or did they?… ah, of course they did.. .and you know why, because there was always the Rock of Gibralta to give them strength” She raises the blown glass to Charlie in toast “That’s what Grant is…The Rock…The Rock of Gibralta.”

So Kelly needs a man to legitimize her self worth, otherwise she is still considered machinery. “Oh Charlie” now we hear Grant’s voice again “we’d be living an endless honeymoon”‘ she goes back over to Charlie, and hugs him “Oh Charlie, the dread of every woman in my business…is ending up alone…I know that world.”

She looks at the glass again and says “and I know his world(chuckles ironically)and that makes me a woman of 2 worlds… and that’s not good, or is it?” She looks at Charlies hat. She’s got her arm around his stuffed shoulders. “With him I’m complete, a whole woman” the voice over by Grant breaks in again”I’ll never strike at your past, not even with a flower”Kelly hugs Charlie closer, “oh Charlie, Charlie Charlie,Charlie…what should I do?” Fade to Black.

At Grant’s house, the door bell rings, and Kelly comes bursting in “Oh it’s a wonderful day Barney!… it’s a beautiful day!” Barney tells her that Grant is still asleep. She ignores him and yells “it’s a glorious day!” She goes to the stereo and puts on Beethoven’s 5th symphony and conducts. Barney still in his robe goes upstairs to get Grant. Kelly is conducting the music, she spins the large globe as if she’ll be able to see the world now.

Grant comes down in his silk pajamas, yawning and putting his robe on, he watches as she pretends to conduct the music. She runs to him and grabs his hands “I love you…it’s a deal” He looks oddly at her, pleased but more like he’s just sealed a business deal, not the reaction from a man truly in love.

Dusty gets help from Kelly. Who gives her $1,000 and tells her to keep the baby.

Kip’s gaze, the sadness shared with a child, as he watches Dusty crying. Sympathetic.

Now nurses and orderlies are bringing in the children in one by one. And a record begins to spin. Kip the little boy wearing the First Mate pirate hat begins to sing this song which has an eerily tragic poignancy.

“Mommy dear, tell me please, is the world really round” another little boy takes it from there, “tell me where, is the blue bird of happiness found” now a little girl sings “tell me why is the sky up above so blue” now they all sing in unison “and when you were a child, did your mommy tell you?”

All of the children standing like wounded soldiers with their hats and crutches singing this sad little song together. The song creates an element of melancholy,and pathos in the film. It’s the children asking the question where is happiness?

The children are a diverse group of races, the spirit of these children fuel the film’s angst and alienation, for they are like castaways in a world that is perfect, while they are broken and striving to be whole.

“What becomes of the sun when it falls in the sea” “and who lights it again, as bright as can be” together they sing again “Tell me why can’t I fly without wings through the sky” back to Kip who sadly sings “tell me why mommy dear…are there tears in your eyes?”

Now Kelly joins in as an answer to the songs questions singing “little one, little one, yes the world’s really round, and the blue bird you search for is surely is found… and the sky up above is so blue and clear (the staff including Mac is watching Kelly serenade the children they are so sullen, yet proud) so that you’d see the blue bird if it should come near… and the sun doesn’t fall in the sea out of sight, all it does is make way for the moon’s pretty light… and if children could fly there’d be no need for birds… and I cry little ones cause I’m touched by your words.”

The children surrounding Kelly sing the song together, she has left a mark on them, she has found a different way to have worth, she sees herself through these child’s eyes. They are ultimately truly innocent, yet they are the ones who don’t objectify Kelly.

“Tell me please mommy dear is it true the world’s round, I will search, round the world til the blue bird is found” then Kelly sings “little one there’s no need to wander too far, for what you really seek is right here where you are.”

Griff and Grant are walking out of a building. Grant has asked Griff to be best man at the wedding but Griff isn’t happy. Grant tells him to get it off his chest. Bunny comes running over to Grant with her dolly and he picks her up and spins her around. Griff still visibly upset, holding his cigarette and frowning. Bunny congratulates Uncle Grant on his wedding, and he kisses her cheek, she beams a smile half filled with baby teeth.

Now in the classroom back at the hospital, the children are getting a spelling lesson. Kelly is fixing Kip’s shoe lace. Griff knocks on the window glass to get Kelly’s attention. Through the glass panel in the door we see them talking seriously again a frame within a frame, symbolizing the entrapment of both characters who are stuck by their roles.They move into an empty room so they can continue to talk.

“Well, what is it Griff?… what’s the matter?” “Grant asked me to be best man… you’ve got 30 minutes to get out of town, (sighs deeply) and I don’t mean finding a bed at Candy’s across the river.” She asks if she can phone Grant, but he tells her he’ll tell him something for her. She says it’ll come a lot easier if it comes from her. Grant agrees and Kelly picks up the phone and dials.

Griff has his back to her, he can’t even face her, playing with the chord of the blinds, while she’s dialing. She asks for Mr Grant, and looks at Griff. “I told him all about myself Griff and about you, and the $20.” Now Griff turns and faces her, she shakes her head “No, I did not identify you…and I told him my track record as a call girl before he asked me to marry him” Grant is on the phone now  “Hello darling…hold on a minute…Griff wants to tell you something” she shoves the phone at Griff.

“Hello Griff” we hear Grant speaking. Griff looks defeated.”I just wanted to tell you one thing, you’re the luckiest guy in the world, congratulations” She hangs up the phone, and Griff says “so that’s that’s the big score, fall in love with the right person, and being loved” he turns to her now, lightens up and says” I’ll be best man Kelly…lots of luck Kelly…lots of luck” he walks out the door. She grabs a toy sailing ship and the scene fades into the next.

Miss Josephine putting Kelly’s beautiful white wedding dress and veil on Charlie. Then Kelly walks out of the house carrying a cardboard box with the wedding dress under her arm,Josephine comes calling after her, she’s forgotten the veil. Miss Josephine tells her “I still think it’s bad luck to show him the dress before the wedding… surprise or no surprise.”

We see Kelly walking from a far. Children playing jump rope, It’s a bright day in a clean town. A music box theme is playing, the tinkling of innocence. Then strings hover mimicking a nursery rhyme theme.Kelly passes the girls jumping rope, a little boy on his tricycle comes near. Kelly is newly born as a child, a fresh start to her stained past. She pats the little boy on the head.

Kelly opens the front door to Grant’s house, tosses the key up in the air and catches it with a triumphant grip. She belongs here. As she closes the door, and the house starts to become eclipsed in shadow, we hear the recording of the blue bird song, “mommy dear tell me please, is the world really round” Kelly walks down the front hallway, then looks up the staircase for Grant. She hears the music playing. Still holding the box with the wedding dress, she walks over to the bust of Beethoven and rubs his head, embracing this new life she has earned. The camera pans down, we see the reel to reel recording of the song spinning in it’s wooden drawer.

She smiles, the memory of making that wonderful recording stays with her, she walks a little bit further into the room and turns around still smiling, a close up of Kelly’s face, shows her expression turning to a withheld revulsion, then a close up of a little girl’s blank face partially obscured by a dark shadow, suddenly skipping away into a stream of light like a runway towards the archway of the room, hopping and skipping then going out the front door.

The little tune still playing on the reel to reel machine. Close up on Kelly’s face more visceral anger now, and quickly a close shot of Grant’s face, it appears less like shame and more of a willful defiance, perhaps exultation that Kelly now shares the truth, expressed in his gaze. His eyes meet Kelly’s. A back and forth until Grant’s eyes seem to request understanding from Kelly.The song plays on “Why mommy dear, are there tears in your eyes” Kelly steps closer to Grant holding the wedding dress in the white box. Half her face lit up and the other have eclipsed in shadow. Remember she said she was a woman who lived in two worlds.

As she steps closer, Grant’s face struggles to find some relief, he says “now you know why I could never marry a normal woman… that’s why I love you… you understand my sickness…. you’ve been conditioned to people like me…”his eyes open wider “you live in my world… and it will be an exciting world!”

Kelly’s stone face holding his gaze, he kneels before her, looking up at her. She looks down upon him, he begs “my darling…our marriage will be a paradise” she’s physically clenching her body as see looks at him, we still see her face but hear him continue his diatribe “because we’re both abnormal”

Kelly now picks up the white crosley phone and starts bashing Grant with the receiver. A harsh discordant piano plunk set against the blue bird song, clashes. She drops the white crepe material and it falls onto Grant’s still body. He lies there lifeless, covered in the wedding veil. The phone off the cradle next to him. We see Kelly’s shoes. We hear the dial tone, Kelly kneels down clutching the veil, then rolling up the dress and veil placing it back in the box, her face never changing the stone cold expression of betrayal,disgust and disillusionment.

She closes the box and sits staring straight ahead. The shot is framed, with the globe(the entire world) left of screen, Grant lying dead on the floor and Kelly sitting in the chair, with the only source of light mostly placed on her. A quick shot of the reel to reel, Beethoven’s bust and the front door. Doorways in noir often symbolize an entry to the unknown or perhaps here it shows the idea of possibility for Kelly now closed. The dream ended. Fuller frames the shot with an odd angle of the stairs. Symbolic of Kelly’s ascension being distorted, not quite right from the beginning.

Stairways in noir again, are symbolic of ascension to an unknown place, possibly dangerous,Kelly once aspired to climb upward toward a better life. The stairs are shot at such an odd angle, that we must assume, the chance Kelly had was never a straight rise upward. It was merely a distortion of the chance to climb out of her role as whore.

Quick shot back to the door and then Kelly in the chair, as the shadow closes in. Fade To Black.

Then in sensational soap opera style, we see Miss Josephine outside, reading the headline. She shares the words, GRANT then Mike reads, IS and the rest is given to Mac to reveal for us, DEAD; One of the nurses is overlapped by the word, SLAIN, switch to Candy blowing out the inhale of her cigarette BY, Buff reads PROSTITUTE. Sensational strings dramatically playing all the while.

Kelly’s sitting in a chair at the police station, she looks disturbed “Once before a man’s kiss tasted like that…he was put away in a psycho ward… (she grabs her dress by the chest, gives a gesture of revulsion) “I got the same taste the first time Grant kissed me”… (straining to say the rest) “it was a, what we call a(long pause) A naked kiss…(she puts her head in her hand clutching her hair, defeated and disgusted) “It’s the sign of a pervert.”

Kelly’s sobbing deeply,Griff gets up and walks onto the screen. “I’m gonna keep asking the same question until you tell me the truth… why did you kill him?” Kelly staring off,Griff is shot standing behind her.

“He was molesting a child” Griff comes and leans into Kelly and insists “he broke off the wedding” she says “the child ran out”Griff says “so you tried blackmail” Kelly cries, “he couldn’t marry a normal woman”Griff comes back “And he was going to have you pinched for extortion”she answers “he said I would understand his weakness.”

Griff comes around leans on the desk and gets closer to Kelly, “Kelly, we’ve had 2 cases of ravaged children in our county…if by some freak they buy your story, that means the pressure will be off the real criminal he’ll be free to attack other children!!”….now do you understand why you can’t use that stinking lie to save your neck!”She slams her hand on the chair  “my neck is in that little girl’s hands!”

Griff asks Kelly to describe her, Kelly can’t remember, she’s in shock, every thing was a blur.Griff argues that Kelly’s story stinks, that she can remember the conversation with Grant being called abnormal, but she can’t remember the child’s appearance. Kelly swears it’s the truth, Griff yells  “you swear on a call house roster!”

Now Kelly has to find that little girl who can identify Grant as her molester. Griff calls in Farlunde, Kelly’s pimp that she had bashed up in the opening scene. He’s going to be a material witness. Kelly explains to Griff why she had beaten him up, she convinced 6 of his girls to leave the stables, because he was holding out money from them.

Farlunde put knock out drops in her drink and when she awoke, he had cut off all her hair, she was bald. She waited until he was drunk and took exactly what was coming to her.Kelly tells Griff that  Farlunde has friends in the underworld, the word was out to throw acid in her face, so she ran. Farlunde is going to testify that Kelly blackmailed an elected official. As far as Griff is concerned Kelly’s credibility is weakening with each character witness.

Dusty shows up to talk to Griff explains that she’s left Mac and the hospital. She wants to help Kelly because Kelly helped her when she was having her baby. Kelly is now stuck in jail “why don’t you try the old Chinese water torture maybe that’ll make me change my story.” Kelly tells Griff not to use Dusty as a hammer, it would hurt her, he wouldn’t be that low, even for a cop. But Dusty wants to give the story to the papers thinking it will help.

Kelly looks out at the children playing from her cell window. Then Candy shows up. Kelly tells Griff “I was waiting for that slut to show up.” He wants to know why Kelly went to Candy’s.Kelly says “You really scraped the sewer to dig up your character witnesses didn’t you.”

Candy staring at Kelly gleefully from the other side of the jail cell bars.She says in a gravel tone “I hate being a fink sweetie but you put every call girl in the country right on the spot.” Candy lies and tells Griff that Kelly came to her to form a Crime Ring, that she was taking healthy pay offs from Grant,to get him right where it hurts, family name, philanthropist, hospital , crippled kids, the whole deal.She tells Griff that she had Grant so scared that he was even making with the wedding talk just to keep her quiet.

Open and shut. Griff asks Candy if she’ll say all that in court. She says why not it’s the truth. Finally Kelly pipes in “she advanced Buff $25 to become a bon bon,,,,I returned the money” gripping the bars. Then Candy says “Buff, who’s Buff? Griff says “a student nurse at the hospital”

“Are you kidding, you know I don’t have to Shanghai girls from your town to replenish my stock… what kind of a stable boss do you think I am,”she struts over to Griff “I’ve got no time to break in baby baggage.”

Griff brings Buff to the precinct, and asks if Candy advanced her the money to work in her stable. Candy’s eyes shoot bullets at Buff and Buff hesitantly says “No.”Kelly says “I made a mistake, wrong girl”Griff tells Buff he shouldn’t have bothered her. He walks her out and leaves Candy alone outside the bars of Kelly’s cell. Candy says in a deep wrathful tone “nobody shoves dirty money in my mouth.”

Kelly is alone, framed by the bars, trapped, we hear children playing, laughter. Kelly looks out at the little girls. One little girl drawing with chalk on the wall says “look what I made, look what I made” It’s the little girl that Grant was molesting.

Kelly grips the bars, and in a far off filmatic distance we hear the blue bird song once again, Kelly starts to make the connection. There is a obvious shadow over her mouth, she has been struck silent so far. Kelly shouts out “little girl please little girl I won’t hurt you, please come here.” But all the girls scatter. She calls to Griff. Tells him that she just saw the little girl playing in the alley. “I remember the little girl.” She grabs his arm through the bars. “Griff you’ve got to believe me she’s 6 or 7, Blond.” Griff walks out.

Now Buff is lying in bed holding a photo of her father, and crying “oh daddy I had to lie I couldn’t tell what I was going to be, forgive me forgive me.”

Knocking on the door. Griff gets out of bed to answer the door. It’s Buff. She asks him to let her in, she’s got to talk to him. Next we see a parade of little girls legs walking from the knees down. Then we see Griff and Kelly watching from the window. She is shaking her head no, the girl is not one of them. A police officer is slowly showing them one by one, little blond girls, but Kelly still says no.

Then triumphant strings lift the moment up The little girl Bunny is standing there holding the doll Uncle Grant had given her, smiling up at Kelly.She tells Griff with gestures, we hear only the music, but we see by Kelly’s body language that it’s the right girl.

The little girl Bunny sits on a bench in the police station. Kelly walks over to her and asks “Do you remember me?”first she says no but then Kelly grabs her by the shoulders and says “of course you remember me, you were at Uncle Grant’s house, you remember Uncle Grant don’t you, continues asking, while shaking her. Kelly is crying and begging “Don’t you remember me?”pleading gripping her chest, begging the little girl to remember. “You know me!” The little girl gets up crying. Griff tells Bunny, “now now Bunny nobody’s gonna hurt you I’m here.” Kelly is sobbing this was her last chance.

Griff asks Kelly “did you ever have a baby? she says “no, I can’t have a baby”Griff tells her, “pretend you had a baby, pretend that that little child in the next room is your little girl, be gentle with her, well make her trust you, like you” Griff gently pats Kelly’s shoulder, “talk to her as you would your own child…not as Kelly…but as a mother.”

This was problematic for me, it takes the patriarchy that has partial responsibility for the systemic problems in Grantville to give mothering lessons to Kelly? Not as Kelly he says, because she’s a prostitute she has no sense of mothering? Absurd that she would need lessons from Griff. But I digress yet again.

He brings Bunny back into the room. Kelly kneels down in front of Bunny. Bunny’s cheeks are wet with tears. She asks very slowly, and softly “do you remember Uncle Grant? Bunny says “Oh yes I love Uncle Grant, mommy said he won’t be back for a long time” Kelly asks “Did you ever go to Uncle Grant’s House without your mommy and daddy?” Bunny says “once.” Kelly continues “do you remember when you went there?” “Yes ma’am Uncle Grant gave me some candy, he liked the dress mommy bought for me…he was showing me a new game, he made me promise not to tell mommy or daddy or anybody because this was a special game….just for me…then you came in and I ran out, you’re the lady with the big cardboard box.”

Kelly breaks down and sobs and Bunny asks “why are you crying lady?” She brings Bunny close to her and hugs her tightly. Griff looks down, the reality of what Kelly had been telling him was finally sinking in. His friend Grant was a monster, and Kelly was not a liar.

Fade to Black.

Griff’s in Kelly’s cell reading Penal Code 113A5 dismissal of an action.”You’re off the hook Kelly.” Griff is so pleased but Kelly looks bitter hugging herself to the jail wall, clenched like a fist. The judge and the DA gave her a clean bill of health. The whole town’s got her on a pedestal for what she did for the children. Kelly chuckles with irony.”Yeah, you sure put up statues over night around here don’t you.”

Kelly asks Griff if her trunk is at the station, “well, thanks Griff” she bends in closer to his face, they kiss.”So long tiger” he says”good luck Muffin” She steps out into the light and fresh air of freedom.

All the towns people are standing outside waiting for her. Ominous music begins. The camera floats close up on various faces of varying ethnicities. Pull back, there are so many people standing there, waiting for Kelly to come out of the police station. She shoots a worried look at Griff who is leaning against the wall with another cop in uniform. Kelly turns to her left, there are Miss Josephine, Dusty, Buff and Mac. Josephine crying hugs Kelly, Mac is crying, and Buff, she goes over to Dusty and Dusty hugs her so tightly. Kelly has left her mark on the women of Grantville.

Wide shot of Kelly walking through the throngs of people from the community. Griff says to the cop, “She still owes me ten bucks” the cop says “then you’ll be seeing her again”He shakes his head, “she never makes change” Kelly walks along the sidewalk, passes a baby carriage, then stops. she hands the rattle to the same baby that she handed the bottle to in the beginning of the film.

The pariah has turned Heroine/Mother figure. Yet Kelly does not, or still can not be allowed to live amongst the clean people of Grantsville. She must remain in motion, without a place she can coexist with other “normal” people. She is destined to be in transition, because she is damaged goods.

Wide  Shot of the crowd watching her off screen. The music closes the film as Kelly from an aerial view is shown walking down that same street she arrived on the bus,getting smaller and smaller in view,from the Chamber of Commerce Banner. She walks off in the distance off screen, the coda finishes and the screen goes dark.

The End

Act of Violence 1948 directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Van Heflin, Robert Ryan and Janet Leigh

Lon Chaney in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1923

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? 1962 Directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford

Bedlam 1946 directed by Mark Robson Produced by Val Lewton and starring Boris Karloff and Anna Lee

Bette Davis and Bette Davis in Dead Ringer (1964) directed by Paul Henreid and co-starring Karl Malden and Peter Lawford

Joan Blondell and Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley 1947 written by Jules Furthman for the screen and directed by Edmund Goulding

Cabin in the Sky 1943 directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Lena Horne and Ethel Waters

Crossfire 1947 directed by Edward Dmytryk starring the Roberts- Robert Young, Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan

The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951 directed by Robert Wise and starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal and Hugh Marlowe

The Devil Commands 1941 directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Boris Karloff and Anne Revere written for the screen by Robert Hardy Andrews

THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE (1932) GLORIA STUART and BORIS KARLOFF Dir: JAMES WHALE

Dr JEKYLL AND MR HYDE 1931starring Frederick March & Miriam Hopkins and directed by Rouben Mamoulian

They Live By Night starring Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell. Directed by Nicholas Ray

Joan Fontaine and Judith Anderson in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca 1940

Phantom of the Opera 1925 starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin

Tod Brownings Freaks 1932

Gloria Grahame Odds Against Tomorrow 1959 directed by Robert Wise

Josette Day in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast 1946

Judith Anderson in Rebecca 1940

Janet Leigh and Phyllis Thaxter in Act of Violence 1948

Joseph L. Mankiewitz directs Louis Calhern & Marlon Brando in  Julius Caesar 1953

Fritz Langs’ Metropolis 1927

William Castle’s Mr Sardonicus 1961 Starring Guy Rolfe and Audrey Dalton

William Wyler directs Shirley McClaine in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour 1961co-starring Audrey Hepburn and James Garner

Mary Astor and Van Heflin Act of Violence 1948

Odds Against Tomorrow Shelley Winters and Robert Ryan 1959

Gregory Peck in Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 written by Harper Lee with a screenplay by Horton Foote

Robert Ryan in Robert Wise’s The Set-Up 1949

Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss 1964 starring Constance Towers

Cecil B DeMille’s Samson and Delilah 1949 -starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature

Robert Stevenson directed Bronte’s Jane Eyre 1943 starring a young Elizabeth Taylor and Peggy Ann Garner

The Children’s Hour Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine

Julie Harris and Claire Bloom in Robert Wise’s The Haunting 1963

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead 1968

Barbara Stanwyk as Jo in Walk on the Wild Side 1962 directed by Edward Dmytryk

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962 Bette Davis and Victor Buono

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13th- Hope you have a truly lucky day-MonsterGirl

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
― Sigmund Freud

“Ladies and gentlemen- welcome to violence; the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains sex.” — Narrator from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 1965

Françoise Dorléac and Donald Pleasence in Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-sac 1966

Constance Towers kicks the crap out of her pimp for shaving off her hair in Sam Fuller’s provocative The Naked Kiss 1964

Peter Breck plays a journalist hungry for a story and gets more than a jolt of reality when he goes undercover in a Mental Institution in Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor 1963

Bobby Darin is a psychotic racist in Hubert Cornfield and Stanley Kramer’s explosive Pressure Point 1962 starring Sidney Poitier and Peter Falk.

THE DARK PAGES NEWSLETTER  a condensed article was featured in The Dark Pages: You can click on the link for all back issues or to sign up for upcoming issues to this wonderful newsletter for all your noir needs!

Constance Towers as Kelly from The Naked Kiss (1964): “I saw a broken down piece of machinery. Nothing but the buck, the bed and the bottle for the rest of my life. That’s what I saw.”

Griff (Anthony Eisley) The Naked Kiss (1964): “Your body is your only passport!”

Catherine Deneuve as Carole Ledoux in Repulsion (1965): “I must get this crack mended.”

Monty Clift Dr. Cukrowicz Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) : “Nature is not made in the image of man’s compassion.”

Patricia Morán as Rita Ugalde: The Exterminating Angel 1962:“I believe the common people, the lower class people, are less sensitive to pain. Haven’t you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.”

Ann Baxter as Teresina Vidaverri Walk on the Wild Side 1962—“When People are Kind to each other why do they have to find a dirty word for it.”

The Naked Venus 1959–“I repeat she is a gold digger! Europe’s full of them, they’re tramps… they’ll do anything to get a man. They even pose in the NUDE!!!!”

Darren McGavin as Louie–The Man With the Golden Arm (1955): “The monkey is never dead, Dealer. The monkey never dies. When you kick him off, he just hides in a corner, waiting his turn.”

Baby Boy Franky Buono-Blast of Silence (1961) “The targets names is Troiano, you know the type, second string syndicate boss with too much ambition and a mustache to hide the facts he’s got lips like a woman… the kind of face you hate!”

Lorna (1964)- “Thy form is fair to look upon, but thy heart is filled with carcasses and dead man’s bones”

Peter Fonda as Stephen Evshevsky in Lilith (1964): “How wonderful I feel when I’m happy. Do you think that insanity could be so simple a thing as unhappiness?”

Glen or Glenda (1953)– “Give this man satin undies, a dress, a sweater and a skirt, or even a lounging outfit and he’s the happiest individual in the world.”

Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda 1953

Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot in Five Minutes to Live (1961):“I like a messy bed.”

Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) Island of Lost Souls: “Do you know what it means to feel like God?”

The Curious Dr. Humpp (1969): “Sex dominates the world! And now, I dominate sex!”

The Snake Pit (1948): Jacqueline deWit as Celia Sommerville “And we’re so crowded already. I just don’t know where it’s all gonna end!” Olivia de Havilland as Virginia Stuart Cunningham “I’ll tell you where it’s gonna end, Miss Somerville… When there are more sick ones than well ones, the sick ones will lock the well ones up.”

Delphine Seyrig as Countess Bathory in Daughters of Darkness (1971)– “Aren’t those crimes horrifying. And yet -so fascinating!”

Julien Gulomar as Bishop Daisy to the Barber (Michel Serrault) King of Hearts (1966)–“I was so young. I already knew that to love the world you have to get away from it.”

The Killing of Sister George (1968) -Suzanna York as Alice ‘CHILDIE’: “Not all women are raving bloody lesbians, you know” Beryl Reid as George: “That is a misfortune I am perfectly well aware of!”

Susannah York (right) with Beryl Reid in The Killing of Sister George Susannah York and Beryl Reid in Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George 1960

The Lickerish Quartet (1970)–“You can’t get blood out of an illusion.”

THE SWEET SOUND OF DEATH (1965)– Dominique-“I’m attracted” Pablo-” To Bullfights?” Dominique-” No, I meant to death. I’ve always thought it… The state of perfection for all men.”

Peter O’Toole as Sir Charles Ferguson Brotherly Love (1970): “Remember the nice things. Reared in exile by a card-cheating, scandal ruined daddy. A mummy who gave us gin for milk. Ours was such a beautifully disgusting childhood.”

