Infrequently lauded, boundary-blasting Grindhouse impresario, Stanley H. 'Two Girls' Brasloff reaches his onanistic apogee in his anti-Sirkian, wonderfully wrong-headed, sadistically squirrelly, promiscuously incestuous, preternaturally potty pot-boiler 'Toys are not for Children' (1972) which arguably remains one of the most sinisterly outrageous grope operas ever conceived to boggle previously thought as 'un-boggle-able' B-Movie minds!
Taking a deliciously degenerated, John Waters approach to sweaty-palmed, morally napalmed family values, Brasloff paints a fascinatingly lurid, stink-fingered portrait of the sin suppurating, salaciously-skewed Godard family. We savour the flavoursome interlude of lusciously ripe young, Jamie Godard (Marcia Forbes) squirming avidly upon the bed suggestively appropriating her childhood plush toy for intimate tasks, perhaps, entirely extra to its original design! Hamming it up with scummy aplomb, the majestically malevolent matriarch Godard (Fran Warren) strides into the bedroom incensed by the sight of daughter, Jamie's breathy exhortations over her absentee father!
This heady 'opening' sordidly telegraphs the transgressive, manifestly strange milieu of gamine, infantile Jamie's troubled, rigorously unconsummated marriage to peachy-keen, handsomely lean Toy Shop co-worker, Charlie (Harlan Cary Poe), and Jamie's singularly misguided quest to locate her long absconded, highly suspect, serially abusive father. Our ingenuous heroine having to endure the profoundly unpleasant, morally repugnant undertakings of her truly venal pimp, Eddie (Luis Arroyo), and suffering additional ignominy at the insensitive hands of her dysfunctional mother/guardian/abuser, Pearl (Evelyn Kingsley).
The technical aspects of Brasloff's twisted drama are quite exemplary, being of a much higher standard than the outre subject matter might suggest. Especially notable is the refined quality of acting, which gives this exquisitely dark and fetishistic tale of starkly forbidden familial love some remarkably heartfelt pathos, demonstratively absent from similarly illicit 42nd Street fare of the period. Fondly recalled, and deservedly so, the evocative opening theme 'Lonely Am I' is an ear-wormingly diggable ditty that belies the film's queasy examination of child abuse and its deleterious effects upon the wholly corrupted lives of all those involved. 'This bracingly adult film is certainly NOT for childish minds!'
