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Scum of the Earth (1963)

Plot

Scum of the Earth

Edit

Summaries

  • A naive and innocent teenage girl is blackmailed into modeling in the nude for a photographer who is in league with a teenage gang whose boss illegally sells photos of teenage girls being abused and degraded.
  • Kim Sherwood is a young naive teenager who is asked by a friend to model for a shady photographer named Harmon. The photographer works for an unscrupulous businessman who is in league with a local Miami teenage gang in illegally selling photos of young girls in the nude being used and abused. When Kim wants out, the gangster Mr. Lang, blackmails her into staying on by using his strong-armed thugs to enforce order.—matt-282

Synopsis

  • Harmon Johnson (William Kerwin) is a beatnik photographer working for a small pornography ring in Miami, Florida that uses deception and blackmail to coerce its models into performing. Although Harmon is complicit in the crime and takes a cynical attitude to the proceedings, he treats the models more kindly than the rest of the gang.

    Harmon's current model, the blonde and beautiful Sandy (Sandy Sinclair), is nearing the end of her career and begs to be released from her service. Mr. Lang (Lawrence Wood), the middle-aged man who runs the operation, agrees on condition that she will procure and help manage new models to continue the cycle. Sandy agrees and her first victim is a naive young brunette girl named Kim Sherwood (Vickie Miles), who wishes to save money to go to college. Harmon gets her hooked on modeling by overpaying her for some relatively tame "shoe" ads that show off Kim's legs. When she comes to the studio looking for more work, Harmon entices her with doing more explicit photos. During this activity, Larry (Mal Arnold), a teenage employee and associate of Mr. Lang's, snaps even more explicit photos and the whole group blackmails her into doing further work.

    Meanwhile, Marie (Toni Calvert), another model, grows tired of the threatened and actual violence and talks about going to the police with Sandy. Larry and Ajax (Craig Maudslay Jr.), another teenage thug and pornographic performer employed by the gang, overhear this and Ajax kidnaps Marie off the street, takes her to a motel room and rapes and beats her severely. When he leaves, Marie calls the police.

    Kim is distraught at her situation, but Larry and the gang convince her that it will all be behind her if she agrees to one more day of shooting. However, during the shoot, Ajax continues to menace the girls and threatens to rape Kim. Finally having enough, Harmon intervenes on the girls' behalf, killing Ajax with a baseball bat. Realizing that this will cause the police to investigate, Harmon gives Kim all her negatives and other material and tells her to leave while he covers up the existence that she was ever there at the studio.

    During a police interrogation, Harmon is then unexpectedly saved by Sandy who approaches the police and backs up his claim of self defense and they decide to get married.

    Hearing of the encroaching police from Larry, Mr. Lang decides to make a run for it. When Larry tries to persuade him to take him along and out of the country, Mr. Lang instead kills him and runs off on his own with a briefcase containing a horde of cash. Mr. Lang is pursued by the police on foot through the town until he runs into the ocean and, cornered, shoots himself.

    In the denouement, Sandy counsels Kim to pretend it was all a dream. Harmon then drops off Kim at a local community college where she begins her first day of classes to move on with her life.

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