Maximillian Schell as Stanislaus Pilgrin in Return From The Ashes 1965: “If there is no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell, and no immortality, then anything is permissible.”

Euripides 425 B.C.–“Whom God wishes to destroy… he first makes mad.”

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford bring to life two of the most outrageously memorable characters in Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962

WHAT DOES PSYCHOTRONIC MEAN?

psychotronic |ˌsīkəˈtränik| adjective denoting or relating to a genre of movies, typically with a science fiction, horror, or fantasy theme, that were made on a low budget or poorly received by critics. [1980s: coined in this sense by Michael Weldon, who edited a weekly New York guide to the best and worst films on local television.] Source: Wikipedia

In the scope of these transitioning often radical films, where once, men and women aspired for the moon and the stars and the whole ball of wax. in the newer scheme of things they aspired for you know… “kicks” yes that word comes up in every film from the 50s and 60s… I’d like to have a buck for every time a character opines that collective craving… from juvenile delinquent to smarmy jet setter!

FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…

THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NO WHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!

I just got myself this collection of goodies from Something Weird!

There’s even this dvd that points to the connection between the two genres – Here it’s labeled WEIRD. I like transgressive… They all sort of have a whiff of noir.

Grayson Hall -Satan in High Heels 1962

Gerd Oswald adapts Fredrick Brown’s titillating novel — bringing to the screen the gorgeous Anita Ekberg, Phillip Carey and Gypsy Rose Lee and Harry Townes in the sensational, obscure and psycho-sexual thriller Screaming Mimi 1958

Victor Buono is a deranged mama’s boy in Burt Topper’s fabulous The Strangler 1964

Catherine Deneuve is extraordinary as the unhinged nymph in Roman Polanski’s psycho-sexual tale of growing madness in Repulsion 1965

Just like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, Noir took a journey through an even darker lens… Out of the shadows of 40s Noir cinema, European New Wave, fringe directors, and Hollywood auteurs, brought more violent, sexual, transgressive, and socially transformative narratives into the cold light of day with a creeping sense of verité. While Film Noir pushed the boundaries of taboo subject matter and familiar Hollywood archetypes it wasn’t until later that we are able to visualize the advancement of transgressive topics.

The start of 50s psychological noir already began to present shocking and stirring films like Losey’s version of M (1951) and The Prowler (1951), Marilyn Monroe gave a spirited performance as the deranged Nell Forbes in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), Ida Lupino and Collier Young brought us psychopath Emmett Myers (William Talman) in the taut film noir thriller– The Hitch-Hiker (1953).

David Wayne reprises the role of a tortured pedophile in Joseph Losey’s version of M (1951)

Henry Jones is a most unsavory character in Mervyn LeRoy’s The Bad Seed 1956 but it’s Patty McCormack’s chilling performance as the socio-pathic Rhoda Penmark

Marylin Monroe stretches the dimensions of her acting ability as the unstable Nell Forbes in Roy Ward Baker’s taut psycho-thriller Don’t Bother To Knock 1952

A progression of heterogeneous films emerged that would manifest certain qualities of Noir, Suspense and even elements of Horror relating to such themes as–the older woman/younger man, mental illness, child bride, female promiscuity, sexual anxiety & delusions, mania, the death penalty, drug addiction, abortion, rape, sadism, cannibalism and even a socio-pathic little girl named Rhoda. Female on the Beach (1955), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), Baby Doll (1956), Autumn Leaves (1956), The Killer is Loose (1956), The Bad Seed (1956), The Tattered Dress (1957), The Last Mile (1959), Night of Evil (1962), The L Shaped Room (1962), A Taste for Women (1964), Shock Treatment (1964), The Night Walker (1964). As Noir began to spread outward, many themes became hybridized, incorporating several postulations and diluted genre patterns which insinuated itself in the cult film. Cult films share a distilled vision of Horror, Suspense or Fantasy that drew inspiration from the Noir canon inserting itself into the broadening spectrum of cult cinema.

The psycho-sexual melodramas seem to lead to psycho-sexual thrillers which were more graphic and that fed the tributary to the overflow of transgressive exploitation films of the 60s –experimental and low budget films alike.

Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler in Female on the Beach

the always provocative Carroll Baker is Baby Doll 1956 in Tennessee Williams story directed by Elia Kazan. Eli Wallach stars as Silva Vacarro -also stars Karl Malden

Bryan Forbes directs Leslie Caron in The L-Shaped Room 1962 –the story of a french woman pregnant and unmarried living with a building filled with societal misfits

Directed by Jack Garfein—Ben Gazzara plays a belligerent cadet bordering on socio-path at a Southern Military School.

Robert Aldrich directed Joan Crawford in the role of an older woman in love with a very disturbed younger Cliff Robertson. in Autumn Leaves 1956

Otto Preminger’s gritty portrayal of heroine addiction starring Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker in The Man With The Golden Arm 1955

Into it’s next incarnation, film noir reached for even more off-beat, deviant, endlessly risky, and taboo narratives which the subversive and exploitative cult films of those eras centered around. The Very Edge 1963, The Naked Kiss (1964) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and Bunny Lake is Missing 1965 are some of my favorites and best examples of this conversion.

Anne Heywood is terrorized in The Very Edge 1963

Film Noir derived some of it’s darkest shades from human nature, ‘crime’, and the personal and collective angst of paranoia world wide. (Pressure Point 1962, Bunny Lake is Missing 1965, Night of the Living Dead 1968, Shock Corridor 1963). As Noir explored and exposed post-war sentiments of American culture, cult films opened Pandora’s Box even wider, setting loose upon the screen even more extreme social taboos (The Lonely Sex 1959, Homicidal 1961, Satan in High Heels 1962, The World, the Flesh and the Devil 1959). Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Tennessee Williams’ harrowing story of heroine addiction, cannibalism, shock therapy, lobotomy self-loathing homosexuality and the archetypal devouring mother. Sam Fuller, places Constance Towers, a beautiful prostitute on the road to redemption in mainstream America, only to uncover a dark secret— that the town’s beloved benefactor is a pedophile who proposes marriage to use her as a kindred spirit in Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss (1964). There’s a powerful scene with Madam Candy (Virginia Grey) who gets the tar beaten out of her by Kelly (Constance Towers)… while Kelly shoves dirty money in Candy’s mouth….

Bunny Lake is Missing 1965 Carol Lynley is a panicked mother Ann Lake looking for her little girl in England after she goes missing from school. Noel Coward is her creepy landlord-Directed by Otto Preminger, perhaps one of my favorite psycho-thrillers from the 60s

Night of the Living Dead 1968 George A Romero’s disturbing watershed moment in indie horror film… acts as social commentary horrifically mirrors anti-consumerism and racism.

Suddenly, Last Summer 1959 Tennessee Williams scathing criticism of the institution of mental health motherhood, and self loathing homosexuality…

Sand down the edges of Noir’s shapes and shadows until they’re refined by the harsh florescent lights of modernity and combine with a movie-going audience hungering to be titillated, repulsed and transformed. Art and style had to go through certain transformation in order to meet up with an ever changing and new culture. Some of these re-inventive cult films drew from Noir’s deep well of infinite cultural dynamism and can be considered serious masterpieces (Night of the Hunter 1955, Sweet Smell of Success 1957, Blast of Silence 1961, Lady in a Cage 1964). Many low budget sleepers found their way on screen falling into the niche of art-house and others are just down right delicious schlock (Violated 1953, Jail Bait 1954, The Lonely Sex 1959, The Sinister Urge 1960, Glen or Glenda 1963, Five Minutes to Live 1961, Stark Fear 1962, The Sadist 1963, Teenage Strangler 1964, Strange Compulsion 1964, Motorpsycho! 1965, The Defilers 1965, Two Girls for a Madman 1968). Even with low budgets, the cult film managed to represent our deepest fears and desires, which repulsed and released us from it’s brief influence as with Georges Franju’s surreal Eye’s Without a Face (1960) and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (1955). They all possess a rejuvenated boldness from a Noir sensibility.

Two Girls for a Madman 1968

Strange Compulsion 1964 Fred is a Peeping Tom!

The Sadist 1963 Arch Hall as mad dog killer Charlie Tibbs

The Lonely Sex 1959

Transgressive films reflected changing social morays— more sexual freedom, shifts in the American family, and boundaries pushed farther toward the dark and tragic complexities of the iconic Noir characters and themes of alienated individuals that preceded the outré cult evolution. Cult films traded in suggestive innuendo for cogent, potent, and often lurid themes, deviant characterizations in graphic detail. And traded on Noir’s haunting chiaroscuro, for cult’s gutsy revelations. Noir had an elegant yet neurotic mystique, whereas the evolution of the cult crime story discloses a society partly infected by modernity, lacking the grand style of the old, introducing fast cars, skimpy outfits, and a generation of rebels looking for ‘kicks.’

Brute Force 1947 Jules Dassin directs Burt Lancaster and a slew of fine actors in this savage indictment of the prison system. Hume Cronyn plays a particularly sadistic guard.

Women’s Prison 1955 Ida Lupino directs -a beaten down Phyllis Thaxter

Certain Noir films possessed powerfully evocative scenes more than just implying violence (Brute Force 1947, Woman’s Prison 1950), but latter films present more brutal moments occurring under bleached white hot light in the openness of day (Lady in a Cage 1964, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962). The truly transgressive territories of socially acceptable norms were being blown out of the water and splattered into different spheres of violence and psychological dimensions (The Mark 1961, The Couch 1962, Screaming Mimi 1958, Five Minutes to Live 1961, Walk on the Wild Side 1962, Look in Any Window, Who Killed Teddy Bear? 1965, Strait-Jacket 1964, Compulsion 1959, The Girl in the Black Stockings 1957, The Strange One 1957, The Mugger 1958).

Look in Any Window 1961 Paul Anka and Ruth Roman–there’s a queasy sense of voyeurism and a Pal that hangs over suburbia and the unhappy marriages of the middle class who aren’t what they appear to be on the surface keeping up with the Jones….

While Noir has the walking wounded, cult films have the often sleazy band of human wreckage. These films gave us such themes of — desire and deviant behavior, sexual & social contradiction, mania, phobia, the subconscious id, irrational obsession, neurosis, fixation, fetish, subversion, exploitation, objectification, hostility, conflict, reactionism, the hint of soft-core pornography, and raw images of sexuality or social deviation. Many films were also psycho-sexual thrillers exploring the fractured psyche up close (The Strangler 1964, Repulsion 1965). Hitchcock took a risk with Norman Bates as the poster child for psychopathic innocence in Psycho (1960) and Vertigo (1958) with the bold swagger of transgressive themes necrophilia, Oedipal complex, transvestism, psychosis, obsession and pathological objectification, and sublimation of the female figure. Although a horror picture, Psycho still possesses many elements of a great Noir film.

These films transfigured into the realm of exploitation, making the transition while utilizing indistinguishable elements of classical Noir. The most rudimentary aspects of noir metamorphosed into a radically altered state of complex and often graphic illustrations of sexualized characters, violent behavior, and offbeat story lines that expanded the scope of Noir’s already quirky style. Instead of the camera just suggestively brushing against Phyllis Dietrichson’s (Barbara Stanwyck’s) ankle bracelet in Double Indemnity (1944), Russ Meyer’s cult film shows us Lorna Maitland’s full and faithful breasts in the trashy treasure Mudhoney (1965).

Russ Meyer’s Mudhoney 1965 Lorna Maitland as Clara Belle

Sin in the Suburbs-Joe Sarno

Cult films were a contemporary Sturm und Drang that had the artistic freedom like a revival of the Pre-Code imagination. Busting wide open the illusion of heteronormativity, issues of race, class, misogyny, and women’s sexual liberation (Kitten with a Whip 1964, … And the Wild Wild Women 1959, starring the incredible Anna Magnani. Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! 1965, Something Wild 1961,The Killing of Sister George 1960, Lolita 1962, Sin in the Suburbs 1964). While motherhood and the American family reared its ugly head in the sensationalized Mildred Pierce (1945),

Anna Magnani and Guilietta Masina

Robert Aldrich came along and took the notion of dysfunctional family to the level of melodramatic opera by casting two of Hollywood’s most shining stars not only making them grotesque caricatures of themselves but thereby starting a trend of Grande Dame Cinema with his notoriously splendid What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962. Reaching deeper into human vulnerability and collective dis-ease, they revealed more of a change as directors populated their world with subversive, deviant, outliers of society (Victim 1961, Seance on a Wet Afternoon 1964, Cul-de-sac 1966, The Honeymoon Killers 1969, Seconds 1966, The Thrill Killers 1964, Lilith 1964 Aroused 1966, The Incident 1967, The World’s Greatest Sinner 1962, Never Take Candy From A Stranger 1960, The Bloody Brood 1959, Mister Buddwing 1966). No longer just crime-based stories with treacherous femme fatales and broken masculine types. The misunderstood anti-hero, the wrongly hunted man, the woman in peril still existed, and the derivative tales still explored areas of life vs death, opportunism vs victimization, human relationships, human psyche, temptation, seduction, blurred identity, fate and redemption.

Taboo as Objective:

“Violent acts compel an aesthetic response in the beholder of awe, admiration or bafflement. If an action evokes an aesthetic response then it is logical to assume that this action–even if it is murder–must have been the work of an artist.”- (Joel Black from the aesthetics of murder 1991)

No longer allusions of a romanticized form of mental illness now lay bare the true psychosis, brutality & prison reform, homosexuality out of that stifling old closet, socio-pathic violence, cannibalism, castration complex, Oedipal and Paternal fixations, incest, rape, racism, prostitution, drug addiction, religious delusion and zealotry- They illustrated the supposed Hysteria of women, fetishism, soft core pornography, white slavery, anti-establishmentism, fear of immigrants, abortion, unwed mothers, alcoholism, juvenile delinquency. voyeurism, pedophilia, sexual sadism, s&m–female sexuality, male impotence. swinging, folie a deux, thrill killings, murderous children, menage a trois -interracial marriage, exhibitionism.and aggressive individualism.

Tony Musante and Martin Sheen are sociopathic thrill seekers who torment a subway car filled with New Yorkers. The Incident (1967)

James Garner & Angela Lansbury in Mister Buddwing 1966

A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 Brando & Leigh in Tennessee William’s volatile story

Val Lewton seemed to understand the complexities of gender and the machinations of the human animal struggling against conformity and taboo. His films dealt with female sexuality, arousal, women’s sexual primacy as dangerous especially to men or impressionable girls at the crossroads. A preoccupation with death, suicide, and even clandestine & esoteric religious cults that worshiped human sacrifice and the devil. Truly transgressive themes for a small studio like RKO supposedly competing with Universal’s monster factory. But Lewton set forth a small treasure trove of masterpieces that still hold up to contemporary viewing and fed the reservoir of cult films to follow. Lewton and Fritz Lang, both infused their work with an abundance of psychology and deviance that predisposed the cinematic subject matter found in film noir as well as the psycho-sexual thrillers. There was an often noticeable intersectionality of both genres.

Jean Brooks is Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim 1943 directed by Mark Robson

Simone Simon is Val Lewton’s haunted Irena in- Cat People 1942

Directors like John Frankenheimer, Otto Preminger, Sam Fuller, Joseph Losey, and Robert Aldrich gave us expansive, experimental, reflexive, subversive, bizarre, brutal and often shocking films. Even Todd Browning (Freaks 1932), and Val Lewton (I Walked with a Zombie 1943) envisioned taboo themes and outlier tableaus within the universe of their great bodies of work that predate later cult paragons. During the 50s and 60s some dramatic tour-de-forces arose— Tennessee Williams’ sympathetic portrayal of women in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Night of the Iguana (1964) and Suddenly, Last Summer, or Aldrich’s contribution with his focus on a repulsive brand of narcissism and madness with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte. They push boundaries of conventional narratives and explore deeper veins of dark human nature, compulsions, weakness, desires, fears, and taboos. Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) broke the mold of traditional Noir by setting Gloria Swanson’s brilliant performance as Norma Desmond in the spotlight, hinting at the atmosphere of things to come…

Gloria Swanson set the scene for years to come… when she inhabited the likes of Norma Desmond and set the screen ablaze with an all consuming narcissism that reaches out and touches you! A growing Gothic trend of Hollywood anxiety and agism….

From The Cult Film Reader by Mathjis, Ernest, Mendik and Xavier. Chapter Sleaze Mania, Euro-Trash and High Art–they cite S.S.Prawer’s notes–

“In a way, hybrid genres like art-horror films simply point up the problems which have historically characterized all attempts at genre definition.”

(i) Every worthwhile work modifies the genre {horror} to some extent, brings something new to it. and therefor forces us to rethink definitions and delimitations. (ii) There are borderline cases, works that belong to more than on genre-the overlap between the “fantastic terror” film and the “science-fiction” film is particularly large. (iii) Wide variations in quality are possible within a given genre. (iv) There are works which as a whole clearly do not belong to the genre in question but which embody references to that genre, or contain sequences that derive from, allude to, or influence it.

In the same way, noir seems to have been modified or rethought in ways that are harder to define falling into many realms that can be considered cult. Prawer tends to endorse my view of noir’s transitioning exhibition, narratives and genre-overlapping.

These cinematic archetypes, phantoms and anti-heroes existed in the liminal spaces of the narrative. Toward the end of Noir’s hey-day when most of the motifs and plot designs had been over used, you can find much of the dynamic sensibilities cropping up in cult, b-movie and transgressive underground films, many with little to no budgets. Films that made great use in paying homage to odd angles and specifically lit camera work. There were even odder character studies with texturally complex psyches. A rebellion of sorts. More renegade outliers reaching beyond the framework of the norm. Hollywood didn’t have a strangle hold on what could be said or shown, and so pulp novels and screenplays were tapped that could express a whole different angle of story telling, cinema’s characters, narratives, and landscapes were all to push the limits of expectation, and often what emerged was a type of noir on acid, violently at odds with the world, and telling it like it is, without the subtle and classic nuance.

Characters were more extreme forms of their former archetypes, gay characters were not as coded, the violence was shown on screen, and the transgressive dialogue spoke it’s mind. We went from Floradora Girls, Femme Fatales and Floozies to Bikers Queens, Bitches and Babes!…. From the ‘girl next door’ to ‘That Kind of Girl.’ Guys didn’t just have traces of mother complexes, they literally had their mommy’s mummified body stuffed and rotting in the basement cellar! But that didn’t stop Mommy from holding sway over sunny boy!

In his jail cell, blanket-wrapped Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins, but “Mother’s” voice supplied by Virginia Gregg) offered his final internal thoughts after being overtaken by Mother, in voice-over. The voice of “Mother” spoke in Norman’s head, and condemned her son for the crimes, while she claimed that she was harmless:

“It’s sad when a Mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son, but I couldn’t allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They’ll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad and in the end, he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man, as if I could do anything except just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. Oh, they know I can’t even move a finger, and I won’t. I’ll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do suspect me. They’re probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am.

I’m not even gonna swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, ‘Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.”

Flawed anti-heroes, the private eye and guys down on their luck became juvenile delinquents and flagrant social outcasts and rebels in dirty undershirts.

The other thing that became transformed was the level of graphic violence. The murders and murderers themselves seemed unleashed from cinema’s Id. As if all the fear and collective repression opened Pandora’s Box and the brutality that emerged on screen began to eclipse the implied narratives.

Story lines—about con men, killers, cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-and-out boxers, and calculating, scheming, deadly broads of noir melted into the. B Movies, now a cinema of transgression.

Transformed into story lines about—thrill killers, addicted females. disillusioned rogue cops, and calculating, scheming hyper violent and deadly serious women with the same psychological complexities yet they literally found their freedom to compete with the volatile hyper-male archetypes. Less locked into the civil conformity that was imposed on women in the 40s & 50s women started to really show themselves as more than housewives, mistresses or mysterious women in black!

During the 60s the aesthetics of a changing culture reflected itself back at us from up on the screen. The Production Code had lost it’s grip on the system and that Studio System… was collapsing.

What stands out for me since I’ve been spending months exploring the transformation of not only the subject matter, framework, narrative and depiction of transgressive themes, is watching particular actresses and their brave performances around the time the studio system and the transfiguration of film had also started to change for film stars as well, allowing for expressive, experimental acting. I have found that often the more obscure yet brilliant roles for women were the ones that have drawn me into their orbit… like Shirley Jones and Jean Simmons in Elmer Gantry 1960…

Piper Laurie in The Hustler 1961. — All these women are phenomenal… Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth 1962, Simone Signoret in Ship of Fools 1965, Ruby Dee and Ellen Holly in Take a Giant Step 1959, Lola Albright in A Cold Wind in August 1961— and the collective of fine actresses in Sidney Lumet’s The Group 1966 Joanna Pettet, Joan Hackett, Shirley Knight, Jessica Walter, Candice Bergen, Elizabeth Hartman, and Kathleen Widdoes.

Anne Bancroft in The Pumpkin Eater, Jean Seaberg in Lilith, Barbara Barrie in One Potato Two Potato and Carol Lynley in Bunny Lake is Missing, Patricia Neal in Psyche 59 (1964) and-Joanne Woodward in The Stripper.

A few more personal favorites Anna Magnani in The Fugitive Kind 1960 and …And the Wild Wild Women 1959, and while I’m on my Anna Magnani kick-The Rose Tattoo 1955–of course Kim Stanley in Seance on a Wet Afternoon 1964. Jean Simmons in Home Before Dark 1958, Eleanor Parker in Lizzie 1957

Molly Haskell used these terms to qualify the roles that actresses were now delving into the post Hollywood glamor machine…

‘But even with these great women’s roles of the decade what were they for the most part. Whores, quasi-whores jilted mistresses emotional cripples, drunks daffy ingénues | Lolitas, kooks, sex starved spinsters psychotics Icebergs, ZOMBIES AND BALLBREAKERS’

As Mr. Vogler (Gunner Bjornstrand) says in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) “The important thing is the effort, not what we achieve.”

Where else did Film Noir have to go but into the cultural gutter…?

Femme Fatales didn’t use purse guns anymore, they used their bare hands…

She Devil’s on Wheels 1968 -Betty Connell as “Queen” of the Man-Eaters

Carroll Baker in Something Wild 1961 a film dealing with the trauma of rape

Gun Crazy 1950 or Deadly is the Female= John Dahl and Peggy Cummins play a dangerous game of Folie_à_deux

Barrie Chase in Cape Fear 1962

Ross Martin as the psychopathic asthmatic in Experiment in Terror 1962

Some films were still part of the Noir canon even as they pushed the boundaries further. John Cromwell’s brutal Caged (1950) put an ugly face to the horrors of women’s prisons. Joseph E Lewis‘ classic noir Gun Crazy (1950) flirted with Folie à deux as the beautiful yet menacing pistol happy Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) seduces John Dall’s Barton Tare into a life of robberies and murder. Robert Aldrich opens that Pandora’s Box with his nihilistic thriller Kiss Me Deadly (1955). There’s an unseen split differentiating these films from classical Noir. Some psychological thrillers look like Noir films (Something Wild 1961, Cape Fear 1962, Experiment in Terror 1962, In Cold Blood 1967, Anatomy of a Murder 1959) and some Noir films appear psychological suspense thrillers as in Louise Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows 1957 or Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel 1962, The Very Edge 1963 and the odd indie psycho-thriller with a streak of vérité, and gritty realism Heat of Madness 1966–that contrary to detracting from the thing, acts more like a stage play in 60s Manhattan, with real actors. The lead Kevin Scott plays a tortured artist who makes a living shooting nude calenders. The object of his affection is the only sore point for me, but he as the afflicted John Wilright with bad comb over and creeping halitosis is just vile enough to be believable. It’s a very odd and compelling little piece.

Robert Blake gives an astounding performance as killer Perry in Richard Brooks adaptation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1967)

Harry Wuest’s starkly real Heat of Madness (1966)

From gritty streets, smokey lounges five o’clock shadows, fedoras and sensual starlets who were furious femme fatales showing a hint of leg and singing torchy lullabies like the mythical Lorelei luring damaged men to their lonely deaths. From shadowy alley ways where down on their luck fella’s meet with fickle fate–from flash backs, desperate dames, mistaken identity to the wrongfully accused, Film Noir had all the sharp and dark angles that twisted itself around the mantle of Hollywood’s dream factory. Film Noir with its suggestive Chiaroscuro, polished and highly stylized archetypes that at times flirted with certain cultural taboos moved in shadowy spheres and explored the internalized fears, anxieties and desires that challenged society, yet it’s allusions only touched the surface. Most Film Noir hadn’t entered the arena of the profane as of yet.

Women were getting more viscerally visual power, rather than cliched femme fatales they could flex a primal imagery just out of reach of the male gaze. And they didn’t always get crucified by a malefic identity. She led her own narrative, owned her body, was at times the unstable hysterical psychotic and at times the central foci and as powerful if not more than their male co-stars. In as much as certain roles cast them in disparaging positions of objectification, the cult female character had the ability to break out of the traditional role as either, mother, saint, wife, woman-in-peril, girl next door, extraneous ‘nice girl’ or iconic cliche of the ‘bad girl.’ And the male characters became more conflicted, flawed, degenerate, sweaty bare chested, psychologically complex, psychotic freaks with their own set of fixations and fetishes. There were no Cary Grants or Gregory Pecks in the cult cinema world. A different sort of male figure rose from the Noir ashes. Perhaps Robert Ryan came the closest to illuminating the complex hyper masculine psyche in noir.

Robert Mitchum as Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter 1955

Max Von Sydow as the quietly vengeful father in The Virgin Spring 1960

Men like Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell was a masterful enigma of immortal turpitude proving to be a more menacing force than even Bela Lugosi’s Dracula with his performance in –Night of the Hunter 1955, or his Max Cady in Cape Fear 1962. The bizarre Garland Humphrey ‘Red’ Lynch played perfectly by Ross Martin in Experiment in Terror 1962. Max Von Sydow’s stoic performance as a father filled with grief, retribution and an icy blood lust against the men who attacked and murdered his precious daughter in Bergman’s somber and stunning The Virgin Spring 1960.

