The Touch of Her Flesh

Roberta and Mike Findlay made over a dozen nudie/sickie/roughies in the 60s and early 70s, culminating with SNUFF in the late 70s. Of all those films, the FLESH trilogy is the most memorable. TOUCH OF HER FLESH, CURSE OF HER FLESH, and KISS OF HER FLESH were three sickie classics starring Robert West as Richard Jennings, a one-eyed psycho who kills strippers in sadistic ways. This was his beginning and is a tad boring, but pays off.

Richard Jennings witnesses his wife having sex with another man and runs into traffic. Losing one eye and temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, Richard vows his vengeance and vents his frustration while searching for his wife by killing strippers in inventive ways. He sends one a rose with thorns dipped in poison, shoots a poison dart into the stomach of another, and by the finale, a dagger, a buzzsaw, and a crossbow fit into the whole mess.

TOUCH OF HER FLESH is really sick. First the audience is treated to coy sex scenes and stripping/go-go scenes, followed immediately by scenes of death and gore. I guess that's why they call them sickies. All the acting is bad, but most of the women would fit right in a Russ Meyer film! Top-heavy tarts make up most of the nudity here, which is pleasing to the eye and sort of differentiates this from other films of its kind. There are some good instances of cinematography and editing that are above par in an exploitation film as well.

TOUCH OF HER FLESH is not for everyone and will probably offend those looking for a softcore sex film from the 60s. The version I saw was cut, as the film only ran an hour (original running time is 70 minutes), but the sex was not graphic; it's the gore that should draw audiences. Sadistic viewers should enjoy it, but I'm surprised cries of misogyny haven't plagued this film from its release! Not heartily recommended, but is worth a look if you're curious. And you should be if you're reading a review of this!

Woman has an affair. Hubbie finds out. Hubbie goes on a killing spree of strippers.

What's not to like?

This is one of those 60's nudie grindhouse flicks filmed silent and dubbed over later with some sound effects, music and limited dialog.

I'm not a big fan of those flicks, but this one is pretty well done. And I can imagine it was quite titillating back in the theatres of the day,

There's plenty of nudity. And believe it or not, the directing is fairly artistically done. Acting not so much but we're not here for the acting, are we?

As an added bonus you get a young Angelique Pettijohn. Her appearance is a bit confusing because she uses the name Claudia Jennings, but wasn't that a Playboy model back in the day?

Also the naked chicks are ahead of their time. Most of them are shaven. And all of them have bodies to die for.

Well done.

If you would look up the term "misogyny" in the dictionary, there's a fair chance there will be a poster image of this little movie next to it. The DVD box describes this film as one of the most shameless, sordid and sleaziest exploitation movies of the sixties, and also one of the most inexplicably profitable ones. Apparently "Touch of her Flesh" was a huge success in the so-called Grindhouse circuit and almost promptly – within just one year – spawned two similarly titled sequels. Well, all these aforementioned things may be true but the reputation should also include that "Touch of her Flesh" is dreadfully boring and contains an impossibly high amount of insufferable padding sequences. Richard Jennings, a dork with a passion for weapons, walks in on his wife having sex (well … more of a breasts-fondling marathon, really) with another guy, runs out of the house whiningly and bumps into a car. Short one eye but with a hatred towards women that keeps increasing, he goes out to kill random girls that use their luscious bodies to seduce poor and defenseless men. His victims include a go-go dancer, a prostitute and a nude model before going after his own unfaithful wife again. Admittedly this sounds pretty horrific and like the ideal sexploitation guff, but unfortunately the actual murders take less than a seconds whereas the "preludes" seem to last forever! Okay, granted, these girls are pretty hot and they all have sensational racks, but watching them swing around for ten whole minutes is just plain dull. Jennings' monologues are what make this a true 60's sick-flick, as he compares women with everything that is filthy, unreliable and scum. "Touch of her Flesh", as well as its two sequels, is the work of the notorious director's due (and married couple) Michael and Roberta Findley. Together, they made a lot of infamous but overall terrible exploitation flicks. Ironically enough, Roberta delivered her best work ("Tenement: Game of Survival", "The Oracle") after her hubbie died in a helicopter crash

