Mr. Mari's Girls

Russ Meyer? Who needs him when stuff like this is on show...enjoy. Mr Mari is, admittedly, a character to be despised yet the plot that develops from his anomie is worthy of your attention, people. Plot? Who needs plot when women as pneumatic as these are on show...enjoy. Tacky, sleazy and genuinely erotic, and I speak as a woman.

Agressively atonal jazz and plenty of skin compete for attention in this late-60s grindhouse gem. Mr. Mari is a kind of modern-day Rasputin who keeps lots of cash and hard drugs handy to help out the young women who come to him out of desperation.

Glory is an uptown housewife with a gambling problem and a penchant for receiving guests in a sheer nightie. Mr. Mari can help get the monkey off her front, if not off her back. Stella's a beautiful young junkie, but too strung out to pose for Max's nudie pics. A quick fix and a shower makes her feel like dancing nude. Diana is a smart girl (but a terrible actress) who's "in trouble" in the old-fashioned sense... by her English teacher. This is the worst of the vignettes, with a marble-mouthed, semi-attractive girl a bit thick around the thighs.

Dirt(?) is an exotic lesbian with attitude. Why she comes to Mr. Mari is unclear, since she surely isn't going to "put out" as he expects of the others. Hers is the weirdest story: she's worried her blind lover (who paints!) will leave her after she's donated an eye to cure the girlfriend's blindness! Ann is a cute prostitute enlisted by gangster Cue Stick--a combination of Woody Allen and Jerry Lewis with the anger on the outside instead of the inside--to help pull a jewel heist. Maybe Mr. Mari can help her blow town before Cue Stick gets wise. Maybe.

The conclusion goes for broke and pours on the sleaze as Mr. Mari imagines all the girls visiting him at once and fulfilling his ultimate misogynistic fantasy. Overall, it's a weird trip but a pretty interesting and even erotic one until the bizarre conclusion makes it all too clear what a complete creep Mr. Mari really is. Then it becomes simultaneously ridiculous and sublime.

Another highlight: plenty of exciting rotary phone dialing.

Mr. Mari's Girls (1967)

** (out of 4)

Insane exploitation picture about a millionaire known as Mr. Mari who likes to help troubled girls. Some of these troubled girls have marriage problems. Some have drug problems. Others have mental problems. Mr. Mari pretends to be able to help with these problems but he's actually just a scumbag who gets pleasure off their pain.

MR. MARI'S GIRLS is yet another film that would have been forgotten if it wasn't for Something Weird Video. The film isn't a good one by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time if you enjoy these types of movies then this is certainly much better than you'd normally get. With that said, there's not enough "good" things here to make it more entertaining.

The best thing the film has going for it is the B&W cinematography, which is actually really good. The film manages to have a seedy atmosphere, which is always a good thing and there's no doubt that there's a lot of nudity throughout the 60 minute running time. The best sequence is when one girl dares to go to someone else to get "help" and she ends up getting attacked with Mr. Mari providing a voice over putting her down for not coming to him.

This film is pure Exploitation that tittalates the viewer with nudity, drug abuse, abortion, and lesbianism. Mr. Mari's is a filthy rich philanthropist who spends his days giving women in trouble his money. Stella a junkie gets raped by a black drug dealer, looking for help she visits Mr. Mari, he happily obliges her with some smack which she then shoots up sitting on the john, I mean toilet, then does a little gratuitous striptease for the viewers pleasure. After that little incident another one of his girls comes over and pleads with him to pay for an abortion she needs cause her school teacher decided tutoring her was not enough. If thats not weird enough a lesbian comes over and confesses to Mr. Mari that her lover (who is blind!) will leave her when she gets her eye operation, What does Mr. Mari Do? he marries them!!! Now for the climax Mr. Mari invites all of them over one night and watched them all fight to the death for him while he laughs hysterically throwing money at them and saying "thanks girls..thank you". This black and white obscure oddity is a film that will never in a million years be made in the politically correct climate we live in today, so enjoy it if you can find it anywhere.