Norman Bates’ iconic persona of a gentle innocence that masked yet a deranged and twisted soul in Hitchcock’s Psycho 1960 Wendell Corey’s sublime and reserved performance of a man out of control in The Killer is Loose 1956.

Wendell Corey is chilling as the detached psychopath -and has flipped his lid in Budd Boetticher’s terrific thriller- The Killer is Loose 1956

A world of indulgence, decadence, inherent misogyny, defiled innocence, deflated paternal archetypes, not so coded gay characters, man eaters, men with not so subtle castration anxiety and sexually expressive and responsive females all could go back to being as free as they were Pre-Code Hollywood.

So can even an intoxicating formula run out of it’s vitality?

“In a casual, cursory portrait of the ‘other’ let us tap at the door of decadence apropos of these subversive films. Culturally, decadence reflects the concept that there are epochs in art when, after magnificent achievements and innovations, a fashionable degeneration begins among artists, exposing a putrid, final stage of living for a leading nation.” — Allan Havis

The reaction to this transgressive ideology was to further push the envelope and displace these key paradigms and archetypes to a new level of cinematic freedom. Playing with the already existing expressiveness of the Noir character broke the mold of the old Hollywood formula. The new wave of transgressive films that developed in the late 50’s and 60s possess these Noir elements transmogrified into an entirely more volatile world, intimately or universally, through inner machination or collective consciousness. Film Noir’s ‘fall from grace to grind-house’ offers a fascinating evolution from stylized elegance to sadistic escapism.

Catherine Deneuve must fend off the lewd advances from her landlord Patrick Wymark

From Reverence to Rape- The Treatment of Women in the Movies by Molly Haskell

“As the sixties opened, the Production Code was relaxing inch by inch. With successive revelations on the screen, the decade progressed like a stripper, though awkwardly like a novice on the stage in a hurry to get off the stage”

As Haskell puts it so aptly about women’s roles in the sixties:

“But even these the great women’s roles of the decade, what are they for the most part? Whores, quasi-whores, jilted mistresses, emotional cripples, drunks. Daffy ingenues, Lolitas, kooks, sex-starved spinsters, Psychotics, Icebergs, zombies and ball-breakers”

For better or worse… the 60s flipped certain roles for women on their heads revealing them in the narrative as the primary strong character, autonomous about her own or perceived gaze. Whether she still was a man-eater, femme fatale, fallen angel, hysterical mess or downright psychotic, there were women’s roles that kicked serious some ass.! There was more room to exhale a bit and let some of the intrigue, some of the inspiration splay itself wide open.

Carroll Baker-Something Wild 1961

Sue Lyon in Stanley Kubrick’s LOLITA 1962

Ann -Margret is a Kitten with a Whip taunting John Forsyth in Douglas Heyes’ film 1964

Cult Films Taboo and Transgression— Allan Havis–

—“Many of these alternate-realm films explore knowingly or inadvertently powerful social taboos. We can define taboos in the context of social codes and anthropological phobias… It is this very contradiction of taboos and their transgressions that thrusts this particular and irreverent study of favorite cult films” —Allan Havis

—”Cult films became branded in the late 1960s and flourished as a trendy, social activity for nearly twenty years… How do we explain this odd paradoxical feeling when an excellent cult film entertains and disturbs us in the same way?”

One of the sentient points that Havis makes in his marvelous book is the idea of ‘escape and return’, where the film goer experiences these offbeat films going in willingly to navigate strange new territories that invert familiar or alternately comfortable themes, because they trust that they are safe and reality will be restored at the end of the film.

In any epoch we can find film makers who understood as Picasso once said- “Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth” and “Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing. Taste is the enemy of creativity.”

Thus we see expansive, experimental, reflexsive, subversive, bizarre, brutal and the often shocking films from directors like John Frankenheimer Sam Fuller, Roger Corman, George Romero, Russ Meyer, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jerzy Kawalerowicz Robert Aldrich,Roman Polanski Radley Metzger, yes even… Ed Wood, Jean Luc Goddard, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Hugo Haas, Budd Botteicher, Walter Grauman, Edward L Cahn, Joseph Pevney, and one of my favorites Joseph Losey.

The years generally thought of for Noir’s most relevant reign was between 1945 -1955

From the Chapter-LOUNGE TIME Postwar Crisis and the Chronotope of Film Noir by Vivian Sobchack in the book RECONFIGURING AMERICAN GENRES: HISTORY AND THEORY-edited by Nick Browne

“To locate and ground that heterogeneous and ambiguous cinematic grouping called film noir in it’s contemporaneous social context…{…} attempting to relate the films to changes in American culture during the second World War and its aftermath.”

Quoting Joan Copjec from Shades of Noir—

“Film noir criticism correlates filmic elements with historical “sources”: World War II, and increase in crime, mounting paranoia regarding the working woman’s place in society, and so on-thinking that it has thereby located the “generative principle” of the films. But this reference to external sources in no way resolves the question of the internal logic of the films.”

Nicholas Ray’s masterpiece, and perhaps one of Humphrey Bogarts finest performances as Dixon Steele a screenwriter with a volatile personality who falls for Gloria Grahame in the melo-noir gem–In A Lonely Place 1950

Essentially Sobchack points out how heterogeneous and ambivalent the Film Noir genre started to reflect the American cultural climate in a social context showing the attitudes of the nation after the war.

But these films became hybridizations, influenced, and transfigured making the transition while utilizing indistinguishable elements of classical noir. Somehow, certain of the most rudimentary aspects of noir metamorphosed into a radically altered state of complex and often graphic illustrations of sexualized characters, violent behavior, pathologically fixated narratives, and offbeat story lines that expanded the scope of an already quirky style or genre. Film noir often deriving some of it’s darkest shades from human nature, ‘crime’, and the personal and collective angst of paranoia in this country. The role of women was confusing, as they were returning back to take care of hearth and home after having been productive supporters on the war front as Rosy the Riveters. Where was their place in society now? Considering the two contrasting roles of women in noir, the innocent/marrying type/ nice girl on the sidelines contrasted with the dark bad girl, femme fatale, predatory dangerous and sexually unredeemable– Heading toward the sexual revolution of the 60s, a woman’s place in film and society would go through many phases.

As I’ve already cited, men proved to be a more menacing force-Night of the Hunter, Experiment in Terror, Cape Fear, Psycho, Five Minutes to Live & The Killer is Loose.

Once again from Vivien Sobchack-

“Let us start with the context. It is now a commonplace to regard film noir during the peak years of its production as a pessimistic cinematic response to volatile social and economic conditions of the decade immediately after WWII Whether considered a genre or a style, the films circumscribed as noir are seen as playing out negative dramas of postwar masculine trauma and gender anxiety brought on by wartime destablization of the culture’s domestic economy and a consequence “deregulation” of the institutionalized and patriarchally informed relationship between men and women. The social context in which noir emerged is marked as “transitional’ and it’s overarching themes are the recovery of a lost patriarchal order and the need for the country to literally and metaphorically ‘settle down’ “

Interesting is in retrospect, certain of these obscure B cult films that were low budget, considered cheap and sophomoric, contain horrid acting and an erratic storyline, at times possess a natural art-house quality that film makers today try to emulate yet miss the mark by miles. What comes to mind just to give one example is Ray Dennis Steckler aka Cash Flagg’s interesting The Thrill Killers. In one scene where Steckler himself plays Mad Dog Click a psychotic freak, brutally attacks a dance hall hostess in a hotel room. The scene is framed so well that I was actually taken aback by its raw savagery and outre violent realism. While parts of the film are a bit asinine, there’s a lot of interesting and quirky scenes and odd characters that I think deserve a look at.

Another aspect of many of these films which help make them stand apart and cry out for attention is the musical scores that companion the pace and tone as the music began to mirror the mood, it became more off beat, utilizing modern jazz and disjointed out of step beats that clashes with mainstream society. The music often underscored the sentiment of these film’s discordant nature, emphasized chaos, rebellion and alienation, an atmosphere of unsettling freedom. Composers added to the landscape–like Jerry Goldsmith, Mort Stevens , Gil Melle and Lionel Newman. Walter Schumann, Paul Glass, Frank De Vol, Mischa Bakaleinikoff , Henri Mancini, Bernard Herrmann. John Barry and Elmer Bernstein, Miles Davis, Hans J, Salter. Pete Rugulo, Miklós Rózsa , Paul Dunlop, John Williams and Lalo Schifrin.

THE FILMS: the breadth of my attentions seem to span from 1952-1969- with the exception of a few films that started early on exploring, brutal, psychological and avant-garde spaces… I list these films that are uniquely irreverent & enigmatic. In other words they possess the principles of both cult and noir styles. Here’s Joey’s Corollary Compendium!

1920

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI 1919–directed by Robert Wiene– expressionistic shadows and avante garde angles and architecture. Nightmarish, sonombulism, mind control, obsession and necrophilia. Shades of taboo & themes in a dark dreamy cinematic poem.

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI 1919

1931

SAFE IN HELL 1931 directed by William Wellman

Safe in Hell 1931 Dorothy Mackaill directed by William Wellman

After Dorothy Machaill as Gilda Carlson kills the man who forces her into prostitution and rapes her, she flees to a Caribbean island, where there’s no escape from danger!

M (1931) -directed by Fritz Lang

Peter Lorre embodies repulsion and sympathetic psychosis as child murderer Hans Beckert hunted through out the streets of the German city by the police and a mob of its criminal element seething with a blood lust for justice and revenge!

1932

FREAKS 1932 -directed by Tod Browning

Controversial at the time Tod Browning cast his masterpiece with circus folk. The story centers around Hans (Harry Earls) who is wooed by the ruthless Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) for his money. Slowly trying to poison the love -struck Hans, the family of freaks decide to exact their own revenge on this conniving vulturine.

Tod Browning’s FREAKS (1932)

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS 1932 -directed by Erle C.Kenton

Charles Laughton is utterly chilling as Dr. Moreau who plays god with the Islanders by tampering with the genetics of man/woman & beast. Using profane experiments he lauds his power over them by threatening to take them to the ‘house of pain’… It’s a nightmarish and provocative masterpiece. Also starring Bela Lugosi as Sayer of the Law…

Kathleen Burke Island of Lost Souls -the sensual Panther Woman… brings an element of Beastiality to the already provocative theme.

1934

THE BLACK CAT 1934–directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

One of the best pairings of Karloff and Lugosi, the story of an old friendship that has brewed revenge and immortal retribution for having turned traitor and committed genocide on so many of his own people, also having stolen Dr Werdergast’s (Bela Lugosi) wife. There are so many controversial elements to the story. Not least which is the idea of Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff) dabbling in satanic worship and necrophilia.

Lugosi & Karloff in Ulmer’s outstanding atmospheric The Black Cat 1934

1935

MAD LOVE (1935)- Directed by Karl Freund starring Peter Lorre

“His love was pitiful…hopeless…madness…yet “The Thing” tired of pity – and demanded love!”

This creepy film falling into the sub-genre of medical nightmare horror. has Peter Lorre as Doctor Gogol, an insane surgeon who is so obsessed with the object of his desire Frances Drake as gorgeous stage actress Yvonne Orloc. Gogol performs an emergency surgery on Yvonne’s concert piansit husband, but he uses the hands of a knife wielding murderer to replace them. This film too has a subtle hint of necrophilia and fetishism…

1936

DRACULA’S DAUGHTER 1936 – directed by Lambert Hillyer

“She gives you that weird feeling!”

This subtly erotic tale of a powerful woman’s sexual primacy cloaked in the fairy tale of Dracula’s Daughter, gives Gloria Holden a marvelous opportunity to wax tragically romantic. Beyond a fine classical horror story, the dark dreamy cinematography by George Robinson. A story that dares first invoke the idea of Lesbian attraction.

Gloria Holden as Contessa Marya Zeleska in Dracula’s Daughter 1936

1937

NIGHT MUST FALL 1937 – directed by Richard Thorpe

A most disturbing story of a hatbox killer of older women. Michael Redgrave is ideal as the impish bad boy with a fetishistic lethal Oedipal complex. When a rich but cantankerous dowager Dame May Witty on an isolated estates hires him as he acts the engaging handyman, her niece/companion Rosalind Russell becomes suspicious of his motives.

Robert Montgomery Night Must Fall 1937 with Dame May Witty

1943

FLESH AND FANTASY 1943-directed by Julien Duvivier

An oneric anthology of three loosely connected occult tales, with ironic and romantic twists. Stories by Oscar Wilde, Ellis St. Joseph, László Vadnay, Ernest Pascal and Samuel Hoffenstein. Starring Betty Fields, Edward G. Robinson, Charles Boyer, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Cummings, Dame May Witty and Anna Lee. The film emanates a shadowy otherworldly film noir sensibility, and also features themes of necromancy, fetish and homicidal obsession. Surreal cinematography by Stanley Cortez

Betty Field in the hauntingly beautiful Flesh & Fantasy

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE 1943–directed by Jacques Tourneur

Written by Curt Siodmak, this is a tale of naive nurse Betsy Connell (Francis Dee) who travels to the West Indies to care for Jessica the wife of plantation owner Paul Holland (Tom Conway) Jessica (Christine Gordon) suffers from a kind of somnambulism cause by either a fever or a mysterious link to island Voodoo. Frances Dee and Tom Conway play out a tormented love affair in the midst of eerie circumstances. Ritualistic voodoo, necrophilia, and themes of ‘otherizing’ colonialism & racism pervade this heady gorgeous masterpiece.

Frances Dee in I Walked With a Zombie 1943 directed by the great Jacques Tourneur

1944

PHANTOM LADY 1944–directed by Robert Siodmak—Franchot Tone and Ella Raines are superb in this unmistakable gem for it’s quirky and disturbing sense of place. A great story by Cornell Woolrich. Ella plays Carol Richman a dedicated secretary who goes on the hunt for the truth to prove that her boss is not a murderer. She must find the woman in the beautiful hat, while putting herself in real danger by the killer! Fetishism, psychosis, sexual themes and mania fill in the dark spaces of this brilliant and over-looked Film Noir gem.

Amazing yet overlooked Robert Siodmak noir gem Phantom Lady–Elisha Cook Jr. as Cliff the sex-mad drummer

I ACCUSE MY PARENTS 1944-directed by Sam Neufeld

Robert Lowell is James Wilson a young man abused and neglected by his alcoholic parents. He submerges himself in a world of crime, and falls in love with lounge singer Kitty Reed (Mary Beth Hughes)

I Accuse My Parents already has that whiff of exploitation even for a 1944 audience.

1946

THE DARK CORNER (1946) – directed by Henry Hathaway

Perhaps one of my all time favorite Film Noirs, it’s packed with catchy dialogue great acting, quirky characters and some suggestively kinky bits. Starring Lucille Ball who’s fabulous as Kathleen Stewart who is devoted to her gumshoe boss, the underrated Mark Stevens who gives one hell of a performance as the tragically flawed noir figure trapped in a bizarre and deadly set of circumstances. Standout performances by William Bendix as Fred Foss who should know better than to wear a white linen suit after Labor Day… and has a propensity for smashing thumbs… Also memorable is Clifton Webb as the coded gay Hardy Cathcart who worships his wife in an unnatural way. It’s brutal and grimy and delivers some memorable goods… and

Features one hell of a great defenestration scene!

William Bendix in The Dark Corner 1946

1947

THE RED HOUSE 1947—directed by Delmer Daves

An old man Edward G Robinson as Pete Morgan and his sister Ellen (Judith Anderson) are concealing a terrible secret from their adopted teen daughter, concerning a hidden abandon farmhouse, located deep in the woods. Stars Allene Roberts, Julie London, Rory Calhoun, Lon McCallister and Ona Munson.

BRUTE FORCE 1947–directed by Jules Dassin–cinematography by William H. Daniels

Burt Lancaster plays inmate Joe Collins a prisoner at the disorderly run Westgate Penitentiary who plans a prison break under the tyrannical and sadistic rule of Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn) who wields his billy club like a homo-erotically phallic weapon.

Munsey controls the men through intimidation and brutality. Joe and his fellow cell mates construct a plan to escape through the drain pipe. Dassin directs this volatile powder keg with a savage eye on the injustices of a cruel institutionalized and flawed prison system. The ensemble cast is damn perfection in action… Featuring Vince Barnett, John Hoyt, Whit Bissell, Jeff Corey, and Lancaster from left to right. Also stars Charles Bickford, Jay C. Flippen, Howard Duff, Sam Levene, Ella Raines and Yvonne De Carlo.

“MEN CAGED ON THE INSIDE… driven by the thought of their women on the loose!”

Jules Dassin directs this incredible ensemble film noir set in the boiling maze of men’s prison starring Burt Lancaster in Brute Force 1947

SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR 1947-directed by Fritz Lang

“Some Men Destroy What They Love Most! “

The Master Fritz Lang blends a haunting nightmarish love story of horror and suspense in this psycho-noir dreamscape. Starring one of the ultimate noir goddesses Joan Bennett who embodies the sufferance of lonely new wife Celia Lamphere who has a whirlwind marriage to Mark (Michael Redgrave who gives a chilling performance as a Bluebeardesque psychopathic fetishist. Celia meets this mysterious stranger who hides many secrets behind several unopened doors… How’s that for a metaphor. Engaging script by Silvia Richards (Possessed 1947)

Weaving in Freudian imagery, this is one of the best Film Noir’s that utilizes psychology & depravity as it’s root theme.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY–1947—directed by Edmund Goulding–

“He was all things to all men … but only one thing to all women!”

Edmund Goulding’s Faustian Carnival Noir masterpiece starring Tyrone Power as the opportunistic mentalist Stanton Carlisle who takes a journey through hell and may or my not find redemption, Also starring Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker. Nightmare Alley, (1947) Director Edmund Goulding’s vision is one of the more moody, nightmarish and sophisticated Noir films of it’s time.

An expose of the seedier aspects of carnival life, threaded with romance, both surreal and unseemly. Based on William Lindsay Gresham’s book and scripted by Jules Furthman (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep), the film is a grim and somber look inside the lives of carnival folk and the demons who ride their backs with drug and alcohol abuse, which breeds inhumanity and the nadir that people are capable of reaching. This beautiful nightmare is both picturesque and polluted with angst, yet a story that is cathartic and enthralling. Standout performance by Ian Keith as Pete Krumbein a hopeless alcholic both tragic and wise. The themes that inhabit the sideshow, such as the ‘geek’ act is enough to qualify this film as an early exploitation experience! Masterful editing by Barbara McLean

THE TWO MRS CARROLLS 1947

Peter Godfrey directed Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck deadly game of poison in the milk! and psychotic obsession.

Geoffrey Carroll: “I have a feeling this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful hatred.”

Bogie is terrific as tortured artist Geoffrey Carroll a dark soul… who must destroy the object of his desire by painting them as the angel of death first… Yet another truly suspenseful and genuinely creepy psycho-noir… Stanny is vulnerable yet fortified as ever as Sally Morton Carroll, wife number two who begins to suspect her husband might be deranged. The film contains both fetishitic mania, adultery and fine performances by the entire cast including Alexis Smith as the mistress and potential wife number 3. Plus Isobel Elsom, Nigel Bruce and Ann Carter as Geoffrey’s very sophisticated young daughter Beatrice.

1948

CRY OF THE CITY 1948- Robert Siodmak’s directs Richard Conte and Hope Emerson… you don’t want one of Rose’s neck rubs…!

A narcissistic thug & cop killer Marty Rome (Richard Conte) breaks out of a prison hospital, defies his poor Italian Mama, police Lieut. Candella (Victor Mature) long time friend of the Rome family and die hard cynic who must find Marty and get to the truth behind allegations of another murder. Shelly Winters has a small role as Brenda Martingale, but Hope Emerson steals the show as big Rose Given, neck cracker and masseuse. Siodmak’s film is layered with the essence of exploitation once Rose steps onto the screen! I love this film for all it’s little volatile bursts of high octane crime-drama fueled by the feverish chemistry in the air.

Richard Conte and Hope Emerson in Robert Siodmak’s taut Cry of the City 1948

THE SNAKE PIT 1948–directed by Anatole Litvak–

“Married and in Love . . . with a Man She Didn’t Know or Want!”

The Snake Pit goes directly to the last resting place of insanity and reveals life within the walls of a mental institution, in this psycho-noir drama starring Olivia de Havilland as Virginia Stuart Cunningham, a woman married to Robert (Mark Stevens) who suffers a nervous breakdown.

1949

THE QUEEN OF SPADES 1949 directed by Thorold Dickinson

A surreal noirish film with an occult overtone, with some of the most visually beautiful scenes since Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête 1946 which is pure fantasy.

Anton Walbrook is Captain Herman Suvorin who is obsessed with playing cards here’s the tale of the elderly countess who has struck a bargain with the devil and sells her soul for the sake of always winning at cards!

When he murders her trying to gain the secret to the pact, her spirit haunts him endlessly til he goes mad… The wonderful Yvonne Mitchell (Blonde Sinner) plays the beautiful Lizaveta Ivanova. Edith Evans is the old Countess Ranevskaya

CAUGHT 1949 directed by Max Ophüls this is a noir dark fairy-tale of an abusive, controlling megalomaniac as Robert Ryan turns in one hell of a nuanced performance as millionaire Smith Ohlrig who impulsively marries Leonora Eames (Barbara Belle Geddes) a naive store model and then proceeds to psychologically and mentally abuse her as an object he owns.

Robert Ryan and Barbara Belle Geddes in Max Ophüls psychological noir classic

1950

IT’S A SMALL WORLD 1950-directed by William Castle–

Paul Dale is Harry Musk, a lovable little guy who will never grow to a full adult size man. Harry’s father is played by Will Geer-He gets tangled up with some unsavory folk, but manages to find his true purpose and love in life!

“Something’s Got To Give……! When the emotions and longings of a man are pent-up in the body of a child!”

IN A LONELY PLACE 1950 directed by Nicholas Ray

Humphrey Bogart is Dixon Steele a screenwriter with a very bad temper. He falls for Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame looking her sexiest!) Is he the violent murderer of that poor script girl? He’s a suspect until his sexy neighbor clears him. But even she begins to wonder once she starts spending time with his darker side..

Dixon Steele: “I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me”

PANIC IN THE STREETS 1950—directed by Elia Kazan–

A doctor Cling Reed (Richard Widmark) and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague. It stars Paul Douglas who’s just fantastic as Capt. Tom Warren

Lt. Cmdr. Clinton ‘Clint’ Reed M.D.:“You know, my mother always told me if you looked deep enough in anybody… you’d always find some good, but I don’t know.”

Capt. Tom Warren:“With apologies to your mother, that’s the second mistake she made.”

THE SOUND OF FURY or TRY AND GET ME 1950–directed by Cy Endfield

Stars Frank Lovejoy, Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson and Lloyd Bridges as a mad dog Jerry Slocum. This film has one powerful climax! Noir story of a guy down on his luck that gets mixed up with a violently unstable criminal.

A blonde with ice cold nerves and deep warm curves!

GUN CRAZY 1950 aka Deadly is the Female–directed by Joseph H Lewis

Stars Peggy Cummins and John Dall as a couple who go on a murderous spree! Superb noir with the Folie à Deux theme. Cummins is electric as Annie Laurie Starr who has a taste for danger…!

SHE BELIEVES IN TWO THINGS…-love and violence!

SUNSET BOULEVARD 1950—directed by Billy Wilder

The penultimate film noir fabulous freak show starring the iconic Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond a star of the silver screen who’s light has not gone out. William Holden plays the cocky gigolo she falls in love with, while hoping for that great come back!

Joe Gillis: [voice-over] “The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis – out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.”

CAGED 1950–directed by John Cromwell

Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Hope Emerson, Jan Sterling Jane Darwell and Betty Garde! A naive nineteen year old widow becomes coarsened and cynical when she is sent to a woman’s prison and is exposed to hardened criminals and sadistic guards.

You don’t know women until you know them without men!

LONELY HEART BANDITS 1950 directed by George Blair

Two con artists join forces and pose as brother and sister. He then meets rich widows through the “personals” sections of newspapers, marries them, and both kill the widows for their money.

NO WAY OUT 1950–directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

A black doctor is assigned to treat two racist White, robbery suspects who are brothers, and when one dies, it causes tension that could start a race riot.

One of the most intense films dealing with the issue of race. With outstanding performances by the entire cast. Sidney Poitier plays Dr Luther Brooks who struggles to get respect as a black doctor who must treat two racist patients in the midst of a volatile climate of hatred and paranoia. Linda Darnell is amazing as the conflicted Edie Johnson the wife of one of the racists. Also stars Stephen McNally as Dr Dan Wharton.

Dr. Dan Wharton: My point is you got out.
Edie Johnson – Mrs. John Biddle: Five blocks away.
Dr. Dan Wharton: Five million blocks, what’s the difference? You hate Beaver Canal; you hate what it stands for.
Edie Johnson – Mrs. John Biddle: You talk like I was a poet or a professor. I found open a manhole and I crawled out of a sewer, wouldn’t anybody?

1951

A PLACE IN THE SUN 1951–directed by George Stevens

Based on a story by Theodore Dreiser ‘An American Tragedy’ Montgomery Clift plays a poor boy George Eastman who gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up with two women. Shelley Winters as Alice Tripp the girl he gets pregnant and Elizabeth Taylor as the wealthy Angela Vickers the one he falls madly in love with. It doesn’t fair well for George when he feels trapped by Alice, and he takes her on a row boat ride…

I’m in trouble, George… bad trouble -Love that paid the severest of all penalties!

THE PROWLER 1951–directed by Joseph Losey

When Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) reports a prowler outside her house police officer Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) investigates and becomes fixated on her.

She had to keep THE PROWLER from telling…

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE 1951–directed by Elia Kazan

Based on the story by Tennessee Williams A sadly delusional Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) moves in with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski who sees her as a threat. Blanche is a sympathetic character who loses touch with reality. Karl Malden plays Mitch, a guy who doesn’t realize how old she is until he gets away from the Chinese lanterns and puts Blanche under a light bulb- So what if she was older? Tragic Tennessee Williams at it’s best!

a Lonely Girl…of Emotions Gone Savage!
…Blanche, who wanted so much to stay a lady…

M (LOSEY) 1951-directed by Joseph Losey

This is Losey’s very edgy remake of the Fritz Lang 1931 classic about a child murderer and the mob mentality who hunts him down. David Wayne does an excellent job of being ultra creepy Martin Harrow.