Same old story: guy loves gal, gal loves another new guy, first guy sees gal loving the new guy, first guy runs in despair into traffic and gains a villainous eyepatch and unfortunate wheelchair (which he needs mostly when he remembers it), guy goes on a misogynistic homicidal rampage. Oh, and boobs. No, not books autocorrect, boobs! What can one say except this is probably best described as Second-tier and less playful/uglier Russ Meyer (or like a straightforward and witless Un chien Andalou), but I don't mean that as a total put down, certainly not on the technical level.

Roberta Findlay, who had a helluva career in unabashed and unapologetic Exploitation outside of work with her husband, shoots this under the pseudonym Anna Riva (is that a reference to the French actress with the same last name, I wonder), and it is never without some level of intention or for clarity. If you want your audience to oogle at knockers and a tush, after all, why not use crisp-clear 35mm black and white film stock?

The go-go dancing from Vivian Del-Rio goes on a minute (or two) too long, but I can't complain when the reason this exists is for... that and all. But for the violence, you do have to wait a little longer than halfway into the 74 minute run time, which is a little long for a film that has like 14% of a story and 86%... Flesh. It's also one of those films that was so shot on the cheap and down-low that recording live dialog was a no-go, so that nearly any time a character talks it's when they're faced away from the camera (or are pressed up onto their respective bed-buddy), and that is... fine, I suppose, this isn't Pinter or Nabokov we're talking about here.

In other words, what this lacks in, you know, character development or depth or clever dialog it more than makes up for in a smorgasbord of titillating and unrelenting sexual stimuli for the masses (just short of pornography, but I get it if your mom walks in on you watching it and calls it that, MOM! THIS IS RESTORED 1960'S ART IN 4K! LEAVE ME BE... OK I'm back now). Anyway, this is probably closer to a 2 or 2 1/2 star rating, yet I can't deny what a terrifically rancid presence or masculine impotent rage the director portrays as the deranged killer on screen.

Well, a-hem! ... This was my first introduction to the gritty works of husband and wife sleazemeisters Michael and Roberta Findlay, and it was quite an experience, let me tell you! This is about as far removed from our recent PC World as you can get! This was the first of a sexploitation trilogy of "FLESH" films that proceeded to get more and more violent, perverted and misogynistic with each filthy installment. That means they became more and more entertaining as they went along and, needless to say, this series is an absolute MUST for those men who enjoy raunchy grindhouse kicks, or men who just don't like women (and also for those of us who do, if you know what I mean).

Things get a little confusing to start off with... For TOUCH, Michael Findlay directed (as "Julian Marsh") and starred as Richard Jennings, the world's first super-maniac, acting under the moniker of "Robert West" (but too bad he's not as interesting an actor as he is a filmmaker). His wife Roberta went by the pseudonym of "Anna Riva". The story deals with the anger and hatred a mild-mannered husband starts to feel for women after he finds his no-good wife screwing around in bed with another man. Running into the New York streets in a daze, he is struck by a car and loses one eye (which seems to alternately get healed and blinded again from scene to scene throughout the three movies) and also gets temporarily paralyzed. He becomes confined to a wheelchair and turns into a nutcase with an ax to grind - first against every stripper/hooker/go-go dancer he can find, and then ultimately against any member of the female race - PERIOD.

There are many nude lovelies to gawk at during the 75 minute running time, and some rather inventive murder techniques for the times. But even with all the slime there is to savor here, I tended to feel that after getting off to a strong start, the pacing lagged too often with this first go-round. Things were to improve twice more, beginning with the first "sequel" in this chauvinistic series, THE CURSE OF HER FLESH. ** out of ****