Review by reptilicus

The world of the "Adults Only" subgenre is a curious place to go exploring. In the pre-hardcore days this was the hottest game in town and offered frontal nudity and sometimes simulated sex and for a short time was considered pretty racy stuff. Seeing these movies today you have to wonder what some of the fuss was about. This movie from Sande Johnson begins promisingly enough with the opening credits scrawled in red ink on walls as our protagonist passes by. It seems our anti-hero is a photographer who has rejected commercialism for arts sake. While in Italy he shot scenes of a bizarre religious group who practised self mutilation and that, we later learn, has affected his very impressionable mind.

Before we get to that, though, there is much ado about photographing topless and nude models (billed in the credits as "New York's most beautiful models" and I could hardly argue with that). I'm sure this was what the people who bought tickets back in 1962 really paid to see but I spent a lot of time waiting for the plot to get going. In a movie that runs only 62 minutes it takes 45 of those minutes before anything happens. When we finally learn our hero freaks out and goes into a murderous rage at the sight of red lipstick or nail polish it is too late for it to be believable. Why? Because the colour red has already figured prominently in the plot. Painted walls, backgrounds, furnishings, etc and our shutterbug madman has not reacted to any of it. When he finally goes mad at the sight of a model in Central Park putting on lipstick it is a little too hard for us to be convinced.

On the plus side, the realistic photography and real New York locations are a nice slice of a bygone era. I'll bet all of those Greenwich Village and Bowery addresses are either long gone or converted to high priced condos by now.