Inspector Carney: Ordinarily you look for a dame or a bankbook, get a victim with known enemies, what do we got? Some missing shoes. What’re we looking for? A man with a twisted mind. Could be anybody.

1952

FORBIDDEN GAMES 1952 Directed by Réne Clément

Él (1952) THIS STRANGE PASSION -directed by Luis Buňuel

Francisco Galván (Arturo de Córdova) is a middle aged man who becomes obsessed with a young girl Gloria Milalta (Delia Garcés) He begins stalking her and eventually marries her, but she soon learns that he has an unhealthy fixation for her and is emotionally disturbed.

UNNATURAL AKA ALRAUNE 1952 directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt

Hildegard Knef in Alraune 1952 does she have a soul?

A scientist Jacob ten Brinken (Erich von Stroheim) creates the ultimate woman Hildegarde Knef as Alraune. But as beautiful as she may be, she has no soul and draws people to ruin.

“Born outside the laws of God and man”

STRANGE FASCINATION 1952–directed by Hugo Haas

Hugo Haas is a concert pianist Paul Marvan who finds a patron in the wealthy American Diana Fowler (Mona Barrie) but falls for the flirty night club dancer Cleo Moore (Haas’ favorite blonde) Marvan is obsessed with keeping his trampy wife happy and sabotages his career, Diana Fowler cuts him off, so he purposefully mangles his hand in a printing press so he can collect on the insurance. It’s a tragic story about a man obsessed, yet again only to find himself playing one handed piano at a Salvation Army shelter.

He couldn’t let her alone … Wait till you feel her.

DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK 1952—directed by Roy Ward Baker

Marilyn Monroe does an amazing job of playing the very unstable Nell Forbes. Deluded about her fiance that died in a plane crash, she recovers from a break down, only to come to NYC to work with her cousin Eddie (Elisha Cook Jr.) She tempts Richard Widmark for a bit, until he realizes just how unhinged the poor girl is… Excellent psycho-noir.

…a wicked sensation as the lonely girl in room 809!

1953

THE SLASHER 1953–directed by Lewis Gilbert–

James Kenney plays Londoner Roy Walsh a street kid with his gang of delinquents who cause mayhem after the war. Roy heads into much darker territory and serious crimes.

“WILD… WAYWARD… HELL-BENT!”

THE HITCH-HIKER 1953 – directed by Ida Lupino

When was the last time you invited death into your car?

Edmond O’Brien & Frank Lovejoy go on a fishing trip and catch a hitch-hiker (William Tallman) who’s really a pyschotic killer who torments them for a long ride. Ida Lupino offers one of THE best psycho-noirs… the claustrophobic cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca is superb!

VIOLATED 1953–directed by Walter Strate

Psycho Killer stalks the streets of Greenwich Village, killing the women and has a particular fetish for scalping his victims!

GLEN OR GLENDA 1953– directed by Ed Wood Jr.

Satan makes an appearance in Glen’s nightmare. All he wants to do is wear Barbara’s angora sweater!!!

A psychiatrist tells two stories: one of a transvestite (Glen or Glenda), the other of a pseudo-hermaphrodite (Alan or Anne).

Two parallel storiess first Glen (played by Ed Wood himself), who is conflicted about telling his fiancée, Barbara (Dolores Fuller)that he secretly loves to wear women’s clothing.

The other story shows us Tommy Haynes as Alan, a pseudohermaphrodite who undergoes a painful operation to become a woman. Timothy Farrell narrates with an earnest sincerity. Bela Lugosi makes an appearance as the Scientist who philosophizes incoherently about the whole taboo shaboo… Features surreal dream sequences and quirky flashbacks within a flashback. It’s a sympathetic tragedy & triumph as it covers everything from fetish to suicide, broken marriages and angora sweaters…. Gotta love Ed Wood’s cross-dressing gender bending cult film.

1954

GIRL GANG 1954- directed by Robert C. Dertano

A sleazy gangster has a gang of young girls commit robberies and prostitution for him by getting them hooked on drugs.

PLAYGIRL (1954) —directed by Joseph Pevney…

“You call her a ‘Playgirl’…but this girl plays for keeps!”

Shelley Winters is nightclub singer Fran Davis. She’s mistress to Mike Marsh (Barry Sullivan) who’s miserable in his marriage, and winds up falling in love with Fran’s friend Phyllis (Colleen Miller). A cat fight ensues and Marsh winds up shot. It’s pulp-it’s melodrama- it’s Pevney!

BAIT 1954– directed by Hugo Haas

You just gotta love Cleo Moore and Hugo Haas’ collaboration -here is Bait 1954

A beautiful blonde Peggy (Cleo Moore) leads a man down the road to ruin. John Agar as Ray Brighton and Hugo Haas as Marko.
“MEN GO FOR HER… The Door’s Open … Come On In ! “

JAIL BAIT 1954–directed by Ed Wood

Vic Brady draws young Don Gregor into a life of crime. He then blackmails Gregor’s plastic surgeon father into fixing up his face so he can evade the cops.

Stay Away From Them… They’re Jail Bait!

THEY WERE SO YOUNG 1954-directed by Kurt Neumann

A model agency in Rio de Janeiro is actually a front for a white-slavery ring that kidnaps European women and sells them on the South American sex market.

“Too innocent! Too willing! and far, far Too Eager!… and so Beautiful!”

1955

ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL aka TEENAGE DEVIL DOLLS 1955 directed by Bamlet L. Price

“One Touch of the Needle — A Lifetime of Torture!”

KILLER’S KISS 1955–directed by Sam Fuller

Jamie Smith is Prize-fighter Davy Gordon who comes to the rescue of dancer Gloria Price (Irene Kane) who is being beaten up by her lover Vincent Raphello (Frank Silvera) The two fall in love and Raphello seeks revenge..

“Her Soft Mouth Was the Road to Sin-Smeared Violence”

THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR 1955–directed by Andrew L Stone

A group of escaped convicts Vince Edwards and John Cassavetes take a family hostage while the police are out looking for them. Tensions build as time goes on… An American nightmare.

“Three young, empty-eyed killers, without mercy or morals, turn a private home into a house of horror!… With a gasp in your throat… and a gun at your back.”

MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM 1955–directed by Otto Preminger

Strung-out junkie Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine battles his demons of drug addiction while his wife Zosch (Eleanor Parker) who is in a wheelchair and low lifes beat him down even further. Also stars Kim Novak and Darren McGavin as Louie.

“The monkey is never dead, Dealer. The monkey never dies. When you kick him off, he just hides in a corner, waiting his turn”-Louie

SHACK OUT ON 101 (1955)–directed by Edward Dein

Lee Marvin plays Slob who runs a greasy spoon diner in Georgia and Terry Moore is Kotty the waitress. A story of spys, nuclear secrets and lust amongst a collection of quirky characters Keenan Wynn as George, Frank Lovejoy as Prof. Sam Bastion, and Whit Bissell as Eddie.

Four men and a girl!

THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE 1955 -directed by Richard Brooks

Glen Ford plays Richard Dadier the new English teacher at a tough inner-city school where both teachers and students have an us vs them mentality. Dadier has a vision to bridge the generation gap & the rampant juvenile deliquency and tries to engage his kids which kicks up a violent storm! The film showcases a superb cast-Ann Francis, Louis Calhern, Sidney Poitier Margaret Hayes, John Hoyt, Richard Kiley, Vic Morrow, Raphael Campos, and Horace McMahon.

I’m a teacher. My pupils are the kind you don’t turn your back on, even in class!

Supposedly based on writer Evan Hunter’s own experience as a teacher in NYC

FEMALE JUNGLE 1955–directed by Bruno VeSota

Lawrence Tierney plays Det. Sgt. Jack Stevens an alcoholic cop who isn’t sure whether he might have murdered a blonde actress since he was last seen leaving the bar with her. Also stars Jayne Mansfield and John Carradine.

As the night grows dark, the women turn deadly

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER 1955— directed by Charles Laughton

One of the best motion pictures ever made. A cinematic journey through the eyes of young John and Pearl Harper. Robert Mitchum is chilling as the religious fanatical boogeyman of LOVE & HATE who menaces them after he marries and murders their naive mother, played by Shelley Winters. The evil Harry Powell is after the $10,000 their real father stashed after a robbery. Laughton’s masterpiece plays out like a visual nightmarish fable. And features the incredible presence of Lillian Gish as Rachel Cooper. Wonderful characters with names like Icey Spoon (Evelyn Varden, and Birdie Steptoe ( James Gleason)

The wedding night, the anticipation, the kiss, the knife, BUT ABOVE ALL… THE SUSPENSE!

DIABOLIQUE 1955–directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot

The wife Véra Clouzot of a sadistic headmaster at an exclusive boys boarding school tires of his abuse and conspires with his mistress Simone Signoret to kill him, but after they’ve done the deed and dump his body in the murkey swimming pool, his mysteriously disappears. Afterwich both women continue to catch sight of him.

Clouzot’s stunning masterpiece of suspense that inspired both Alfred Hitchcock and William Castle to compete in the horror/thriller sub-genre!

M.Drain, professeur:I may be reactionary, but this is absolutely astounding – the legal wife consoling the mistress! No, no, and no!

WOMEN’S PRISON 1955– directed by Ida Lupino

Wow, what a cast, including director/actress Ida Lupino as a vindictive Amelia van Zandt -matron of a women’s prison. Also stars- Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, Phyllis Thaxter, Vivien Marshall, Mae Clarke, Juanita Moore, Howard Duff, and Warren Stevens,

Sensational scandal rocks women’s prison!

DAUGHTER OF HORROR aka DEMENTIA 1955 directed John Parker

This horror/film noir oddity, with no dialogue at all, follows a psychotic young woman’s nightmarish experiences through one skid-row night. Stars Adrienne Barrett and Bruno VeSota

BLOOD on her hands…DOOM in her eyes..

Narrator: Come with me into the tormented, haunted, half-lit night of the insane. This is my world. Let me lead you into it. Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is mad. You may not recognize some things in this world, and the faces will look strange to you. For this is a place where there is no love, no hope…in the pulsing, throbbing world of the insane mind, where only nightmares are real, nightmares of the Daughter of Horror!

KISS ME DEADLY 1955–directed by Robert Aldrich

A doomed female hitchhiker pulls Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) into a deadly whirlpool of intrigue, revolving around a mysterious “great whatsit.” And opens up a Pandora’s Box!

Blood red kisses! White hot thrills! Mickey Spillane’s latest H-bomb!

FEMALE ON THE BEACH 1955– directed by Joseph Pevney

Jeff Chandler seduces Joan Crawford on and off the beach- but his motives are questionable. Also stars Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway, Judith Evelyn and Natalie Schafer.

He was the kind of man that her kind of woman CAN’T LEAVE ALONE!

CAST A DARK SHADOW 1955–directed by Lewis Gilbert

A socio-pathic lady killer Edward ‘Teddy’ Bare (Dirk Bogarde) woos and then murders his elderly, rich, wife (Mona Washbourne) An inquiry results in accidental death. Only for him to learn that his late wife han no fortune to speak of. He then moves onto wife number two Margaret Lockwood who isn’t as naive as his the fist Mrs Teddy Bare… Will he be driven to commit murder again!

Poor Mona Washbourne falls prey to the psychopathic gold digger -Dirk Bogarde as Edward Bare or Teddy Bear….

1956

BLONDE SINNER 1956 Directed by J. Lee Thompson

Diana Dors who never looked better as the belligerent yet vulnerable Mary Price Hilton in this British noir about a young woman who falls for a moody piano player (Michael Craig) whom she’s willing to leave her dull husband Fred for, but then she finds out he’s been cheating on her, with a wealthy woman he refuses to quit–so she coldly murders his mistress and winds up on death row… Co-stars Yvonne Mitchell.

HERE SHE IS! That Eye-Filling Gasp-Provoking BLONDE BOMBSHELL!

TEENAGE BAD GIRLS 1956 directed by Herbert Wilcox

Anne Neagle and Sylvia Syms

Born good with a desire to be bad!

GUN GIRLS 1956 directed by Robert C. Dertano

A gang of teenage girls, looking for kicks and ignoring their probation officers’ warnings, embark on a crime spree of robberies and burglaries.

THE VIOLENT YEARS 1956–directed by William Morgan editor of great films like Portrait of Jennie 1948, There’s Always Tomorrow 1956 Tarantula 1955) and written by Ed Wood

Jean Moorhead is Paula Parkins the teenage daughter of wealthy parents whom don’t seem to make time for her, so she looks for thrills as the leader of her all girl gang who steal, rob, and rape young men.

Teenage Killers Taking Their Thrills Unashamed!

THE KILLER IS LOOSE 1956–directed by Budd Boetticher

An unhinged, deceptively mild-mannered bank robber Leon ‘Foggy’ Poole (Wendell Corey) escapes prison, seeking revenge on the cop Detective Sam Wagner (Joseph Cotton) who accidentally killed his wife during a gun battle. Also stars Rhonda Fleming and Michael Pate.

The Story of a Cop Who Used His Wife as Bait for a Killer!

THE FLESH MERCHANT 1956–directed by W. Merle Connell

A girl visiting her sister in Hollywood hopes for a modeling career, but is tricked by pimps into working at a brothel.

Blasts the lid off an infamous Hollywood vice racket!

THE BAD SEED 1956–directed by Mervyn LeRoy

A housewife Christine Penmark (Nancy Kelly) to her heart ache begins to suspect that her too perfect 8-year-old daughter Rhoda (Patty McCormack)is a socio-path who has murdered one of her little classmates.

Henry Jones plays a creepy pedophilic handyman who threatens to expose Rhoda’s secret nature and Eileen Heckert gives one heck of a performance as the destraught Hortense Daigle the mother of the murdered boy.

What would you do if you were cursed with “The Bad Seed”? A WOMAN’S SHAME…Out in the Open!

WICKED AS THEY COME 1956–directed by Ken Hughs––

Arlene Dahl ambitious girl from wrong side of the tracks works her way through man after man. Co-stars Phillip Carey and Herbert Marshall.

The story of a girl…and the men who made her wicked!

BABY DOLL 1956–directed by Elia Kazan

Carroll Baker is Baby Doll married to Karl Malden -Archie Lee who is desperately weighting for his virgin bride to turn 20. With a screenplay by Tennessee Williams. Also stars Eli Wallach as the swarthy Silva Vacaro

Steamy tale of two Southern rivals and a sensuous 19-year-old virgin… Stars Carroll Baker as Baby Doll, Karl Malden as Archie Lee and Eli Wallach as Vacaro. The film also co-stars Mildred Dunnock as Aunt Rose Comfort

She’s nineteen. She’s married two years — quite a girl — and not quite a woman…

AUTUMN LEAVES 1956 — directed by Robert Aldrich

Vera Miles plays ex-wife Virgina who is now dating his father and trying to get Burt committed so they can have all the money from his trust fun.

Joan Crawford is the shy and loveless Millicent Wetherby  a middle-aged woman who has gone without affection as she lives a solitary life.. Then she meets the charismatic Burt Hansen (Cliff Robertson) a very young man who at first sweeps her off her feet, then begins to exhibit signs of being mentally deranged. When he becomes violent with her she must decide whether to have him committed. Vera Miles plays ex wife Virginia who’s sleeping with Burt’s dad (Lorne Green) while they conspire to have the boy committed so they can gain full access to his trust fund.

FRIGHT 1956–directed by W. Lee Wilder

Nancy Malone and Eric Fleming in Fright 1956

A woman Nancy Malone believes herself to be the reincarnated spirit of an ancient prince’s lover. Meanwhile, a murderer turns out to be the reincarnated spirit of the prince himself.

Get out of her life if you want to stay alive!

BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT 1956-directed by Fritz Lang.

A novelist Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) aided by his future father-in-law conspires to frame himself in the murder of a stripper as part of an effort to ban capital punishment. Co-stars Joan Fontaine and Sidney Blackmer

What kind of man would frame himself for MURDER?

A CRY IN THE NIGHT 1956–directed by Frank Tuttle–

A Cry in the Night 1956 Natalie Wood and Raymond Burr

A deranged man with the mind of a child Harold Loftus (Raymond Burr) kidnaps the daughter of a police captain. Natalie Wood, Brian Donlevy, Richard Anderson and Irene Hervey.

GIRL-STEALER IN LOVER’S LANE!

1957

THE YOUNG STRANGER 1957  directed by John Frankenheimer

When a 16-year-old, neglected by his movie producer father, gets in trouble, his father doesn’t believe his claim of self-defense.

Stars James MacArthur, Kim Hunter and James Daly.

Teen: “You know, they arrested me for car theft. My dad’s car! Gee if I’d known I was gonna get caught, I’d have done pretty much better for myself. My dad’s car—what a heap!”

THE NIGHT RUNNER 1957 directed by Abner Biberman

Ray Danton plays Roy Turner a violently disturbed mental patient released too soon from the institution. When he moves to a small town, the pressure starts to get to him, and the girl he’s got his eye on piques the suspicion of her father… Also stars Colleen Miller and Merry Anders.

THE CARELESS YEARS 1957- Directed by Arthur Hiller–

High school girl from a wealthy family falls for a fellow student from a poor family. Both families disapprove, and, unable to stand the pressure, the couple quit school and flee to Mexico. Starring Dean Stockwell , Natalie Trundy and John Larch.

Girls From the “Right” Kind of Home…Stumbling Into the “Wrong” Kind of Love!

LIZZIE 1957 directed by Hugo Haas–

Eleanor Parker stars as Lizzie a troubled women who suffers from multiple personality disorder. Director by Hugo Haas

Based on Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Birds Nest.’ Eleanor Parker plays three seperate personalities as she seeks help from Dr. Wright (Richard Boone) Also co-stars Joan Blondell.

She led 3 strange lives! Which was her real self?

THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO 1957 –directed by David Miller

Odd and at times ferocious in it’s exploitative narrative of Margaret Landi (Joan Crawford in her last performance on screen in the 50s until Aldrich put her back on top in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1962) as an abandoned wife who returns to the small Irish village where she was born and discovers a wild child living with an drunken old crone. The girl Esther (Heather Sears) is blind and deaf, and in the fashion of The Miracle Worker, Margaret takes her back to America to help the child. When her snake oil lothario husband Rossano Brazzi comes back into the picture, it’s more than just a fortune he is chasing. Shocking ending!

ROAD DEVILS 1957 aka HOT ROD RUMBLE- directed by Leslie H. Martinson

The slick chicks who fire up the big wheels!

THE TWILIGHT GIRLS 1957- directed by Radley Metzger

Gaby Morlay is placed in a strict all girls boarding school after her father commits suicide. Now everyone lusts after her…. the film features a very young Catherine Deneuve.

Sexy… Secretive… Seductive…

THE YOUNG DON’T CRY 1957–directed by Alfred L Werker–

Sal Mineo plays Leslie Henderson once again plays the ‘tragic teen’ archetype who must prove his masculinity and self-respect while in the brutal confines of an Orphanage. He’s faced with sadism and torture until he hooks up with an escaped convict. Their friendship gives him the courage to face those abusers. Co-stars James Whitmore

BORN AT 17… (He’ll be lucky to make twenty!)

NO TIME TO BE YOUNG 1957–directed by David Lowell Rich

The story of today’s “get lost” generation!

THE DELINQUENTS 1957–directed by Robert Altman

“The first baby faces taking their first stumbling steps down sin street USA”

MONKEY ON MY BACK 1957 —directed by André De Toth

“SHOCK by SHOCK…It Jabs Like a Hopped-Up Needle!”

THREE FACES OF EVE 1957– directed by Nunnally Johnson–

Joanne Woodward plays Eve White (Eve Black & Jane) a woman struggling with multiple personality disorder while married to a stuffed shirt (David Wayne)

“THE STRANGEST TRUE EXPERIENCE A YOUNG GIRL IN LOVE EVER LIVED!”

THE STRANGE ONE 1957–directed by Jack Garfein

Ben Gazzara is Jocko de Paris a sociopath at military school who manipulates everyone around him.

You’ll never forget BEN GAZZARA as the louse, “Jocko”

POOR WHITE TRASH AKA BAYOU 1957– directed by Harold Daniels

“Somewhere, a 15-year old girl may be a teenager… in the Cajun country, she’s a woman full-grown! …and every Bayou man knows it!” Especially Timothy Carey who claims Lita Milan as his own. Peter Graves is a yankee architech who interlopes on Ulysses(Carey)’ fish fry!

SAINT JOAN 1957 –directed by Otto Preminger

Turner Classic Movies (Clip) Can They Unburn Me?

King Charles (Richard Widmark) gets a night time visitation by the ghost of Joan of Arc (Jean Seberg), in Saint Joan 1957 Preminger directs from Graham Greene’s script based on the play by George Bernard Shaw.

A FACE IN THE CROWD 1957–directed by Elia Kazan

Andy Griffith turns out one chilling performance as Lonesome Rhodes, a miscreant from Arkansas with wit and grit –discovered by Walter Matthau and Patricia Neal. As a television celebrity his success is medioric but he becomes drunk with this new power leading Rhodes to become a megolomaniac & a fraud.

“POWER! He loved it! He took it raw in big gulpfuls…he liked the taste, the way it mixed with the bourbon and the sin in his blood!”

THE GIRL IN THE BLACK STOCKINGS 1957—directed by Howard W Koch…

“She’s every inch a teasing, taunting “Come-on” Blonde.”

Starring Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, Mamie Van Doren, Marie Windsor John Dehner Ron Randell and Diana Van der Vlis-There’s a sexual-sadist on the loose!

THE WAYWARD GIRL 1957 Directed by Lesley Selander

Judy Wingate (Marcia Henderson) plays a young girl who is at the mercy of her wicked alcholic stepmother Frances Wingate (Katherine Barrett) Judy is wrongly accused of a murder that Frances has committed and is thus thrown into jail.

SHE FOUGHT For the Right to Love…In a City of Violence and Terror!

EDGE OF THE CITY 1957–directed by Martin Ritt

Two New York City longshoremen (John Cassavetes) Axel Nordmann, an Army deserter & Tommy Tyler (Sidney Poitier) a freight car dock worker’s friendship is threatened by a very menacing Jack Warden as Charles Malik the local thug. Also stars Ruby Dee, Val Avery and Ruth White.

THE TATTERED DRESS 1957––directed by Jack Arnold

When top lawyer James Blane gets an acquittal for a man who killed another man for sexually roughing up his trophy wife, the murderous town sheriff frames him for bribing a juror in the case. Stars Jeanne Crain, Jeff Chandler, Jack Carson, Gail Russell, George Tobias and Edward Andrews.

“A WOMAN and a tattered dress… that exposed a town’s hidden evil!”

THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS 1957––directed by Alexander Mackendrick

Susan Harrison and Burt Lancaster in a very uneasy brother sister relationship: Lancaster as the god complex narcissist J.J. Hunsecker in The Sweet Smell of Success 1957

Once again Burt Lancaster turns in a superb performance as the ruthless J.J. Hunsecker the head of a newpaper dynasty who’s too fond of his sister Susan. Add the seedy agent Tony Curtis sells his soul to the devil to climb to the top like J.J. Striking cinematography by James Wong Howe…

1958

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS 1958 Directed by Louis Malle

A self-assured business man murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events. With an incredible slick atmospheric soundtrack by the legendary Miles Davis.

Commissaire de police: ‘Anything’s good for an alibi. Wives, girlfriends, bartenders, childhood friends, deceived husbands – but not an elevator. That’s ridiculous. It’s totally harebrained.’

NIGHT IS NOT FOR SLEEP (1958) aka BLONDE IN A WHITE CAR or NUDE IN A WHITE CAR re-released in 1959 directed by Robert Hossein

Pierre Menda (Robert Hossein) is seduced by a blonde who loves him and leaves him at gun point for dead after she tries to run him down with her car.

He goes on a journey to hunt down this dangerously mysterious temptress Eva Lecain (Marina Vlady) Odile Versois is her beautiful blonde sister Hélène Lecain

LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG 1958-directed by Paul Henreid–

The sin-steeped story of today’s “beat” generation!

JOY RIDE 1958-directed by Edward Bernds

Teenage story of a bad apple in a barrel evolving from a kid’s desire to drive a new T-bird. Stars Regis Toomey & Ann Doran

ROOM 43 (1958)- Directed by Alvin Rakoff

Cabdriver Eddie Constantine falls for French girl mixed up with white slave ring, eventually helps to liberate her. Stars Diana Dors, Herbert Lom and Odile Versois

IT’S ALL HERE! NOTHING HIDDEN…NEITHER THE SIN…NOR THE SHAME! ACTUALLY TORN FROM THE PAGES OF THE NATION’S LEADING NEWSPAPERS!

UNWED MOTHER 1958 directed by Walter Doniger

Young girl gets mixed up with a no good two timing louse, helps him rob a bank and then gets pregnant even after she’s been warned he’s no good! Stars Robert Vaughn, Norma Moore and yes even Timothy Carey!

Over twenty thousand girls every year live this bitter story!

LONELYHEARTS 1958 directed by Vincent J. Donehue

Maureen Stapleton a lonely woman longing for affection seeks out love lorn columnist Monty Clift in Lonely Hearts (1958)

Monty Clift is the altruistic Adam White who goes to work for the abusive William Shrike (Robert Ryan) as an advice columnist and finds all kinds of human wreckage and morality along the way. Also stars Myrna Loy and Maureen Stapleton.

“SOME WIVES CHEAT BECAUSE THEIR HUSBANDS DO…AND SOME BECAUSE THEY’RE JUST NO GOOD!”

I BURY THE LIVING 1958- directed by Albert Band–

Strange blend of horror and film noir starring Richard Boone as the grounds keeper of a decrepit old cemetery when he soon believes he has the power to choose who will die merely by sticking a pin in a map. Co-stars the marvelous Theodore Bikel as the creepy stone cutter.

Out of a time-rotted tomb crawls an unspeakable horror!

THE DEFIANT ONES 1958–directed by Stanley Kramer

Two escaped convicts Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are chained together and regardless of their hatred of each other, they must depend on each other to avoid being captured.

Law officier:How come they chained a white man to a black?

Sheriff Max Muller:The warden’s got a sense of humor.

LOST, LONELY AND VICIOUS 1958–directed by Frank Myers

Rising young male movie star, bizarrely preoccupied with death and involved with his older-woman dramatic coach, meets an innocent sweet-young-thing.

Confidential Exposé! of Boys and Girls Clawing Their Way to Success in Hollywood!

I WANT TO LIVE 1958 — directed by Robert Wise…

“Barbara Graham’s Last Scream From the Gas Chamber…”

COP HATER 1958–directed by William Berke

The hardworking detectives of the 87th Precinct in an unnamed city during a massive heat wave investigate the seemingly random murders of policemen.

Cop Bait! She winks… she loves… she kills… and it’s always a guy with a badge!

THE SNORKEL 1958–directed by Guy Green (The Mark 1961, The Angry Silence 1960. A Light in the Piazza 1962, A Patch of Blue 1965, Once is Not Enough 1975)

Although the police have termed her mother’s death a suicide, a teenage girl believes her step-father murdered her. Stars Betta St.John and Peter van Eyke

THE CRY BABY KILLER 1958–directed by Jus Addiss

Jack Nicholson makes his film debut as a juvenile delinquent, who panics when he thinks he’s committed murder. Co-Stars Brett Halsey and Ed Nelson.

YESTERDAY a Teenage Rebel… TODAY a mad-dog slayer!

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL 1958– directed by Jack Arnold

A little Russ, a little Jan and a lot a Mamie!

Take a cast with Jan Sterling, Russ Tamblyn, Mamie Van Doren and John Drew Barrymore and kapow you got a juvenile delinquent cult classic about drugs, fast cars, crime and sex!

Behind these “nice” school walls… A TEACHERS’ NIGHTMARE!…A TEEN-AGE JUNGLE!

THE FIEND WHO WALKED THE WEST 1958–directed by Gordon Douglas

This is a western remake of Kiss of Death (1947) starring Hugh O’Brian, with Robert Evans as a certifiable psychopath

ANYONE HE CAN’T SCARE IS A LIAR!

HOME BEFORE DARK 1958–directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Mervyn LeRoy directs Jean Simmons in this dark psychological examination of a woman’s struggle to rise above a loveless marriage being labeled a depressed hysteric….

Jean Simmons is nothing short of captivating as Charlotte Bronn- a woman recently released from a mental institution back into an austere living environment with Dan O’Herlihy & a loveless marriage. Rhonda Fleming as her perfect sister… Enter Efrem Zimbalist Jr. the kindly outsider.

A pretty girl and the stunning shock that marriage brings her!

EDGE OF FURY 1958––directed by Robert Gurney

A psychopathic young beachcomber pretends to befriend a mother and two daughters living at their summer home. This is one of my particular obscure cult favorites!

A night of tension… a moment of madness… and now he is at the edge of fury. The screen is stunned by its strangest story of violence!

THE MUGGER 1958—directed by William Berke

Kent Smith and Nan Martin star in this interesting psycho-noir thriller about a serial slasher who’s got a fetish for their hand bags and cuts their cheeks.

“They all had one thing in common… The terrifying night they met!”

SCREAMING MIMI 1958—directed by Gerd Oswald

A stripper the late Anita Ekberg is the object of a mad killer, but is it her own sexual psychosis that is literally tearing women apart. A provocative tale of obsession, fetish and an exotic dancer who holds the key. Co-stars Phillip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee as a lesbian exotic dance club owner and Harry Townes as the psychiatrist who is obsessed with her.

IT HAPPENED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT 1958–directed by Ladislao Vajda

Having doubts about the guilt of the obvious suspect in the murder of an eight year old girl, a police detective decides to investigate the case on his own, by using his lover’s daughter as bait.

1959

RIOT IN JUVENILE PRISON 1959 directed by Ed L. Cahn

When the shootings of two juvenile inmates bring public protest, a psychologist Jerome Thor is brought in to see if he can do anything to control the problems peacefully. Gotta love co-ed prisons and anything Mr Cahn does. Stars Scott Marlowe, John Hoyt, Virginia Aldridge, Dorothy Provine and Ann Doran.

The EXPLOSIVE Story of a CO-ED PRISON! Boy and Girl Inmates Together Under One Roof!!!

THE SCAVENGERS 1959-directed by John Cromwell

Carol Ohmart… smuggling, missing wife,Vince Edwards Carol Ohmart enuf said….

The Scavengers 1959 Carol Ohmart

TIGER BAY 1959 directed by J. Lee Thompson

A 12 year old tomboy Hayley Mills witnesses the murder of a woman by her Polish merchant marine boyfriend Horst Buchholz but bonds with him and thwarts the police in their investigation.

MURDER…enacted before the eyes of a little girl. She alone has the proof the police are searching for.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE 1959 directed by Michel Gast

Joe Grant, a light-skinned African-African, heads to a small Southern town to investigate the lynching death of his brother. He draws the attention of a gorgeous heiress whom he learns may have been involved in the killing.

Black Man… Don’t Let The Sun Set On You in This Town

NIGHT OF THE QUARTER MOON aka FLESH & FLAME 1959- directed by Hugo Haas

John Drew Barrymore falls in love with Julie London who is a quarter black. He takes her home to mother (Agnes Moorehead) who kicks up a fuss. Bigotry and inter-racial relationship. and a scandalizing court room trial, threaten to tear the couple apart.

“I don’t care WHAT she is…she’s MINE!”

COVER GIRL KILLER! 1959 directed by Terry Bishop

A mad killer is targeting pin up girls…

THE LONELY SEX 1959–directed by Richard Hilliard

This is a very odd yet compelling film with more than a few nice moments including one sequence in front of the mirror as the killer listens to a creepy radio show and tries to sketch the outline primitively of his face in the mirror. As if he is trying to “paint” over his face–

the scene with his nailing Annabelle’s photo to the creepy cabin wall and listening to a sultry lipstick commercial is very effective. Director Hilliard also did Violent Midnight another effective low budget thriller–There’s another great scene where he dismantles a mannequin and takes the blouse off. Close up on the face, and his reflection in the store window. Very atmospheric and chilling. The score is phenomenal. Discordant images are disturbing. Predates, many of the psycho sexual thrillers. Also it struck me that many of the frames and the film’s pacing appear reminiscent of a silent film era piece. Sparse simplistic yet powerful. A particular favorite of mine.

The Lonely Sex 1959

“Help! His desperate cry tears through the night!”

CITY OF FEAR 1959 directed by Irving Lerner

Vince Edwards in 1959 City of Fear directed by Irving Lerner

A vicious killer escapes from San Quentin with a cannister of what he believes to be heroin but is actually a radioactive substance that threatens all Los Angeles. Stars Vince Edwards.

A half crazed man in a terror crazed town!

IVY LEAGUE KILLERS 1959 aka THE FAST ONES directed by William Davidson

Bunch of ruthless rich kids frame a gang of bikers for their crimes.

GIRLS TOWN 1959- with Mamie Van Doren directed by Charles F. Haas– who did some Leave it to Beaver, and The Outer Limits!

Mamie Van Doren and Gloria Talbott Girl’s Town

Mamie Van Doren is Silver who is blamed for the murder of a punk who tried to rape another girl. She is sent to Girls Prison.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUTHFUL REBELS GO BAD?
Last Stop On The Road To Nowhere!

THE MAN IN THE NET 1959–directed by Michael Curtiz

Alan Ladd is on the run and must rely on the local kids to keep him hidden away til he can prove that he didn’t kill his wife. Co-stars Carolyn Jones, Charles McGraw and Tom Helmore.

Alan Ladd in The Man in the Net 1959

LABYRINTH 1959 directed by Rolf Thiele

Using many surreal dream sequences, a slew of odd characters inhabit a special kind of sanitarium.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL 1959;”’ –directed by Ranald MacDougall

Harry Belafonte plays Ralph Burton a miner in NYC who is trapped by a cave-in when he comes up to the surface only to find he’s the only living man on the planet. Enter Inger Stevens whom he forms a bond with. Only problem is, Mel Ferrer as Benson Thacker a wealthy white man of privilege comes along and complicates the triangle.

Benson Thacker: “I have nothing against negroes, Ralph.”
Ralph Burton: “That’s white of you.”

THE LAST MILE 1959–directed by Howard W Koch

A prison break is attempted the same night an execution occurs on death row.

Unbelievable performances by Mickey Rooney, Frank Overton, Michael Constantine, Johnny Seven and Don “Red” Barry

THE BLOODY BROOD 1959 – directed by Julian Roffman (The Mask 1961)

Two beatniks get their kicks by dealing drugs and violence–they even serve a kid a hamburger filled with broken glass. And the head psychopath is… Peter Falk as Nico

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW 1959–-directed by Robert Wise

Ed Begley is looking for a few men to pull off an easy caper. Harry Belafonte as Johnny Ingram a jazz musician with a gambling problem and Robert Ryan as Earl Slater a racist ex-con with a chip on his shoulder. The deal is doomed from the start. Also stars Gloria Grahame and Shelley Winters.

Earl Slater: There’s only one thing wrong with it.
Dave Burke: What?
Earl Slater:You didn’t say nothin about the third man being a nigger!

ROOM AT THE TOP 1959– – directed by Jack Clayton

An ambitious young accountant Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner’s daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman Simone Signoret.

A Savage Story of lust and ambition

HIGH SCHOOL BIG SHOT 1959–directed by Joel Rapp—B-movie, tramps, alcoholism, juvenile delinquency, heroine and composer Gerald Fried’s arousing musical score. (The Killing 1956, I Bury The Living 1958)

ANATOMY OF A MURDER 1959–directed by Otto Preminger

In a murder trial, the defendant Ben Gazzara says he suffered temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case? James Stewart is the dedicated attorney who tries to get him off. Lee Remick plays Gazzara’s sensuously flirtatious wife.

No search of human emotions has ever probed so deeply, so truthfully as … Anatomy of a Murder.

Lee Remick and Jimmy Stewart in Otto Preminger’s taught melo-noir Anatomy of a Murder 1959

…AND THE WILD, WILD WOMEN 1959–directed by Renato Castellani

The dynamic Anna Magnani portrays an Italian street walker co-starring with Giulietta Masina who prefers her prison life to the outside world, but she’s still hostile and frustrated. Her sexuality drips at times bordering on manipulative and predatory. You would never hear Jan Sterling saying “I just need to wash my armpits a little” in Women’s Prison 1955— this dialogue that even Ida Lupino couldn’t have slipped in. this illustrates how these films allowed for the female body to become more conversationally intimate and less provincial held back by a film system of codes, dont’s and fear of the woman’s body.

A harsh study about the grim realities of life in a non-coed, totally female prison environment. Story concerns a young girl who comes to prison and experiences the entire prison subculture

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER 1959—directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Based on the story by Tennessee Williams -Starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn.

“Madness, homosexuality, prostitution, incest, disease and cannibalism enough imagery to sustain an American lit seminar for months” -Time Out (London)

Monty Clift and Liz Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer 1959

COMPULSION 1959–directed by Richard Fleischer

Based on the kidnapping and brutal murder of a little jewish boy– the true crime of the century story of Leopold & Loeb. The film showcases intense performances by both Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. It also questions the death penalty

Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman play a murderous pair of Elitist based on the famous Leopold & Loeb

“The shocking story of two teenagers out for kicks…looking for thrills…and finding them.”

THE NAKED ROAD 1959 directed by William Martin

Jeanne Rainer plays Gay Andrews a fashion model who makes the mistake of going out with her married advertising executive Bob Walker. When Gay refuses to go to a hotel with Bob, they are pulled over by a small town trap of hustlers who force girls into white slavery.

Ronald Long plays the smarmy Wayne Jackson who first puts knock out drops in her coffee then holds Gay prisoner and hooks her on drugs until she agrees to work for him.

THE NAKED VENUS- 1959– Directed by Edgar Ulmer

A Beautiful and Extraordinary Loves Story About A French Girl Who Joins an American Nudist COLONY!

1960

THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE-1960 directed by Harald Reini

Karin Dor, Joachim Fuchsberger, Elizabeth Flickenschildt. A creepy German-made Wallace thriller about the ghost of a hanged man who returns to fulfill his promise. All of his accusers must die!

MA BARKER’S KILLER BROOD 1960 –directed by Bill Karn

Lurene Tuttle god bless her can really play it off as Ma Barker! She’s got gumption.

Lou, Kelly’s Girl: Why you old battle axe we wouldn’t give you a-

Katherine Clark ‘Ma’ Barker: Oh sweet child! You say that again and I’ll rattle your tonsils till that mink turns into the rabbit it is! I’ve got no time for cheats or… phony blondes!

Lurene Tuttle as Ma Barker 1960

THE YOUNG ONE 1960 –Luis Buñuel

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions. Stars Bernie Hamilton, Zachary Scott and Key Meersman as Evalyn.

THE BEATNIKS 1960-directed by Paul Frees-(usually voice work, acting & Writing)

A young singer’s chance at fame is threatened by his hoodlum pals who kill a bartender.

THIS REBEL BREED 1960 aka LOLA’S MISTAKE directed by Richard L Bare & William Rowland (The Psycho Lover 1970)

Starring Rita Moreno, Mark Damon and Gerald Mohr. Clash between blacks, hispanics and whites. Damon is passing for white. and it’s a teenage gang war….

With Blazing Impact The Screen Looks Squarely Into The Face Of Today’s Wild Teenage Emotions Caught In The Cross-Fire Of Love And Hate!

L’AVVENTURA 1960– directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip. But during the search, her lover and her best friend become attracted to each other. Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, Lea Massara.

THE GIRL IN LOVER’S LANE 1960–directed by Charles R. Rondeau

Two drifters Brett Halsey and Lowell Broan contend with love and murder in a small town.

Too Young to Know… Too Reckless to Care…

Brooding Brett Halsey in The Girl in Lover’s Lane 1960

NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM A STRANGER 1960 –directed by Cyril Frankel

Peter Carter meets official resistance when he finds his 9 year old daughter has been the victim of the pedophile patriarch a sinewy 70 year of fossil Clarence Olderberry Sr. (Felix Aylmer)who watches the girls from his window and invites them in for candy if they will undress for him. he is one of the town’s most powerful family. Very disturbing and realistic treatment of entrenched hierarchy that trumps the safety of young children.

The film also stars Niall MacGinnis as the defense cousil.

Six Words That Sound A Fateful Warning…. and then he made us play that silly game…

VIOLENT WOMEN 1960–directed by Barry Mahon

“Women Barred From The Men They Hungered For!”

THE PUSHER 1960- directed by Gene Milford -film editor one time directors seat. StarsRobert Lansing. Screenplay by Evan Hunter novel by Harold Robbins.

A detective investigating the murder of a heroin addict discovers that there is a connection between the junkie and his fiance, who is his boss’ daughter.

“Daddy! If you love me…you’ll get me a ‘fix’!”

BREATHLESS 1960–directed by Jean-Luc Godard

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he reunites with a hip American journalism student and attempts to persuade her to run away with him to Italy. Stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg are Breathless

The film that was banned for 4 years. Why..?

EYES WITHOUT A FACE 1960 (Les Yeux Sans Visage) directed by Georges Franju–

A brilliant plastic surgeon Docteur Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) goes mad after his daughter’s face is marred in a car crash. Génessier also has an odd fixation for his daughter. With the help of his assistant Louise (Alida Valli) they abduct young beautiful girls in order to graft a new face for Christiane (Edith Scob) Franju’s medical horror film is a nightmarishly gorgeous journey thanks to the cinematography by Eugen Schüfftan and the haunting score by Maurice Jarre.

THE FUGITIVE KIND 1960–directed by Sidney Lumet

With a guitar and a snakeskin jacket he drifted out of the rain…into the lives of these two women… Older woman, infidelity, pregnant- Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani

SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY HE LOOKED AT A WOMAN… SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY HE HANDLED A GUITAR.

Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward in The Fugitive Kind 1960

THE VIRGIN SPRING 1960–directed by Ingmar Bergman

A kind but pampered beautiful young virgin Karin (Birgitta Pettersson) and her family’s pregnant and jealous older sister set out to deliver candles to church. Along the way she is met by two men and a young boy who rape and murder her. Seeking lodgings they unwittingly stop at the girls parents house. This is the film Wes Craven based his Last House on the Left. The parents seek revenge. Max von Sydow plays the father filled with rage.

THE SINISTER URGE 1960 directed by Ed Wood-

“Shocked by this sensational revelation of the ‘smut’ picture menace!”

A flunky for a porno movie ring starts murdering the smut films’ lead actresses. Features-Pornography, sex maniacs, stabbing as penetration it’s a taboo happy meal.

PSYCHO 1960–directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock got the bug to do something very shocking. Aside from wanting to compete with Henri‑Georges Clouzot, Les diaboliques (1955) He not only decides to kill the films heroine off in the first 20 mintues of the picutre, he takes Robert Bloch’s story loosely a composite of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein and takes horror to a whole new level of Schadenfreude with transvestitism, necrophilia, the Devouring Mother archetype, Oedipal rage, Voyeurism, and just general psycho behavior!

Janet Leigh is marvelous as Marion Crane the secretary who steals $40,000 from her bank while she’s weaing black lingerie and having an afternoon triste with a married man (John Gavin). But when she decides to stop off the rainy road to the Bates Motel, cinema is transformed forever and we are introduced to a new kind of boogeyman Norman Bates manifested by the incredible Anthony Perkins. The film also stars Vera Miles and Martin Balsam as good old Detective Arbogast. Watch out for those old staircases, their murder…

Exploring the blackness of the subconscious man!

PLAYGIRL AFTER DARK aka TOO HOT TO HANDLE 1960 directed by Terence Young

starring Jayne Mansfield,Christopher Lee, Leo Genn, Karl Bǒhm,

Leo Genn is Johnny Solo who runs the Pink Flamingo Club in Soho. He starts to get threats by Diamonds Dielli (Sheldon Lawrence) but he’s not taking it lying down. Midnight Franklin (Mansfield) is Johnny’s girl and the main ogle at the club and she wants her boyfriend out of the business. There’s sadism, underage girls, and a lot of rough stuff going on…!

The sizzler you read about in Playboy magazine! It strips the secrets from the intimate key clubs.

1961

FEAR NO MORE 1961 directed by Bernard Wiesen

1961 –seems to be one of the penultimate years for psycho-sexual thrillers with a noir bent. From the opening brutally stark and eerie graphics, you know you’re in for one hell of a psychological roller-coaster ride. Ernest Haller is behind the camera, so you know to expect severe and odd angular frames that fit the noir style and bleed nicely into the realm of suspense, all shadow and female protagonist on the run, blamed for a murder she didn’t commit. Fear No More stars Mala Powers, Jacques Bergerac, John Harding, and Helena Nash. Sharon Carlin is accused of stabbing a woman in the heart with a nail file on a train, where she’s met by a gun toting stranger who knocks her out with the dead body and leaves her to be picked up by the police.

Music by Paul Glass (Lady in a Cage) adds some strident string work and experimental modern deconstructed jazz.

It’ just goes to show you that even if you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you!

 

THE 7th COMMANDMENT 1961 directed by Irvin Berwik

Jonathon Kidd is Ted Mathews just graduated with a B.A. and takes his blonde floozy for a joy ride. The little toad decides he can’t wait to plant one on her so he kisses her as the oncoming lights hit them head on. Believing that both his date Lyn Statten as Terry James and the driver of the other car are killed, he wanders away and falls asleep under a comfy tree like Siddhartha. Except this schnook supposedly has amnesia and doesn’t remember the night before. What to do? Hook up with Noah’s Ark and become an evangelical bible banger and healer collecting all that green that ‘sounds like green leaves’ better than coins.

Seven years later, after Terry has been in the slammer for 3 years driving drunk and causing the other car injury, no that passenger did not die as well. Terry’s hitting the bottle pretty bad. In fact it’s her favorite past time with boyfriend Pete who rolls bums to get the doe. Pete has about as much endearing charm and sex appeal as a drunken Fred Mirtz. Pete also enjoys smacking Terry around  But he’s Terry’s fella so…. She decides to blackmail Ted, who is now Reverend Tad Morgan. Things just get worse from there. Terry certainly gets judged and even comes back after two murder attempts while the good reverend still has God’s loving ear… go figure who ever heard of a double standard in an exploitation film from the 50s where no one gets to walk away unscathed except maybe the man holding the bible. The very pious Noah even advises Tad not to go to the police because he’s done his repenting by taking on the lord’s work. Trailer for the film completely blames everything on Terry as it refers to her as one for they psychiatrists. Well, no not so much, perhaps a stint in women’s prison, but Reverend Amnesia Pants, is the complex psycho who murders when he feels the urge and then justifies it by apologizing to the lord…

I suppose clearing Terry’s name, even if she is a loose woman with the morals of a rat, is the right thing to do. He left her there to die, so 7 years worth of anger might get to a person. Not to mention the man whom he still thinks is dead. What about the family he left behind? None of these challenges enter Tad’s mind. As long as he sticks with his plan of reciting bible verse and collecting those green leaves from the flock of sheep, his sins are covered…. Lesson for the day in exploitation land… DO NOT TRY MAKING OUT WITH YOUR DATE WHILE GOING REALLY FAST DOWN A ONE LANE HIGHWAY!!!!!

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY 1961 directed by Ingmar Bergman

A young woman, Karin,(Harriet Andersson) is recently released from a mental hospital and goes to an island to spend time with her brother, husband (Max von Sydow) and father (Gunnar Björnstrand) Karin’s grasp on reality begins to shift as time goes on and relationships begin to unravel.

Harriet Anderson in Through a Glass Darkly

A COLD WIND IN AUGUST 1961- directed by Alexander Singer

An older woman Lola Albright seduces an impressionable working-class boy Scott Marlowe who falls deeply in love with her. Disillusionment sets in when the boy discovers that she is a stripper. Albright is brilliantly complex, she exudes a sensuality that even she can’t control. The theme of this older woman seducing a seventeen year old boy who could easily to to the ball game with his street pals, or swing back into a possessive tirade like a tempter tantrum trying to understand or navigate these new feelings is extraordinary and Marlowe is perfect for the role, all mixed up inside as Iris Hartford turns young Vito into a ‘real’ man is a provocative story as it unfolds. Albright’s gold Lamé burlesque costume is just out of this world!

SANCTUARY 1961– directed by Tony Richardson adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel.

William Faulkner’s steamy tale set in the South in the 1920s. Governer’s daughter (Lee Remick) is seduces and raped by a Cagin (Yves Montand) who returns after she’s married to (Bradford Dillman) just to cause her further trouble. The film deals with rape, racism and a woman’s sexual freedom. Also stars Harry Townes, Rita Shaw and Odetta as Nancy Mannigoe

THIS IS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEGRADED TEMPLE DRAKE whose silence CONDEMNED a woman to the GALLOWS!

Stars Lee Remick as Temple Drake… Seen here is Odetta as Nancy Mannigoe

ORDERED TO LOVE 1961 -directed by Werner Klingler–

“Suppressed until now! Teen-age girls forced to submit in secret nazi mating camps”.

TOWN WITHOUT PITY 1961 directed by Gottfried Reinhardt

Four American soldiers stationed near a German village face death in the rape of a local girl and are defended by outside counsel Major Steve Garrett. Stars Kirk Douglas, Barbara Rutting, Christine Kaufmann, E.G. Marshall, Robert Blake and Richard Jaekel.

The Story of What Four Men Did To a Girl… And What the Town Did To Them!

VIRIDIANA 1961 directed by Luis Buñuel

Viridiana (Sylvia Pinal), a young nun about to take her final vows, pays a visit to her widowed uncle at the request of her Mother Superior. Her uncle tries to seduce her as she resembles his first wife. After a tragedy Viridiana tries offer the estate as a safe haven for the destitute, with unfortunate results.

THE MASK 1961- directed by Julian Roffman

Stars Paul Stevens and Claudet Nevins in this super surreal nightmare horror/noir journey through different dimensions of the mind and our primal compulsions that wait to be aroused, all due to a tribal mask that causes the wearer to commit murder. Very atmospheric… Was shown in glorious 3D.

Look through the mask…if you can’t take it…take it off!

NAKED YOUTH 1961–directed by John F. Schreyer

Three teenage criminals break out of juvenile prison and head south to Mexico.

Stars the sexy Carol Ohmart, Robert Hutton, and Steve Rowland and Jan Brooks.

The ‘WAY OUT” Guys… and the “MAKE OUT” Gals…

THE CHILDREN’S HOUR 1961—directed by William Wyler

Based on Lillian Hellman’s play the film showcases incredible performances by Shirley MacLaine, Audrey Hepburn, James Garner, Miriam Hopkins and Fay Bainter. This 1961 version goes farther into the subject of Lesbian love which was only alluded to in the 1936 film These Three which place Miriam Hopkins in the role of Martha and Merle Oberon as Karen.

When a vicious rumor is started by one of the boarding schools trouble-making brats, it soon grows wings and ruins the reputation of the women running the school, and also forces Martha to come to terms with the truth about her own sexuality.

Martha: There’s always been something wrong. Always, just as long as I can remember. But I never knew what it was until all this happened. Karen: Stop it Martha! Stop this crazy talk! Martha: You’re afraid of hearing it, but I’m more afraid that you. Karen: I won’t listen to you! Martha: No! You’ve got to know. I’ve got to tell you. I can’t keep it to myself any longer. I’m guilty! Karen: You’re guilty of nothing!

LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD 1961–directed by Alain Resnais

Takes place in a chateau, an ambiguous story of a man and a woman who may or may not have met last year at Marienbad. Stars Delphine Seyrig Visually surrea cinematography by the incredible Sacha Vierny Hiroshima Mon Amour 1959, Belle de Jour 1967, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and her Lover 1989)

THE HUSTLER 1961--directed by Robert Rossen

Paul Newman plays fast Eddie Felson a cocky new kid on the block that challenges Minnesita Fats ( Jackie Gleason) to a single game of high stakes pool. Piper Laurie is remarkable as the world-weary Sarah who falls for Eddie. Also co-stars George C. Scott and Murray Hamilton.
“…depths of a woman’s heart . . . and a man’s desires!
probes the stranger… the pick-up… why a man hustles for a buck or a place in the sun!
They called him “Fast Eddie”… He was a winner… He was a loser… He was a hustler.
Only the angel who falls knows the depths of hell.”

Piper Laurie earned an Oscar Nomination for her role as Sarah Packard in Robert Rosson’s The Hustler (1961)

VICTIM 1961–directed by Basil Dearden

A prominent lawyer Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde) goes after a blackmailer who threatens gay men with exposure (homosexual acts still being illegal). But he’s gay himself… Dearden shows the seemier side of being in the closet in London in the 60s. Very taught noirish examination of homosexuality and the risks people took at being exposed. Homophobia, blackmail public shame. Also stars Sylvia Syms and Dennis Price.

A Daring Picture About the World’s Most Un-talked About Subject.

THE NAKED EDGE 1961–directed by Michael Anderson

Written by Joe Stefano who gave us Psycho- Five years after George Radcliffe (Gary Cooper) was the chief witness in a high profile murder case, his wife (Deborah Kerr) receives a blackmailing letter accusing him of the crime. Intriguing and taut noir thriller, filmed brilliantly by Erwin Hiller. (Chase a Crooked Shadow 1958, Eye of the Devil 1966)

Gary Cooper and Deborah Kerr are on The Naked Edge

THE INNOCENTS 1961–directed by Jack Clayton

a young Pamela Franklin eyes Deborah Kerr as she sleeps in The Innocents

Based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, Clayton directs Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens a governess who manifests an astounding energy of paranoia, repressed sexual desire, desperation and fear. Visually stunning and haunting, is it madness or the supernatural that plagues Gidden’s fragile mind. Peter Wyngarde plays the grizzly Quint the caretaker, is he a phantom. Megs Jenkins is wonderful as Mrs. Grose. Michael Redgrave is the children’s uncle who hires Miss Giddens to look after his two charges, Miles and Flora. Masterfully played by the very sophisticated Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens. Clytie Jessop is Miss Jessel, or I should say the ghost or hallucination of… One of the finest gothic ghost stories infiltrated with very taboo subject matter.
Apparitions? Evils? Corruptions?
A strange new experience in shock.

MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS 1961–directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz

A priest is sent to a small parish in the Polish countryside which is believed to be under demonic possession and there he finds his own temptations awaiting. Stars Lucyna Winnicka and Mieczyslaw Voit as Father Jozef Suryn.

Father Jozef Suryn: “All redemption is in love. Love is as strong as death.”

SOMETHING WILD 1961 —directed by Jack Garfein—

A young rape victim (Carroll Baker) tries desperately to pick up the pieces of her life, only to find herself at the mercy of a would-be rescuer (Ralph Meeker)

Also co-stars Mildred Dunnock, Jean Stapleton, Martin Kosleck

The story of a brutal assault — and the very strange love it bred!

ANGEL BABY 1961–directed by Paul Wendkos, Hubert Cornfield (uncredited)

Salome Jens is Angel Baby a type of Aimee Semple McPherson evangelist spreading the word of God and healing the sick. But she is a woman with desires that cannot be burned out even by the fires of hell itself. Not when Burt Reynolds is wrapping himself around you!

In the rural South-Salome Jens is Angel Baby who is led to believe she’s on a mission from God to heal people and save their souls. She becomes exploited by the people who want to benefit from the notority and the fortune to be made. Co-stars Joan Blondell, Henry Jones, Mercedes McCambridge, George Hamilton and Burt Reynolds.

THE SINNER who became a DEVIL SMASHER!!!

FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE 1961–directed by Bill Karn

A gang of bank robbers terrorize a small town by knocking on doors and then killing whoever answers. If Johnny Cash were standing at my door…. I’d open it! Hell….

When the door bell rings… Don’t answer! It could be the Door-to-Door Maniac!

HOMICIDAL 1961–directed by William Castle

The brutal stabbing murder of a justice-of-the-peace sparks an investigation of dark family secrets in a sleepy small town in Southern California. Patricia Breslin is Miriam Webster who is to inherit part of an estate, shared with her mysterious half brother Warren. Warren still lives at the estate with his childhood nanny Helga (Eugenie Leontovich) who is mute and bound to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke. She communicates by banging a brass door knob. Helga is cared for by nurse Emily (Joan Marshall/Jean Arless. This is a story of madness, rage, gender identity and childhood trauma.

A WORD OF WARNING! Please don’t reveal the ending of this picture or your friends will kill you – IF THEY DON’T, I WILL! – William Castle

ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO 1961–directed by Boris Petroff

The crazed brother of a condemned killer sent to the gas chamber swears vengeance on those he holds responsible for his brother’s execution.

A Psychotic Killer prowls the night! … Will he be stopped before he kills again?

ACCATTONE 1961 directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiraling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

BLAST OF SILENCE 1961–directed by Allen Baron- fantastic jazz score by Meyer Kupferman (Black Like Me 1964, Trumon Capote’s Trilogy 1969)

Allen Baron plays hit man Frank Bono a paranoid, existential man-child who is back in NYC tasked with killing a mobster.This film goes beyond just the mere gangster film, it is a journey of an isolated man who go through trials of survival and self acknowledgment.

But he is recognized by his pal from the orphanage who is living a good life, married and successful. Frank begins to get a little existential about life, but he still has to pull off this last job and there’s no getting out. The friend with the rat adds a quirky edge to this brilliantly gritty and realistic gem. First the obnoxious gun supplier wants more money, so Franky rubs him out. Then he knocks off his target only to be hunted by the men who hired him. All told through voice over narration. The Voice frequently reinforces Frank’s need to be alone, and eventually becomes an even louder source of his identity.

Narrator: Remembering out of the black silence, you were born in pain. You’re alone. But you don’t mind that. You’re a loner. That’s the way it should be. You’ve always been alone. By now it’s your trademark. You like it that way.

DARK ODYSSEY 1961–directed by William Kyriakis, Radley Metzger A young Greek immigrant confronts New York City while searching for the man who raped his sister. Radley Metzger.

THE MARK 1961–directed by Guy Green

Starring Stewart Whitman as a man who served prison time for intent to molest a child. He tries to build a new life with the help of a sympathetic psychiatrist Rod Steiger. Co-stars Maria Schell.

A film which doesn’t protect you from the truth!

HONEYMOON OF TERROR 1961 directed by Peter Perry

A couple honeymoons on a deserted isle called Thunder Island somewhere near Niagara Falls . When the husband leaves the island to go for supplies, the wife is stalked by a psychotic and horny lumberjack… Stars Dwan Marlow, Anton Van Stralen and Doug Leith.

A night of ecstasy then a nightmare never to be forgotten!

LOOK IN ANY WINDOW 1961—directed by William Alland

It’s creepy to see teen idol Paul Anka play a voyeur and potential rapist. As Craig Fowler he is surrounded by dysfunctional parents Ruth Roman and Alex Nicol. And his swinging neighbors who are all in heat. Jack Cassidy is smarmy as ever and he’s married to Gigi Perreau. There’s even a little hint of Oedipal goings on, as Jackie Fowler (Ruth Roman) ogles her practically naked son who’s oiled up from the tanny lotion and ready for a rub down. Daddy’s a drunk and mommy’s schtuping Jack Cassidy right out by the pool. No wonder the poor kid is so twisted up and leering into windows trying to catch sight of a brassiere of two!

Look At These Adult Delinquents… They’re The Reason Kids Like Us Do The Things We Do

THE YOUNG SAVAGES 1961–directed by John Frankenheimer

A district attorney Hank Bell (Burt Lancaster) who grew up on these same mean streets investigates the racially charged case of three teenagers accused of the murder of a blind Puerto Rican boy. But in this story nothing is as it seems. The film co-stars Dina Merrill, Edward Andrews, Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas.

The Young and the Damned…Who Grow in the Cracks of the Concrete Jungle!

1962

CLEO FROM 5 TO 7– Directed by Agnès Varda

Corinne Marchand is Florence, ‘Cléo Victoire a french singer who is afraid to get the results of her test from the doctor fearing that she has stomach cancer. The film or I should say we as voyeurs follow ‘Cléo through the wonderful streets of 60s Paris -She wanders around the buzzing streets with her equally superstitous maid Angèle (Dominique Davray) who tells her not to wear a new hat on Tuesday, and insists on having it delivered. Watching Marchand try on hats has a modern fairy tale quality to it. The two drink coffee and then head home for music rehearsal.

She practices a few musical numbers with composer Michel Legrand ( which was wonderful for me ) but irritated by the lyrics and the sad content of the music and her anxiouness about the test results –she storms out of her house onto the streets.

Cléo is fiercely independent, provocative open to omens and is supremely superstitious, as proven by her reaction to the tarot reading she gets from the fortune-teller Irma (Loye Payen).

It’s an interesting encounter the only scene filmed in color are the camera’s focus on the cards, where the palm reader sees that illness lies in her future but won’t come out and say that to the highly stressed out beauty, It’s an uncomfortable scene for both and combusts from the tension. Cléo leaves even more disturbed and Irma tells her husband that she saw nothing good in the cards…

With all the worry, Cléo still lives a strange and wonderfully expressive life. Varda’s vision is a collection of beautiful postcards, a day in the life of a woman in existential crisis, it’s clearly a feminist film and I felt it had a place in my little Corollary Compendium on Film Noir’s influence on the advent of exploitation, psycho-sexual thrillers of the 60s and yes… Even New Wav cinema.

The unorthodox dalliance with one day of her life where death might be knocking on the door makes this film a quirky original masterpiece, and cult film. Corinne Marchand is absolutely exquisite and very believable as a woman who is questioning everything in a moment of crisis. Even the smallest details didn’t get by me. When Cléo walks out of her apartment disgusted with her music collaborators, she walks past a small child plinking out a little tune on a toy piano on the curb. It’s an interesting composite of the human journey.

Cléo’s beautiful & carefree model friend Dorothée (Dorothée Blank) drive around a bit, visit a movie house and watch a slapstick film short, talk about life and then Cléo meets a sweet and intellectual military man who is about to go back to Algiers. Antoine (Antoinne Bourseiller). Helps Cléo during the final few hours before she gets her results. They sit in the park, ride the bus and go to the hospital together. Finally she meets Dr Valineau (Robert Postec) who was driving away from the hospital, stops the car and gives her the results…. Cléo & Antoine look at eachother and the screen goes black…

Florence, ‘Cléo Victoire’: “Ugliness is a kind of death… As long as I’m beautiful,I’m alive more than others.”

THE SHAME OF PATTY SMITH 1962 directed by Leo H. Handel

Merry Anders is Mary a girl who is gang raped, gets pregnant and seeks out an abortion. A dark and dismal story. Co-stars Bruno VeSoto.

The Doctors real good at it -he oughta be… ya gotta pay me now deary

A Daring Expose of America’s Fastest Growing Racket – ILLEGAL ABORTION!

CARNIVAL OF SOULS 1962-Directed by Herk Harvey

After walking away from a traumatic car accident, a woman Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival, and is visited by the haunting and frightening spirits from an eerie otherworldly realm. This is one of THE best classical horror films. A visually stunning experience, and one of the more unique uncanny journeys that will imprint on your brain like a nightmare that your mind always takes with it. Incredible that it was Herk Harvey’s only film.

HOUSE OF WOMEN 1962 directed by Walter Doniger and Crane Wilbur–Shirley Knight, Constance Ford, Andrew Duggan, Barbara Nichols, Jean Cooper

Drama about a young woman, Erica, who is wrongly implicated in a crime and sent to prison for five years, where she faces deplorable conditions. With the aid of the warden, she sets out to prove her innocence

What The Streets Don’t Teach This Jail Does!

THE GRIM REAPER 1962 La Commare Secca directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

The story of a prostitute murdered in a park, and the police investigating the suspects who were in the park that night. They must get answers as to who and why this happened. Several men are questioned, who’s versions are skewed from the truth. Neo-realism and flashbacks make this a haunting start to Bertolucci’s film career.

TRAUMA 1962-directed by Robert M. Young

Emmaline Garrison, (Lorrie Richards) finds her aunt Helen’s (Lynn Bari) drowned body in the pond and is sent away from the family estate until she is over her traumatizing experience. When she returns to the mansion she has married the very controlling Warren Clyner (John Conte). Slowly pieces of her past come back bit by bit as she begins to remember who the real murderer is….

She couldn’t remember–to save her life!

EVA 1962–directed by Joseph Losey

A raw Welsh novelist in Venice is humiliated by a money-loving Frenchwoman who erotically ensnares him. Co-stars Stanley Baker and Virna Lisi.

The beautiful Jeanne Moreau as Eva Olivier in Joseph Losey’s Eva 1962

WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND 1962- directed by Domenico Paolella

Female prisoners are shipped to Devil’s Island penal colony. They are indoctrinated into the prison life from abusive guards and then a new prison governor arrives with planned reforms.

starring Guy Madison, Michèle Mercier

NIGHT OF EVIL 1962–directed by Richard Galbreath

The story of a young girl who goes from being a high school cheerleader to a stripper who commits an armed robbery.

EXTERMINATING ANGEL 1962–directed by Luis Bunuel

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave. Stars Sylvia Pinal.

Bunuel’s oft used commentary on classism is demonstrated with irony and outlandish scenery when all the guests inextribcably try to leave but are trapped after they attend an extravagant dinner party. As nerves wear thin, and the social graces collapse the guests become metaphores for animalistic instincts that betray human evolvement & consciousness.

Rita Ugalde: I believe the common people, the lower class people, are less sensitive to pain. Haven’t you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.

the excesses of bourgeois society

CAPE FEAR 1962–directed by J. Lee Thompson

A lawyer Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) puts his family at risk when he inadvertently invokes the ire of a sadist killer Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) is stalked by a man he once helped put in jail.

Co-stars Polly Bergen, Lori Martin, Martin Balsam, and Telly Savalas.

Their ordeal of terror triggers the screen’s most savage war of nerves!

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR 1962–directed by Blake Edwards

Lee Remick is Kelly Sherwood a woman who is terrorized by a man with the creepiest asthmatic voice. Garland Humphrey ‘Red’ Lynch played masterfully by Ross Martin.

His plan is to use her job at the bank to steal $100,000. He abducts her younger sister Toby (Stephanie Powers) then threatens to kill her if she goes to the police. But Glenn Ford as John Ripley gets involved…

Terror … Tension … Almost More Than The Heart Can Bear !

THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER 1962–directed by Timothy Carey

The outrageous Timothy Carey directs and stars as Clarence Hilliard a disillusioned insurance salesman who quits his job and starts preaching like a Nietzschean UberMan.

He creates a group called “The Eternal Man” party. He begins to be referred to as “God” Then the being and nothingness of Sartre’s angst & existentialism sets in… Wild…

THE L SHAPED ROOM 1962–directed by Bryan Forbes

A young french woman Jane Fosset (Leslie Caron) pregnant and unmarried moves into a seedy boarding house inhabited by societies misfits. She contemplates getting an abortion.

“Sex is not a forbidden word!”

A TASTE OF HONEY 1962 directed by Tony Richardson

The moving story of a plain young girl Jo who becomes pregnant by a black sailor, befriends a homosexual, and gradually becomes a woman. Starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Byron, Robert Stephens and Murray Melvin as Geoffrey.

THE INTRUDER 1962–directed by Roger Corman

Written by Charles Beaumont, William Shatner plays Adam Cramer a man who comes to a small Southern town on the eve of integration. He calls himself a social reformer. But what he does is stir up trouble–trouble he soon finds he can’t control.

He Fed Their Fears And Turned Neighbor Against Neighbor!

STARK FEAR 1962–directed by Ned Hockman, Skip Homeier (uncredited)

Lately I have become an even bigger fan of Beverly Garland. Back when women were twisting ankles, screaming for the men to save them or wearing high heels in the jungle, She’s played fearless doctors, gun toting not afraid to fire at alien cucumber monsters and she wore damn sturdy boots that make me proud to be a boot wearin’ lesbian. Garland kicks some serious ass. Excuse my language but I just watched in Curucu Beast of the Amazon and was so impressed with her courageous performance and lack of ‘girlie’ necessities or denouments. AND… When it came time for her boyfriend to knife fight on a raft that floated on a river filled with piranha. she didn’t just sit there holding her mouth waiting with baited breath to see if he was a match for the squirly ‘native’ She did something about it and bashed him over the head. POW… again Beverly Garland Kicks some serious ass. Always has even in Decoy-Police Woman a great tv series that showcases our gal as a real gritty cop!

Okay, so here in Stark Fear she plays Ellen Winslow who is married to Gerald (Skip Homeier) Gerald has a hobby. He likes to torture his wife both physically and mentally. His rage culminates in his desire to finally annihilate her completely. Ellen is still no dope, but she is loyal as hell and tries to find him when he takes off in a jealous fit… It’s a bizarre mystery a psycho-noir exploitation film that will keep you on the edge praying Ellen gets to stay alive and untouched…

“I ain’t gonna hurt you… I just want company…”

SATAN IN HIGH HEELS 1962 directed by Jerald Intrator

A burlesque dancer Stacy Kane( Meg Myles) robs her junkie ex-husband and flees to NYC She then gets a job at classy club where she becomes the mistress of the wealthy owner. Marvelous to see Grayson Hall as Pepe in this wildly quirky and peppered with slick dialogue exploitation gem.

They all went where the heat was hottest!

KNIFE IN THE WATER 1962–directed by Roman Polanski

On their way to a sailing trip, an aging husband and wife invite along an emphatic young hitchhiker out of sheer patronization. A battle of masculinity ensues as the antagonism between the two men escalates.

Stars:Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE 1962-directed by John Frankenheimer

A former Korean War POW Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is brainwashed by Communists into becoming a political assassin. But another former prisoner may know how to save him. Co-stars Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury as Raymond’s sinister mother.

Dr. Yen Lo: His brain has not only been washed, as they say… It has been dry cleaned.

ADVISE AND CONSENT 1962–directed by Otto Preminger

Just an incredible ensemble cast featuring Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon, George Grizzard, Don Murray, Gene Tierney and Burgess Meredith.

Senate investigation into the President’s newly nominated Secretary of State, gives light to a secret from the past, which may not only ruin the candidate, but the President’s character as well. Character assassination, Paranoia, Political witch hunting, and dangerous moralizing are key to the narrative.

George Grizzard as Fred Van Ackerman: What I did was for the good of the country.

Bob Munson: Fortunately, our country always manages to survive patriots like you.

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE 1962—directed by Edward Dmytryk

The story takes place in 1930s New Orleans at The Doll House, a high class cat house run by Jo (Barbara Stanwyck) with an iron hand. Her lugubrious yet gorgeous lover Hallie Gerard (Capucine) languishes around the place until one day an old love comes looking for her.

Jo isn’t about to give Hallie up for any man nor anything in the world…

Laurence Harvey plays Dove Linkhorn a farm boy who has a burning love for Hallie and won’t stop until he makes her his. Everyone wants Hallie, Hallie just wants to find herself free. Dark moralizing tale about the sins of being a whore, but no admonishing for being a controling man who objectifies and abuses them. Co-stars Jane Fonda as an feral tart Kitty Twist, Ann Baxter with a really bad spanish accent, and Joanna Moore who gives a poignant role as a simple minded girl, an innocent who is continusouly beaten by Oliver (Richard Rust)

THIS IS AN ADULT PICTURE! Parents should exercise discretion in permitting the immature to see it.

THE COUCH 1962–directed by Owen Crump & co-scripted with Robert Bloch

While undergoing therapy for his problem Grant Williams is a grown size man as Charles Campbell, a serial killer continues his murderous sprees. Shades of an incestuous fixation on his sister. A father complex and some brutal psychological themes makes this a really interesting obscure psycho-noir thriller. Also stars Shirley Knight and Onslow Stevens.
The most astonishing venture into the mind of murder any motion picture has ever dared!
So startling it had to be made in secret with the doors bolted — with the public kept out!

Grant Williams has stopped shrinking and now needs a shrink because he’s one truly psychopathic guy on the couch

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? 1962—directed by Robert Aldrich

Blanche: You wouldn’t be able to do these awful things to me if I weren’t still in this chair.

Jane: But you *are*, Blanche! You *are* in that chair!

PRESSURE POINT 1962-directed by Stanley Kramer & Hubert Cornfield

A black prison psychiatrist Sidney Poitier is assigned the distasteful task of helping a paranoid American Nazi Bobby Darin charged with sedition. Racism

Pressure Point 1962 directed by Stanley Kramer with Conrad Hall and Ernest Haller at the helm of the camera, create a combustible formula on the screen.

For me, one of the scenes that illuminated Darin’s trajectory as an aliented abused child, a volatile drunken father and mother who was a whore, while it doesn’t lay the groundwork for sympathy for his character, it does suggest the origins of such vile hatred and anger.

The scene with Darin’s misogyny and sado-masochism drives him to demean the woman in the bar by marking up her face and annihilating her identity using a ‘feminine symbol’ like lipstick is vivid and disturbing to me.. Aside from him covering up the space-every inch of the bar with tic tac toe marks with her lipstick, once he writes on her face, it becomes sexually sadistic and the vision devolves into a subversive orgy or sick self gratification. By using her lipstick he’s turning a tool of womanhood which represents a way to seduce, he uses it now against her.

Poitier’s character himself uses the word ‘subversive’ – when referring to Darin’s character.

Pressure Point while still within the realm of film noir, pushes the boundaries of our ‘spectatorship’ and what we experience through some very harsh, brutal signals from the depths of human nature.. Sidney Poitier’s character even says that what Bobby Darin relates to him goes far beyond repulsing him but actually frightens him. This refers of course to the vital scenes that unmask his sadism. The use of flashback and surreal dream sequences are stunning. Kramer’s film is a masterpiece.

Of course what Poitier’s doctor becomes scared of is the ‘truth’ buttons that he pushes for him A black man in a white mans world doing their dirty work but still being oppressed. Poitier must fight the internal struggle to find his identity as a rightful citizen with dignity who commands the same respect and refuses to fall to his level of blind , vile and psychotic hatred.

The set design, art design and cinematography present a world that is full of contradictions, struggle and CULTURAL TABOO in a very black and white setting. What makes this film dip it’s toes in the culty transgressive lake just beyond the horizon of noir is how certain scenes utilizing the noir mechanism of flashback, the narrative tells a very subversive story of alcoholism, child abuse racism self hatred, that has blossomed into a dangerous and influential psychosis. One that Poitier is repulsed by but dedicated to try and help because of his profession. The scenes use very extreme images that are unsettling.

Another very potent scene in the film is how Darin has invented another self that is weaker tha he is. It’s utililzes the splitting off so that he can brutalize and take out his rage himelf. Thus his tortured dreams he is being treated for by Poitier. It’s a classically used theme in the noir cannon of the broken ego, the split personality, the conflicted personality disorder. Here we watch as Darin’s vision of himself as a little boy brutalizes another little boy (his other, weaker self) is really disturbing and visually disturbing with a post modern set and evocative musical score by the brilliant Ernest Gold.

FILMED IN BLACK, IN WHITE, IN RAGE!… a motion picture without a safety valve!

LOLITA 1962 directed by Stanley Kubrick

A middle-aged college professor James Mason becomes infatuated with Sue Lyon-a fourteen-year-old nymphet. Based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Co-stars Shelley Winters.

1963

HOTHEAD 1963 directed by Edward Mann

Teenage punk gets mixed up with hooker and runaway husband. Complications ensue, when he meets up with an alcoholic vagrant who he sees as the father figure who abandoned him and his dying mother.

Society Branded Him Hothead – Was He Now Ready To Be Branded Killer?

SIN YOU SINNERS 1963-directed by Joseph Sarno

A stripper/fortune teller uses a magical Haitian amulet to keep young, and in so doing forces others to kill for her.

Killer mobsters meet murderous strippers!

THE STRIPPER 1963- directed by Franklin Schaffner (Papillon 1973, Planet of the Apes 1968, The Boys From Brazil 1978) and screenplay by William Inge and starring Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward is Lila Green an aging showgirl who works for Madame Olga (Gyspy Rose Lee) Her boyfriend Rick (Robert Webber) runs off with the clubs money, Olga fires Lila. She goes to stay with Helen (Claire Trevor) and tries to live a an ordinary life. Until sparks fly between Lila and Helen’s teenage son (Richard Beymer –West Side Story)

The story of a girl…And the Men who led her to become “The Stripper”

THE VERY EDGE 1963 directed by Cyril Frankel

No woman should see this film without a man!

Anne Haywood and Richard Todd star in this film about a woman traumatized by a stalker Jeremy Brett who rapes her. Very somber yet startling film with an eerie presence of alientation.

THE FAT BLACK PUSSYCAT 1963 directed by Harold Lea

There’s an insane killer on the loose and he has a fetish for high heels. Set in the untenable world of Beatnik culture.

This is the Tale of Five Wanton Women Whose Desires Were Satisfied and More by… the Fat, Black Pussycat!

FIVE MINUTES TO LOVE 1963 –directed by John Hayes

(Rue McClanahan) Meet Poochie the girl who lives in the junkyard shack

Some people call it a profession, but she calls it pleasure!

THAT KIND OF GIRL 1963- directed by Gerry O’Hara

London is in full ’60s swing in THAT KIND OF GIRL, a shamelessly entertaining exploitation film that revels in sexual titillation while moralizing about the dangers of STDs. A German Nanny sleeps around a bit, gets raped by a slime ball and catches the clap, and NOT the applause kind… Oh those rascally Europeans….

THE LEATHER BOYS 1963 directed by Sidney J. Furie

PARANOIAC 1963- directed by Freddie Francis

Loosely based on Josephine Tey’s “Brat Farrar;” a man long believed dead returns to the family estate to claim his inheritance. The imposing Oliver Reed as Simon Ashby

VIOLENT MIDNIGHT 1963–directed by Richard Hillard

An axe murderer is loose in a small New England town. Lee Phillips is the mysterious Elliot Freeman an artist living on his father’s estate. co-stars Jean Hale, Sheppard Strudwick, Dick Van Patten, James Farentino is greasy and sweaty and boy oh boy can he strut and then there’s always Sylvia Miles.

Earthy, wicked shocker!

SCUM OF THE EARTH 1963–directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

“YOU’RE DAMAGED GOODS AND THIS IS A FIRE SALE!”

TERRIFIED 1963–directed by Lew Landers

A masked lunatic kills off people in a haunted house.

Buried alive! How much Shock can the human brain endure before it CRACKS!

LORD OF THE FLIES 1963–directed by Peter Brook

Based on William Goldings intense shocker about human nature. A band of boys shipwrecked on an island, castaway desperate to survive eventually revert to savagery despite the few rational kids’ attempts to prevent that.

Evil is inherent in the human mind, whatever innocence may cloak it…

HOUSE OF THE DAMNED 1963 directed by Maury Dexter

I loved this film just for the quirkiness of it all. Plus it truly has some fascinating imagery and atmosphere, for a low budget it was a surprisingly engaging little cult flick.

An architect and his wife move into an old castle when they begin to see strange things. Stars Merry Anders, Ron Foster and Richard Crane.

13 keys to unleash the living dead!

THE SADIST 1963–directed by James Landis

Three people driving into Los Angeles for a Dodgers game have car trouble and pull off into an old wrecking yard where they are held at bay by a bloodthirsty psycho and his crazy girlfriend.

Hey, Sweet Baby, what makes you so sweet… The blood on your hands… or the snake at your feet? What Fiendish Passion Twisted His Mind–Made Him Torment, Torture, Kill?

SHOCK CORRIDOR 1963–Sam Fuller

Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder. Starring Peter Breck, Constance Towers and Gene Evans.

The Medical Jungle Doctors Don’t Talk About!

1964

ROOM 13 (1964) directed by Harald Reinl

A serial-killer is murdering the ladies of a night club. Detective Gray is seeking for the killer but can only find a lot of gangsters. And the killer is about to act again… Based on a novel by Edgar Wallace.

Stars Joachim Fuchsberger and Karin Dor

PSYCHE 59 (1964) directed by Alexander Singer

Patricia Neal is a woman plagued by hysterical blindness, while her nymphette sister seduces her husband right out in the open.

The screen prowls the lonely place where lust hides!

NIGHT MUST FALL 1964 –directed by Karel Reisz

Remake of the 1937 version directed by Richard Thorpe. This time it’s Albert Finney who plays the deranged Danny who insinuates himself into the lives of an upper class family, in particular he gains the trust and affection from Mrs Bramson (Mona Washbourne) She doesn’t realize that he’s an unstable boy, homicidal maniac — The Hat Box Killer.

COMMON LAW WIFE 1964 directed by Eric Sayers & Larry Buchanan

Shugfoot Rainy, is a rich old coot who’s done with his longtime mistress and tosses her out! Next his young niece returns home after being a stripper in New Orleans…

You don’t have to say “I do” to be married…

WHITE SLAVES OF CHINATOWN 1964–directed by Joseph P. Mawra

OLGA’S HOUSE OF SHAME 1964- produced by George Weiss

OLGA’S DANCE HALL GIRLS 1964- produced by George Weiss

The wicked Olga and her sleazy partner Nick recruit suburban housewives for a dance hall that turns out to be a front for a group of decadent swingers who are harboring a dark and deadly secret.

DEVIL DOLL 1964–directed by Lindsey Shonteff

An evil hyponotist/ventriloquist plots to gain an heiress’ millions. A creepy bit of horror/noir

What Is The Strange, Terrifying Evil Secret Of The Dummy…and why is it locked in a cage every night?

THE NIGHT WALKER 1964–directed by William Castle

Barbara Stanwyck plays Irene Trent a woman is haunted by recurring nightmares. Her late husband (Hayden Rorke) a blind inventor was recently killed in a fire and she sees visions of him, with his cold glaring white eyes. She also is visited by a dream lover, Lloyd Bochner. Castle really creates an eerie atmosphere with this horror/noir classic. The film also stars Stanny’s ex-hubby Robert Taylor as private investigator Barry Morland. Vic Mizzy’s score is just macabre joy!

Will It Dare You To Dream of Things You’re Ashamed to Admit!

SHOCK TREATMENT 1964–directed by Denis Sanders– music by Jerry Goldsmith stock music used in several Thriller episodes the diabolical strings marvelous!

An actor Stuart Whitman is hired to locate $1 million in stolen cash. Roddy McDowall is Martin the wealthy dead woman’s garden who knows where the loot is. But he’s a raving pyschopath who lopped off her hear with a large pair of sheers. And he loves roses. Lauren Bacall is Dr. Edwina Beighly who runs the place like a high class Madame’s whore house brooding over her stable with hubris for what’s in it for her. It’s all about her research funding…. Carol Lynley plays a nymphomaniac who hates being touched. Ossie Davis is a doctor who is now a patient! Quirky fun with a great cast of characters.

Whitman has to endure shock treatment and far worse before he can get out of bedlam.

SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON 1964—directed by Bryan Forbes

The remarkable Kim Stanley plays Myra Savage a sadly deranged woman who believes she has the power of second sight. But in order to gain notoriety she cooks up a scheme to have her husband, the weak and weary Richard Attenborough abduct a little girl just for a while, so she can pretend to provide details, find the gilr for the police and wind up the hero. Of course it doesn’t go as planned.

Myra Savage: What we are doing is a means to an end. Now you agree with the end, don’t you? Well then you must agree with the means! You can’t have one without the other.

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA 1964–directed by John Huston

Based on Tennessee Williams story, the film stars Ava Gardner as Maxine Faulk who runs a little hotel on the Mexian coast. Richard Burton plays the defrocked Episcopal clergyman struggling with his self worth and his faith who gets stuck driving a bus filled with middle aged women, devout Baptists who need a tour guide. Hanna Jelkes (Deborah Kerr is marvelous as ever) is passing through and is a lost soul. Sue Lyon is on the bus and is just bursting with desire for the good father. Grayson Hall is the leader Judith Fellowes who is hinted at in a not so subtle way that she’s a repressed lesbian. This ensemble of outcasts on a journey make for a dreamlike stop over… One of my favorite William’s stories.

Man And Woman – Love And Lust – Ruin And Redemption – One Night They All Meet.

LILITH 1964—directed by Robert Rossen

Set mostly at an exclusive sanitarium it tells the story of the beguiling Lilith (Jean Seberg with a bad mullet) who is an innocent yet intoxicating temptress living in her own secret world, with a made up language. She draws everyone into her orbit. Along comes Warren Beatty as Vincent Bruce who seemingly wants to help people and is hired by Kim Hunter to learn how to be an occupational therapist. But Vincent becomes fixated and possessive of Lilith’s love, and Peter Fonda who plays the very shy and awestruck Stephen follows Lilith like a neophyte only to come to a tragic end. Lilith even tempts Anne Meacham into having a lesbian triste with her. The film looks subjectively into the lives of damaged people at the same time delivers a potent narrative about the negative powers of women’s sexuality.

Before Eve there was Evil… and her name was Lilith!

STRAIT-JACKET 1964– directed by William Castle

Joan Crawford is released from an asylum after a twenty year stay for axe murdering her husband and his mistress. She comes to live with her daughter Diane Baker, and the axe killings start up again!

WARNING! ‘Strait-Jacket’ vividly depicts ax murders!

THE THRILL KILLERS 1964-directed by and starring –Ray Dennis Steckler

Three psychotic murderers escape from a mental institution and stalk women in Los Angeles. Gary Kent plays Gary Barcroft one of the sickos. And my favorite. I love his performance in Come Play With Us 1973 a truly under studied psycho film. The Thrill Killers is a really interesting and at times shocking momentum that’s just too hard not to watch! The relationship between the three escaped men is a story by itself….

LORNA 1964–directed by Russ Meyers screenplay by actor James Griffith

Lorna (Lorna Maitland) has been married to Jim for a while, but is not sexually satisfied. An ex con (Mark Bradley) stumbles into her life, rapes her and she winds up falling in love with him. Griffith plays The Man of God… Really effective exploitation film…

Lorna Maitland – a wanton of unparalleled emotion… unrestrained earthiness…destined to set a new standard of voluptuous beauty.

HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE 1964 directed by Robert Aldrich

Agnes Moorehead as Thelma with a rare still showing Joan Crawford as Cousin Miriam before she was repleced by Olivia de Havilland

DEAD RINGER 1964–directed by Paul Henreid

The working class twin sister of a callous wealthy woman impulsively murders her out of revenge and assumes the identity of the dead woman. But impersonating her dead twin is more complicated and risky than she anticipated. Bette Davis gives a superb performance! Co-stars Karl Malden, Peter Lawford Jean Hagen, George Macready, Estelle Windwood and the always expressive old chap Cyril Delevanti as Henry the faithful Butler. Top notch suspense thriller that is a perfect vehicle for Davis’ indomitable style.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, now who’s the fairest twin of all?

A TASTE FOR WOMEN 1964 directed by Jean Léon

A secret sect of cannibals owns a vegetarian restaurant, which they use as a cover so they can find a beautiful young woman to serve as the main course at their full-moon sacrifice.

A Taste for Women (1964) “Aimez-vous les femmes” –sophie daumier., …

TERROR IN THE CITY 1964 directed by Allen Baron

Lee Grant plays a prostitute who befriends a small boy who has traveled to NYC after leaving the impoverished rural home, his parents couldn’t afford to feed him. He meets many characters along his journey… Co-stars Sylvia Miles, Robert Earl Jones, Ruth Attaway and Roscoe Lee Browne.

Lee Grant Terror in the City 1964

TEENAGE STRANGLER 1964 directed by Ben Parker

This is a really creepy well done B movie about a sex maniac on the loose near a high school. A troubled teen with an undeserved criminal past is the suspect when young women start turning up around town dead and marked up with lipstick.

Budding Young Teeny-Boppers Were the Bluebeard’s Prey! See Dismemberment and Death!

SIN IN THE SUBURBS 1964–Joe Sarno

A teenager finds out that her mother is cheating, she seeks out the trusting neighbor and their relationship blossoms into something more. Meanwhile there is a secret society–sex cult of swingers in mainstream America and Mom discovers to her shock that her daughter is also now a member!
The sensation clubs! Partners in pleasure! Wild bottle parties!
The whole scandalous story…shock by shock!

LADY IN A CAGE 1964–– directed by Walter Grauman

Olivia de Havilland is Mrs. Cornelia Hilyard an upper class snob who is trapped in her guilded home elevator and then terrorized by a varying home invaders, from a skid row bum (Jeff Corey) , to a floosie who likes shiny things (Ann Sothern) , to three psychotic thugs (James Caan, Jennifer Billingsly and Rafael Campos) with a taste for giving pain. Scathing commentary on modernity and humanity. With an element that touches on Hilyard’s suicidal son who is a closet homosexual. Grauman creates a claustrophobic space with no exit… darkly nihilistic and brutal.

THE STRANGLER 1964 directed by Burt Topper

Victor Buono as Mama’s Boy Leo Kroll is a lab technician with a lot of serious hangups. Self-loathing , an overbearing mother Ellen Corby, and a hatred of women–bring out the serial killer of female nurses in Leo. His use of Coopie dolls as fetish and stockings to strangle them are ultra creepy, as Buono is so good at being intellectually & smarmy while playing a homicidal maniac. The film is an incredibly low key yet disturbing psycho-sexual thriller….

KITTEN WITH A WHIP 1964 directed by Douglas Heyes

Ann Margaret is a teenage delinquent –escapes from reform school -stabs the matron, attempts to burn down the building and is generally a borderline socio-pathic. Embroils Forsythe an important political figure in a tumultuous 48 hours, of blackmail, home invasion, cock teasery, violence and any other scandalous venture you can dig up for *kicks* when you’re a kitten with a whip!

Every man who sees her digs her… but she digs kicks of a very special kind!

STRANGE COMPULSION 1964–directed by Irvin Berwick

Fred is a medical student with a secret compulsion to watch women getting undressed. It’s the act of taking off the layers of clothes that get him excited. He is so tortured and driven by this that he seeks the help of a psychiatrist. It’s a fun voyeuristic journey veiled in a psychological training film / morality tale. Still, it’s somehow oddly compelling and has some interesting scenes. Peeping Fred is played by Preston Sturges Jr.

THE NAKED KISS 1964– directed by Sam Fuller

Constance Towers is Kelly… and prostitute of not… she’s always a woman to me! Fuller’s masterpiece The Naked Kiss

A classy renegade (Constance Towers)-prostitute named Kelly decides to become self sufficient and find her own brand of redemption –not from the patriarchy–but from herself- only to fall into the trap of small town hypocrisy & moralizing. She’s wooed by a salacious pedophile who has the squeaky clean legacy of his last name. Sam Fuller shows us a world that is much more seamier, decadent and filled with perversion. From the opening scene as Constance Towers’ bald head and high heels is beating the pulp out of her pimp. This is one of my favorite films. It’s literally a masterpiece in framing human nature and I wonder why it hasn’t become more of a cult sensation. Anthony Eisley is the critical cop Griff who doesn’t mind taking Kelly to bed, but his hands are clean while she’s still a whore. Great cast of character actors including Patsy Kelly, Michael Dante as the sinister J L Grant, and Virginia Grey as Candy. Stanley Cortez is responsible for the haunting and dark realism. Brilliant considering he worked on Night of the Hunter (1955), Shock Corridor (1963) and The Three Faces of Eve (1957)

Candy’s Place–where all kinds of men find all kinds of sweets!
Shock and Shame Story of a Night Girl!

JOY HOUSE 1964 directed by René Clément

Alain Delon is Marc a petty criminal on the run who takes up lodgings at a flophouse with two interesting women doting on him. Lola Albright as Barbara and Jane Fonda as Melinda. The wiley women move him into their Gothic mansion owned by Barbara. Melinda is crazy about the boy and tries constantly to get him into bed. While his enemies are close on his trail, someone is also trying to poison him. Wicked little romp with a decadent air of sensual inebriation.

Alain Delon and Lola Albright in Joy House 1964 Rene Clément

He loved as if his life depended on it… and it did!

THE NAKED FLAME aka DEADLINE FOR MURDER 1964 directed by Larry Matanski

A Doukhobor sect in Northern Alberta tries to prevent the wedding of a Russian girl to a Canadian. A film of forbidden love, rape and murder

Doukhobors..! Nude Protests Erupt In Flaming Violence!

1965

MY BLOOD RUNS COLD 1965 directed by William Conrad

Troy Donahue is a disturbed drifter who meets Joey Heatheron and believes her to be a long-dead ancestor, his long lost love. Creepy and psychotic at times. Also stars Barry Sullvian and Jeannette Nolan.
Is It Possible That The Dead Can Be Reborn?
Strange Things Are Happening!

RETURN FROM THE ASHES 1965 directed by J. Lee Thompson

Stanislaus Pilgrin,(Maximilian Schell) is a suave gigolo who’s masterful at playing chess. First he marries a wealthy Jewish widow, Dr. Mischa Wolf, (Ingrid Thulin). Soon after he begans playing around with her step-daughter Fabienne played by the ever-seductress Sammantha Eggar. But philandering isn’t what’s on Stanislaus mind. He is plotting to do away with both women so he can inherit their money and the estate.

The water warm… the champagne chilled… the music soft… then the daydream ends… and the nightmare begins!

TORTURED FEMALES 1965 directed by Arch Hudson
Shock film of the century
Incredible scenes of unbridled passions

THE FOOL KILLER 1965 Directed by Servando González

Eddie Albert plays young George Mellish who decides to run away after he can’t take the beatings and abuse by his foster parents. He hops a freight train east of the Mississippi River. On his journey he meets several odd characters. First he meets Henry Hull as Dirty Jim Jelliman who lives in a ramshackled hovel and tells George the story of the legendary boogeyman of them parts called The Fool Killer.

Then he meets Milo Bogardus, (Anthony Perkins) a young Civil War veteran who has lost his memory. The pair wind up at a campfire meeting by a fanatical Reverend Spotts (Arnold Moss)During the feverish freenzy of the revival meeting George blacks out and when he waks up he can’t find Milo and doesn’t realize that the Reverend is dead, murdered by an axe.

The climax is so atmospheric American Gothic as George lies in bed, when a shadowy figure manifests itself by the window. A tall and looming figure with an axe. Is this The Fool Killer coming to get him?

All the secret joys, the sudden terrors of being young and free and far from home

SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY 1965 directed by Eber Lobato, Howard Veit (uncredited)

A beautiful woman Nélida Lobato marries a rich man for his money, then embarks on an affair and plans to use her boyfriend to help murder her husband.

THE SWEET SOUND OF DEATH 1965 aka La LLamada directed by Javier Setó

Pablo (Emilio Gutiérrez Caba) wants to marry Dominique, (Dyanik Zurakowska) She takes him to a cemetery and persuades him to prepare to reunite in the afterlife in the event one of them dies. Dominique is killed while on vacation but Pablo gets a phone call the next day from his love, Dominique.

A RAGE TO LIVE 1965-directed by Walter Grauman

“The story of Grace Caldwell Tate really began in the back seat of a car… …and went from man…to man…to man…”

Suzanne Pleshette is Grace, a woman who just can not resist having sexual pleasure with a man. She’s called a slut, a whore, her reputation is known all over town. It’s even suggested by her brother that she see a psychiatrist. I love Grauman’s work (Lady in a Cage 1964, fabulous made for tv films like Daughter of the Mind and a few Naked City, , this film was based on the novel by John O’ Hara which I haven’t read. But it was all I could stomach from the moralizing about Graces’ sexual desires being deviant after she slept with the prowling males who were not ostricized or judged at all I love a good trashy bit of 60s melodrama but. I just can’t turn off the inherent misogyny, double standards and demonization of women’s sexuality in film…

Grace is trying to define herself and what love truly is. She happens to enjoy sexual encounters with men, she doesn’t need a electro shock therapy, an exorcist raising the bible to her forehead or the locals thinking she’s ‘that kind of girl’ when men have the luxury of pursuing their desire, but once they’ve actually touched the women, that woman is spoiled goods. Grace is a really sympathetic character and Pleshette does a smashing job of appearing truly disturbed by her compulsion. Once Ben Gazzarra playing a sweaty contractor walks into picture, all brutish, obsessive and primal, Grace cannot resist the pheromones this beast is giving off. Bradford Dillman is her husband whom she tells the truth to from the very beginning but at some point he just can’t take the reality of his wife’s nature.

Though Dillman’s character Sidney is in love with Grace and knows from the beginning that she’s been ‘that kind of girl’ And Grace truly loves him in all ways- but she just can’t resist the temptation of the male sex. Does she need a stint in a sanitarium? Should she be run out of town or stoned alive….

Well… the film condemns her by having her husband Sidney (Dillman) finally do a Rhett Butler and walk away finally not giving a damn. Ironically, he thinks she slept with Peter Graves character Jack Hollister, because his paranoid wife Bethel Leslie comes over trashed and basically accuses Grace in front of everyone. Cue- Sidney’s had enough… and Grace is left… a marked woman…. in 1965.

CHAINED GIRLS 1965 -directed by Joseph P. Mawrer

Unnatural love of women for women! A daring film about lesbianism today!

BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL 1965– Directed by Doris Wishman

After her husband Ted (Alan Feinstein) goes to work, Ellen Green (Gigi Darlene) starts to tidy up the place in her nightgown

But while taking the trash out the janitor (Harold Key) he forces her into his apartment and rapes her. When he tries again, she killes him and goes on the fun. She has a series of adventures in the Big City, getting used and mistreated until she meets a nice woman who lets her rant a room. Using the name Meg Kelton. Will she be able to keep her new identity without running into trouble with the landlady’s son who just happens to be a detective!

Possessed with sex, they know no shame!

THE DIRTY GIRLS 1965– directed by Radley Metzger

In Paris, the City of Love, Garance can be found each night on the Champs-Elysees, or in a small bistro. This evening, Garance will entertain a shy young student, a hot-headed sadist, and an older gentleman.

From the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes … They Were Made for Love!!

RENT-A-GIRL 1965 directed by William Rose

A young girl goes to work for a modeling agency only to discover that it’s actually a call-girl ring. Stars Barbara Wood, Frank Spencer, Inga Christopher.

HYSTERIA- 1965 Freddie Francis directs

An American (Robert Webber) wakes up in an English hospital with amnesia after a very bad car crash. He now has to uncover the mystery of who his benefactor is, and who he is, AND his possible involvement in a murder! Co-stars Maurice Denham and Sue Loyd.

TERRIFYING SUSPENSE …it will shock you out of your seat!

ONE SHOCKING MOMENT 1965 directed by Ted V. Mikels

Strip Teases, a lesbian dominatrix, bondage and whipping! Wild city life lures a husband Cliff (Gary Kent) into it’s grip. Meanwhile his wife Mindy is trying to keep up, since Cliff starts schtuping the secretary Mindy begins a relationship with the lesbian club owner who’s a dominatrix….! as much plot as there is nudity!

The most sensuous picture ever made…period! (well not so much, but it’s a cute tagline!-JG)

GIRL ON A CHAIN GANG 1965 directed by Jerry Gross

Three young people are framed, arrested and thrown in prison by corrupt Southern police.

Poor White Trash! Stay Clear -This Town Got Ways of Teaching You a Lesson!

SIMON OF THE DESERT 1965 directed by Luis Bunuel

Simon (Claudio Brook), a deeply religious man living in the 4th century, wants to be nearer to God so he climbs a column. Silvia Pinal plays The Devil who is trying to seduce him so that he will come down to Earth

Simon: “What’s this dance called?”
The Devil: “Radioactive Flesh.” It’s the latest – and the last!”

MOTORPSYCHO! 1965– directed by Russ Meyer–

Three violent motorcyclists get off on raping women. When they assault Alex Rocco’s wife, he goes on a rampage to avenge her with the help of Haji who’s husband they killed.

Cyclemaniacs assaulting and killing for thrills! Bike riding Hoodlums Flat-Out on their Murder cycles.

ALPHAVILLE 1965 directed by Jean Luc Goddard

A U.S. secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) is sent to the distant space city of Alphaville where he must find a missing person and free the city from its tyrannical ruler. Co-stars Anna Karina and Akim Tamiroff. The French New Wav keepin Noir alive!

THE NANNY 1965 directed by Seth Holt with a script by Jimmy Sangster

Bette Davis is Nanny. She’s been with the Fane family for years. The impish William Dix is 10 year old Joey. The little darling has just been released from a home for emotionally disturbed children, having drowned his little sister in the bathtub. But from the beginning of Joey’s arrival home, he acts very suspicious of dear old Nanny. And strange things are happening like his mum Virginia (Wendy Craig) being poisoned. No one will believe Joey that Nanny is behind it all, except for his neighbor Bobbie (Pamela Franklin) who befriends him. This thriller is an excruciating journey through dark corners and oft times Nanny is quite sympathetic albeit potentially very daft in the head. As the flashbacks explain some of the background story, once again Davis’ character while dangerous elicits both shivers and pathos.

BRAINSTORM 1965 directed by William Conrad

Directed by William Conrad this is a tautly slick noir-thriller starring Jeffrey Hunter as Jim Grayam a young scientist who happens to be in the wrong spot and the right time and saves Anne Francis an unhappily married woman from committing suicide by train.

The two becomes romantically involved and they plot to have him shoot and kill her husband (Dana Andrews), and then use an insanity plea to escape a murder rap. But it doesn’t always go the way you want it to…

I SAW WHAT YOU DID 1965 directed by William Castle

a group of school girls get bored one night and make phony calls to random people, except they happen to say “I know who you are, and I saw what you did” to John Ireland who’s just murdered his wife, and has Joan Crawford sniffing around to become his next romance. But you can’t put the screws too tight to a psycho.

Don’t laugh little girl, better run for your life. The man you were talking to, has just murdered his wife!

THE SLENDER THREAD 1965-directed by Sydney Pollack

A college volunteer Sidney Poitier working at the crisis phone gets a call from a suicide caller, Anne Bancroft has taken a load of pills and now he has to find out who she is and why she wants to die before it’s too late.

THE SIN SYNDICATE 1965 directed by Michael Findlay

THE DEFILERS 1965–directed by Lee Frost (as R.L. Frost) , David F. Friedman

Two young thugs kidnap a young girl and keep her in the basement of an old warehouse where they forcibly make her their sex slave. The film has a disturbing realism albeit the low budget.
A shattering study of the sick set for shockproof adults
Wantons could not satisfy their depraved cravings!
Everything they touch is stained!

SHIP OF FOOLS 1965–directed by Stanley Kramer

An incredible ensemble of performers who truly show their acting styles. It’s the 1930s and an Ocean Liner set from Mexico to Germany has aboard a collection of characters, all who have a story to tell.

EXPLORER, MISTRESS, VAGRANT, LOAFER, ARTIST, TRAMP … THEY ARE ALL AT THE CAPTAIN’S TABLE!

FLESH AND LACE 1965 directed by Joe Sarno

Joe Santos plays the toy shop owner, Heather Hall is Bev-the Blonde

SYLVIA 1965–directed by Gordon Douglas

Carroll Baker became a brand of her own in the 60s over lapping genres-psycho-melodrama, thriller, giallo and exploitation. Sylvia is an interesting landscape for her to act out in, as Sylvia West, poetess who is about to marry a very wealthy Frederick Summers (Peter Lawford)

Summers fears that all women want him for is his millions so he hires a private detective to look into Sylvia’s past. In walks Alan Maklin (George Maharis) to uncover the truth about Sylvia. What lends to the intrigue of the story is Joseph Ruttenberg’s ( Random Harvest 1942, Gaslight 1944, Somebody Up there Likes Me 1956 & Butterfield 8 (1960), sharp cinematography.

Carroll Baker is the Fury. George Maharis is the Force. Sylvia is the Explosion!

REPULSION 1965–directed by Roman Polanski

Catherine Deneuve is Carol who is left alone when her sister goes on vacation. Carol slowly looses touch with reality. Co-stars Ian Hendry, Yvonne Furneaux and Patrick Wymark

The nightmare world of a virgin’s dreams becomes the screen’s shocking reality!

MUDHONEY 1965–directed by Russ Meyer

It’s 1933, in the midst of the Depression and Prohibition. Calif, a stranger with a past walks into Spooner, Missouri on his way from Michigan to California. He hires on with Lute Wade to earn some travelling money, but gets entangled in a bad family situation: Lute’s daughter is married to Sidney, a good-for-nothing drunk that frequents the rural equivalent of a whorehouse and beats his wife and is just waiting for Lute to kick the bucket to get his money. When Sidney and a local wacko preacher begin orchestrating a smear campaign against Calif, he finds it difficult to conceal his past and his growing affection for Sidney’s wife.

fabulously infelicitous filthy focus on backwoods rural folk, the whore house, the deaf and dumb blonde bombshell, her alcholic abusive husband and the ex con who comes into her life. Sparse elements of noir in a bucolic setting. The wanderer who is an ex con, in love with a married woman. the temptresses.

MONDO KEYHOLE 1966 directed by Jack Hill & John Lamb

Nick Moriarity plays Howard Thorne a rapist in Los Angeles:

First he meets women at either parties or just walking on the streets and he follows them, like a stalker. He begins to intimidate them until he finally assaults them. Between his dream life and his waking life were not sure what’s reality. His wife Vicki (Adel Rein) uses heroine and tries to seduce her husband to no avail. Once at an eerie costume party the truth emerges about Howard and the féte represents the Hell that both Howard and Vicki have invoked in their lives.

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING 1965 –directed by Otto Preminger

Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) an American girl recently moved to London reports her little girl Bunny missing from her grammer school when she goes to pick her up in the afternoon. No one remembers even seeing the child. There’s no evidence that Bunny even exists. Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) investigates quite skeptically as to the whereabouts of the little girl. Keir Dullea is Ann’s brother whom she is living with in London, he is clean cut and well bred but there’s something a little off about Steven. So does Bunny truly exist, is she a made up idea in Ann’s head, a pathology since ann’s own childhood for making up playmates? Or is there something even more sinister about the whole disappearance.Perhaps one of my favorite Preminger mysteries.

Martita Hunt has a wonderful cameo as the headmistress of the school- co-stars Megs Jenkins, Clive Reville Adrienne Corri, Anna Massey and Noel Coward as the odd landlord who might be a lecherous old coot….

Doll-maker: This doll had almost been loved to death. You know, love inflicts the most terrible injuries on my small patients.

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? 1965—directed by Joseph Cates

The opening sequence begins with a subtle form of masterbation as Sal Mineo touches himself in tight white undies, smoking a cigarette it begins an erotic journey as we only see his hand caressing his bare torso and hip reclining. The shot is framed like a classic film noir yet it is infused with an erotic pornographic suggestion of claustrophobic compulsion and deviance.

Lt. Dave Madden (Jan Murray) talks to Norah about the combinations of sexual deviants. Sado-Macchists, Pedaphiles Necropheliacs, Voyeurs. Mineo plays Lawrence Sherman a sexually frustrated young man who starts out obscene calling Norah Dain. He has a younger sister who is emotional development is arrested, she is like a small child.

As he listens to the tape recorded conversations with victims of obscene callers, his litle girl lyes in bed listening to the tapes it is an uncomfortable moment. The phone calls become more explicit. A moldy teddy bear is left with it’s throat slit at her apartment. We see books about Sado Masochism, tawdry magazines and books with titillating titles and covers. LIKE Screaming Mimi— the club owner Mariane Freeman (Elaine Stritch) is a lesbian. ” I did soft things” then she holds Nola in her arms and tells her to let it all out and cry. Put her arms around her, calling her baby. Nora rejects her as she is told to leave, Lawrence (Mineo) thinking she’s Nora runs after her. Chasing her down a dark alley, the camera reveals a brutal attack scene. Explicit in what it shows as he assaults and then strangles her with her own stockings. Her lifeless body in the alley–is shocking.

Why with everybody else – why with every slob … and not with me?

FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL! KILL! 1965—directed by Russ Meyer

Three strippers holding a young girl hostage come across a crippled old man living with his two sons in the desert. After learning he’s hiding a sum of cash around, the strippers start scheming on him.

One of the most memorable exploitation films not just because of Russ Meyer’s style and vision but because of the iconic goddess power involved in the cast.Tura Satana as Varla, Haji (Motorpsycho! (1965 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 1976) as Rosie and Lorie Williams as Billie.

Superwomen! Belted, buckled and booted!

1966

A SMELL OF HONEY, A SWALLOW OF BRINE 1966– directed by Byron Mabe

“I may be a bitch, but I’ll never be a butch!”

A young woman teases, seduces, and emotionaly destroys young men for her own twisted enjoyment. Stacey Walker is Sharon Winters an officer worker who torments guys by bringing them to the brink of having sex and then crying rape.

There is an expression for girls like her —— You see it scrawled on walls

SINGLE ROOM FURNISHED 1966 directed by Matteo Ottaviano

“The torture chamber of a woman who lived too full… too fast”

Sadly Jayne Mansfield died before the movie was completed. She is a woman who’s husband leaves her when she becomes pregnant. Get’s a job as a waitress, gets dumped again and … Eventually she becomes a prostitue..

HEAT OF MADNESS 1966 directed by Harry Wuest

this film was like watching an off off broadway play about a emotionally disturbed photographers eventually spiral from fetish to delusion to savage sexual sadism. The vérité is so well executed whether because of the low budget or an accident of artistic design that the film is a truly weird gripping piece of exploitationism. An interesting nod that might be intentional or not has Kevin Scott as photographer John Wilright also moonlight doing saucy photos that eventually pull him into a more Scopophilia (A morbid urge to gaze ) world as Mark Lewis had in Michael Powell’s intense Peeping Tom 1960

Men who can’t control themselves! Women who don’t care! They get their kicks in strange ways…

DEATHWATCH 1966 –directed by Vic Morrow

Based on a play by Jean Genet, a small-time thief battles with his gay cellmate over a third illiterate, muscular convict. This aint your Leonard Nemoy Spock, although I’ve always had my suspicions about his and Kirk’s true relationship. Michael Forest stars as Greeneyes.

Homosexual outlaws on a rampage! Genet’s perverse world of homosexual outlaws!

VIOLENCE AT NOON 1966 directed by Nagisa Ôshima

Hakuchu no Torima” is the story of a violent rapist Eisuke Oyamada (Kei Sato) seen through the flashbacks and perspectives of his wife and one of his victims.

THE SWAP AND HOW THEY MAKE IT 1966– directed by Joe Sarno

Two bored suburban housewives, neglected by their workaholic husbands, take on a couple of college kids for kicks, then decide to join a wife-swapping club. Complications arise when love, jealousy and resentment arise.

A realistic and shocking approach to adultery

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MAN 1966 directed by Doris Wishman

When a husband gets ill with a mysterious sickness, his wife turns to a seedy pimp who puts her onto prostitution to make ends meet.

PERSONA 1966–directed by Ingmar Bergman

A nurse is put in charge of an actress who can’t talk and finds that the actresses’ persona is melding with hers. Stars Liv Ulman & Bibi Anderson

Sister Alma: (Bibi Anderson) Elisabet? Can I read you something from my book? Or am I disturbing you? It says here:”All the anxiety we bear with us, all our thwarted dreams, the incomprehensible cruelty, our fear of extinction, the painful insight into our earthly condition, have slowly eroded our hope of an other-wordly salvation. The howl of our faith and doubt against the darkness and silence, is one of the most awful proofs of our abandonment and our terrified, unuttered knowledge.” Do you think it’s like that?

AGONY OF LOVE 1966 directed by William Rotsler

A bored housewife rents an apartment where she indulges in all of her sexual fantasies.

“She Was a Lady But Wanted to Be Treated Like a Tramp”

THE ALLEY CATS 1966–directed by Radley Metzger

Metzger has always seized upon the allure and mystique of lesbian sexualty. Here he actually tinges it with a bit of a sado-masochistic, stalking predatory kind of lesbian She’s a woman eater. A married couple having issues both have flings. Set amongst a very high society of free-thinking libertines, mod parties and unabashed orgies, the film swings and is slick but the undertone of the

A daring adventure in the erotic world of motion picture stimulation!

SECONDS 1966–directed by John Frankenheimer

Who are SECONDS? The answer is almost too terrifying for words. From the bold, bizarre best-seller. The story of a man who buys for himself a totally new life. A man who lives the age-old dream — If only I could live my life all over again

EYE OF THE DEVIL 1966—directed by J. Lee Thompson

David Niven is the marquis Philippe de Montfaucon who is the French Lord and ancestor of a historic Vineyard. When a dry season hits the harvest he is summoned to the castle Bellenac. Deborah Kerr plays his wife-Catherine de Montfaucon who is told to remain in Paris with the children, but she follows him anyway. Once at the castle her husband seems distant as if he is following a mysterious cult that worships ancient pagan rituals, that include his sacrificing his own life in order to save the next season’s crop. Both the luminous Sharon Tate and impish David Hemmings play two beautiful yet sinister figures lurking about with bow & arrows and doves. Co-stars Donald Pleasance as the mysterious cleric, Flora Robson as Auntie and Emlyn Williams.

Once again absolutely stunning visual frames from cinematographer Erwin Hillier.

Look at her long enough and she may be the last thing you’ll ever see!

Sharon Tate on the set with J. Lee Thompson

I CROSSED THE COLOR LINE 1966–aka The Black Klansman directed by Ted V Mikels

After a black man’s daughter is killed by the KKK, he seeks revenge by becoming a Klansman.

This Is Jerry … He Passed For White … to pierce the innermost secrets of the white man … and his women!

MISTER BUDDWING 1966-directed by Delbert Mann

James Garner winds up wandering Central Park in New York City with amnesia. With only a few pills wrapped in crumpled paper with a telephone number on it., he goes in search of who he is. He has a memory of a young woman named Grace.

He spends time with several different women hoping they are Grace.

Is he the escaped mental patient the newspapers are headlining? Slowly he puts the pieces together and remembers who he is and where he’s been. Co-stars Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, Katherine Ross, Angela Lansbury, George Voskovec,

The Strangest Girl-Hunt A Man Ever Went On

THE FACE OF ANOTHER 1966 directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.

Psychiatrist: You’re not the only lonely man. Being free always involves being lonely. Just there is a mask you can peel off and another you can not.

AROUSED 1966–directed by Anton Holden

Cul-de-sac 1966-directed by Roman Polanski

Lionel Stander plays a brutish escaped criminal who is wounded. He and his dying partner stumble onto the beachfront castle owned by George (Donald Pleasance) and his gorgeous wife Teresa (Françoise Dorléac)

George is a fumbling milk-toast and his wife is an aggressive French vamp. As time progresses the relationship between the three become quite bizarre… that beg questions of masculinity, brutality, repressed homosexuality and conformity.

The cinematic openness photographed by Gilbert Taylor (Dr Strangelove 1964) 

Christoph Komeda’s post modern jazz score is exhilarating

MY BROTHER’S WIFE 1966 directed by Doris Wishman

A man’s wife starts having an affair with her brother-in-law, who is temporarily staying at their apartment.

Sex was her master! Lust was her destiny!

1967

MY BODY HUNGERS (CRIES) 1967 directed by Joe Sarno

Gretchen Rudolph plays Marcia, a sensuous rural orphan who decided to hitch-hike the the city in order to see her sister who works at a popular roadhouse.

When Marcia gets to town she learns that her sister has been strangled to death with her own garter belt. So, she decides to take a job as a hostess to uncover all the seedy details of her sister’s life and in order to track down the man who murdered her!

John Aristedes plays Det. John Loring. Bella Donna as Mavis Harvey and Joe Santos is a truck driver. Tammy Latour is Joan Reynolds.

A Lace Garterbelt Becomes An Instrument For Murder!

THE TOUCH OF HER FLESH 1867 directed by Michael Findlay

After catching his stripper wife in bed with another man he goes on a killing spree murdering strippers!

THE LUSTING HOURS 1967 directed by John Amero stars Roberta & Michael Findley

Presented as an inquiry into the ways of lust, this film is staged as a documentary. It moves from rural prostitution (the roadhouse) to pornographers, then on to streetwalkers, male hustlers, and high-class call girls. The madam runs the bordello, she depends on the photographer to supply her with pornography; he’s in the city, using his camera to lead him into depravity. The streetwalkers risk arrest from the cops and abuse from the johns. Even the call girls have a tough time: from their expenses to their lack of self-reflection. Their motto: “Live fast, die young, and make a beautiful corpse.”-source IMDb jhaily@hotmail.com

ANYTHING FOR MONEY 1967 directed by Joe Sarno

Sarno loves to put suburbia in the spotlight and then rip off the lid of it’s quaint and refined illusion. Joanna Mills plays Judy and Judson Tod is Jack. She has a plot to ingratiate herself into her Aunt Edna’s (Patti Paget) life in hopes of acquiring her wealth and status. They move in with her much to the displeasure of Edna’s business partner Louise (Peggy Steffans) She encourages Jack to Seduce Louise who is very influential with Aunt Edna and so rampant are Seductions, roadhouses, lesbianism and the corrupting of morals!

They found love delicious!

SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT aka MISS JESSICA IS PREGNANT 1967

Jessica, the eldest daughter of a coal miner-turned-farmer, has a fling with her half-brother Carl, which complicates things more when she becomes pregnant.

VENUS IN FURS 1967- Directed by Joseph Marzano

“Venus… goddess of pleasure in a citadel of sin.”

THE DEADLY ORGAN 1967 aka Feast of Flesh Directed by Emilio Vieyra

A masked killer prowls the beaches of Argentina, injecting beautiful girls with heroin, and then using weird organ music to make them his sex slaves.

WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR 1967-directed by Martin Scorsese

A young man Harvey Keitel struggles with the fact that his girlfriend was once raped. co-stars Zine Bethune.

SHE MAN: A STORY OF FIXATION 1967-directed by Bob Clark!

A soldier is forced to take estrogen and wear lingerie when he’s blackmailed by a violent transvestite.

Now… The Movie That Dares Tell All About Today’s Turned-On Generation!

MR. MARI’S GIRLS 1967 directed by William K. Hennigar

A rich philanthropist uses his wealth to solve young women’s problems. I wonder if this Mr. Mari isn’t really The Devil in a different incarnation?

DEPRAVED! 1967– directed by Andy Milligan

A swinger’s tour of the far-out unnatural and forbidden ways to love!

Features the lives of three swingers couples whose debauched lifestyle of drugs, swapping mates, and abuse begins to catch up to all six of them.

THE INCIDENT 1967 — directed by Larry Peerce (Goodbye Columbus 1969, Ash Wednesday 1973 guilty pleasure of mine because of Liz Taylor, The Bell Jar 1979)

Late one night, two young cretons hold hostage the average New York passengers in one car of a New York subway train. Martin Sheen plays the virulent little vermin Martie Connors and Tony Musante is the greasy & wide eyed psychopath Joe Ferrone. Both men have no problem beating a bum to death for a dollar. or terrorizing an entire subway car filled with people whom they perceive to be the insiders to their outsiders mentality. Some brutal stuff… incredibly comes together because of the contribution by the marvelous cast. Co-stars Beau Bridges, Ruby Dee, Brock Peters, Jack Gilford, Gary Merrill, Thelma Ritter, Donna Mills, Mike Kellin, Robert Bannard and Victor Arnold.

I’ll watch anything with Jan Sterling in it… This underrated film is such a nerve wracking film by Larry Peerce.

IN COLD BLOOD 1967–directed by Richard Brooks

After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of the Klutter family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity. Robert Blake as Perry and Scott Wilson as Dick is an astounding chemistry on screen. There is an undercurrent of homosexual relationship between the two thrill killers. Blake gives a very layered examination of the mind of a child who’s trajectory had no where else to go but to the crime and then the gallows.

Both give powerful performances with a story that is both brutal and distasteful on both sides of the hangman’s noose. Co-starring John Forsyth, Paul Stewart, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Jeff Corey and Charles McGraw

Cinematography by Conrad Hall adds the gritty realism and music by Quincy Jones.

Reporter: I see, the hangman’s ready. What’s his name?

Alvin Dewey: We the People.

1968

SPIDER BABY 1964 directed by Jack Hill

Lon Chaney Jr. is the caretaker Bruno, who devotes his entire life to watching over the Merrye family. And a strange group of youngins are they. Beverly Washburn is Elizabeth and Jill Banner is Virginia. Sid Haig is adorable as Ralph who’s so feral his performance is a delight when thinking what was to come with women in chains exploitation films of the 70s and even later his cameos for Rob Zombie…

Anyhoo, the Merrye family history has been cursed with a type of insanity. Partly due to all the inbreeding they Merrye’s regress just as their deteriorating mansion crumbles on the outskirts of town. Trouble comes in the form of Cousin Emily played by the luscious Carol Ohmart who wants to take over and inherit the family fortune. This is such a whimsically horrific adult fairytale that is as unique as it is endearing and captivating. One special cult film that never gets old.

“The seductive innocence of Lolita with the savage hunger of a black widow”

THE CURSE OF HER FLESH 1968 directed by Michael Findlay

A weapons dealer who murdered his unfaithful stripper wife goes on a killing spree, bumping off exotic dancers and hookers while plotting revenge on his wife’s lover. Stars Eve Bork and Michael Findlay…. and a nice pussy.

VIBRATION 1968– directed by Torbjörn Axelman

Stars Essy Persson star of Theresa and Isabelle 1968 and Cry of the Banshee 1970

Mauritz, a handsome but frustrated writer, journeys to an island idyll of the coast of Sweden to enjoy the fleeting summer sun. Soon he becomes romantically involved with Barbro, a sexy young temptress.

MURDER à LA MOD 1968 Directed by Brian de Palma

HER PRIVATE HELL 1968 directed by Norman J. Warren

A young Italian girl comes to London, and is tricked into posing nude for risqué magazines

THE ANIMAL 1968 directed by Lee Frost

This story is based on facts taken from authenticated newspaper files. What truly motivated Ted Andrews is not clearly known although a childhood filled with depression, hate for his mother, and a lonely adult life seeded with migraine headaches was a possible start. Through the use of his telephone and a high powered telescope he terrorized his neighborhood. He peered into the private lives of people who never dreamed he was watching and what he saw only heightened his desire for perversion. Finally he became obsessed with one woman, a woman of dignity and station, of wealth and security. His plan – step by step was to degrade her, to bring her down to his level of existence, and to make her an animal. He convinces her that he will kill her ten year old son if she doesn’t cooperate with him. As a result she agrees to perform for him before his telescope. He later forces her to meet him at a motel where he completes his act of degradation. The ending is as shocking as the opening. IMDb-Source-Pressbook Synopsis

“I am watching you through a telescope you must do anything and everything I say or I will kill your son” True Crime, Voyeur, Rape, kidnapping, sadist

WALK THE ANGRY BEACH aka HOLLYWOOD AFTER DARK 1968 directed by John Hayes stars Rue McClanahan.

A young girl comes to Hollywood to try to break into the movies, but winds up being taken advantage of by sleazy producers, and is forced to become a stripper.

THE ALLEY TRAMP 1968 directed by Hershell Gordon Lewis

A teenage girl sets out on a sexual odyssey of having affairs with various men including her mother’s secret boyfriend.

SHE MOB 1968 directed by Harry Huest

A gang of four lesbian inmates escapes from prison and kidnaps the boyfriend of a wealthy woman. She hires a tough private eye to find her boyfriend and rescue him.

Erotic Sex Practices of the Butches and Dykes of the Weird World!

Men … You Are Doomed!

FANDO AND LIS 1968 directed by Alexandro Jodorowsky

Having just watched El Topo (1970) and still love Santa Sangre (1989) it is clear that much of Jodorowsky’s mythos incorporate not only multi-intersectional religious icons, but his fixation on the body being disarticulated is something I need to explore at some point and do a feature on this brilliant visionary or I should say lucid dreamers works.

Fando and his partially paralyzed lover Lis search for the mythical city of Tar. Based on Jodorowsky’s memories of a play by surrealist Fernando Arrabal.

Fando’s Father: Let’s play. Okay, I’m a famous pianist.

Young Fando: If you’re a famous pianist, and I cut off your arm… then what will you do?

Fando’s Father: I’ll become a famous painter.

Young Fando: And if I cut off the other one, what will you do?

Fando’s Father: I’ll become a famous dancer.

Young Fando: And if I cut off your legs, then what?

Fando’s Father: Then I’ll become a famous singer.

Young Fando: And if I cut off your head, then what?

Fando’s Father: Once dead, my skin will become a beautiful drum.

Young Fando: What if I burn the drum?

Fando’s Father: I will become a cloud and take on any shape.

Young Fando: And if the cloud dissolves, what then?

Fando’s Father: I will become rain and produce a harvest of wars!

Young Fando: You win. I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.

Fando’s Father: If you ever feel too lonely… search for the magical city of Tar.

SEEDS OF SIN 1968 directed by Andy Milligan

An alcoholic matriarch terrorizes her spoiled, grown-up children during a family get-together where one of them flips out and begins killing all of them to get back at years of neglect and abuse. It’s a creepy, crazy decadnet hoot of Milliganology

CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHO CAT 1968-directed by Herb Stanley

A deranged, wealthy woman Eileen Lord offers $100,000 to three men if they can stay alive for 24 hours in Manhattan, and then hunts them down. It’s The Most Dangerous Game set in NYC and it flips the anti-heroine to be a woman! Look for Jake LaMotta as Rocco….

THE BOSTON STRANGLER 1968 directed by Richard Fleischer

A series of brutal murders in Boston sparks a seemingly endless and increasingly complex manhunt. stars Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis as Albert deSalvo.

Why did 13 women willingly open their doors to the Boston Strangler?

IN HOT BLOOD 1968 directed by Leo J. Rhewdnal (Michael Findley alias?)

Doris Porro is Rita who is dead set on becoming a New York City model. Through the use of voice-over we follow her journey for 6 months as she becomes seduced by the wild parties and drugs,

TWO GIRLS FOR A MADMAN 1968–directed by Stanley H. Brassloff

Two young girls in New York City studying to be ballet dancers are chosen by a crazed sex fiend to be his next victims. He rapes one of them at gunpoint and then proceeds to stalk and terrorize both of them.

HOUR OF THE WOLF 1968– directed by Ingmar Bergman

While vacationing on a remote Scandanavian island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has a emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires. Stars Max von Sydow and Liv Ulman.

“The Hour of the Wolf” is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful.

THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE 1968–directed by Robert Aldrich

Beryl Reid is June Buckridge who plays Sister George on the telly. She lives with her younger lesbian lover, Childie (Suzanna York) Her role on the popular BBC soap opera has George the jovial distric nurse. Once she learns that she is being killed off on the show, everything goes downhill. She can either play the voice of a cow on a childrens show or not work at all. Plus the impressionable Childie has fallen prey to a predatory lesbian tv producer (Coral Browne brilliant as Mercy Croft )who had been secrectly fascinated with George’s secret life. It’s just not easy for an aging old dyke to play the part of a cow.

The story of three consenting adults in the privacy of their own home.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 1968–directed by George Romero

A group of random people baracade themselves in an old farmhouse when they are inextricably seiged upon by corpses that are coming back to life and eating people. Romero’s films are all sociological perspectives and not just gore fests.

They keep coming back in a bloodthirsty lust for HUMAN FLESH!.

1969

PASSION IN HOT HOLLOWS 1969 directed by Joe Sarno

Cherie Winters is the scheming Norma Sue who goes back home to the backwoods in order to raise some hell with the locals especially her uptight sister. Includes all sorts of kinky seductions.

THE ULTIMATE DEGENERATE 1969 directed by Michael Findley

Michael Findley as a kind of Anton LaVey in The Ultimate Degenerate 1969

Uta Erickson plays Maria a nymphomaniac who is bored with her current sex life. She answers an ad in the paper and winds up traveling by invite up to a house in Vermont owned by the odd Spencer who is a voyeur. Maria begins a very volatile journey meeting both women and men. They put on elaborate performances for Spencer. He serves them aphrodisiacs which make the women more amiable for anything. Spencer and Boris his assistant, film the women who are seeking thrills at any cost….

Great NYC location of the late 60s gives it a gritty exciting realism. Especially the shots in Times Square… before Disney came and ate up all the seedy goodness…

SISTERS IN LEATHER 1969- directed by Zoltan G. Spencer

3 lesbian bikers blackmail a guy when they catch him cheater with another woman. So they grab his wife and take her out for some nude motorcyle riding. Then he goes and finds some male bikers and tries to rescue his wife before she becomes a lesbian biker.

“No man (or woman) was safe from these love hungry hell-cats”

COMING APART 1969 directed by Milton Moses Ginsberg

Psychiatrist Rip Torn installs a concealed movie camera in his apartment to record the screwed-up lives of the women who visit him. stars Sally Kirkland and Viveca Lindfors.

Joe: You stink, you smell! You screw everybody! You fuck everybody! Don’t You ever bathe?

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS 1969—directed by Leonard Kastle, Donald Volkman (uncredited)

Shirly Stoler is Martha Beck an obese, embittered nurse who gets off when her toupee-wearing boyfriend Tony Lo Bianco woos and then steals other women’s money, as long as he takes her along on his con jobs. It leads to murder. Based on a true story.

One of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of American Crime.

MUNDO DEPRAVADOS 1969–directed by Herb Jeffries
Two police detectives are assigned to investigate the murders of several young women at a health club. The film has a dead pan humor and is actually a riot to watch.

THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP 1969 directed by Emilio Vieyra & Jerald Intrator

A doctor who kidnaps couples having sex and holds them prisoner so he can experiment on them trying to heighten their sexual experiences. He then forces them to have sex so he can drain the fluid that he needs to prevent himself from becoming an awful mess.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

♡ Psychotronically Yours… Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl!