Scum of the Earth

Scum of the Earth (1963)

** (out of 4)

Early sexploitation film from director Herschell Gordon Lewis about a young girl named Kim (Allison Louise Downe) who starts posing for pictures for Harmon (William Kerwin) but soon she finds out that he's actually a creep and has naughty plans for her. While the first pictures were tasteful, he eventually gets her into bikini shots and then (gasp!) nude shots. SCUM OF THE EARTH is a fairly decent sexploitation picture but people should be warned that it's an early one and there's actually not any nudity outside of a clever nipple slip. I think this film is mainly going to appeal to fans of the director who must see everything that the drive-in maverick has made. For the most part this is a fairly entertaining movie, although it feels more like those exploitation pictures from the 1930's instead of something from the swinging 60's. There are a couple nice moments scattered throughout the film but for the most part it's just another morality tale warning young girls from taking their clothes off no matter how "simple" they think the pictures are going to be. As the film says, you might start off with your clothes on but there are perverts out there who want to see you naked. The film manages to have a couple fun performances from the two leads. I thought Kerwin was actually pretty good and believable in the role of the photographer. Downe isn't "good" by any stretch of the imagination but she brings a rather sweet and naive quality to the character that makes her work. At just 73-minutes the film seems a tad bit long at times but the director never slows the picture down too much.

While this was the, as yet, uncrowned Godfather of Gore's final film shot in B/W it was later said to have been one of the first 'Roughies' and proved so financially successful that many similarly deranged films would muckily follow in its wonderfully mucky footsteps! While probably a tad naive and quaint when seen today, 'Scum of The Earth' nonetheless maintains a strange fascination outside of it merely being a crusty ol' museum piece of celluloid history. Fans of fearless filmmaker, H. G Lewis will be only too aware of the inordinately likable, more than robust character actor, Bill Kerwin's place in the triumphantly bloody pantheon of proto-splatter history by his memorable performance in the iconic cannibal opus 'Blood Feast' (1967), so it is doubly thrilling to see future Ishtar idolator, Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) in his earlier guise as, Larry, the blithely abusive lackey to odious Lang (Lawrence J. Aberwood), the porcine head of this sordid, photographically reprehensible flesh-pot factory.

Ostensibly a cheaply made, moderately lurid morality tale, or to be pedantic, an 'immorality tale', this grubby-fingered monochrome 'expose' of crass female exploitation highlights the desperate plight of a guileless,Sherilyn Fenn lookie-likie, Kim Sherwood (Louise Downe) as she is crudely coerced into the unwilling role of 'glamour model' by arch manipulator, serial groomer of young women, Harmon Johnson (William Kerwin), erstwhile photographer, and full-time Heel! The grimily unsophisticated narrative very rapidly plunges ever deeper into the darkling mire of smut, since the fourth abject member of these insidious flesh wranglers is the vicious, over-muscled thug, Ajax (Craig Maudsley Jr.) who takes enormous pleasure in psychologically and physically assaulting these poor women into tearful submission in order to momentarily sate his openly sadistic lusts, perhaps, the estimable Mr. Lewis might have had some additionally powerful effects on future creators of extreme Japanese Pinku as well as single-handedly inventing the splatter movie genre! 'Scum of the Earth' simmers stagnantly to a marvellously melodramatic, all hellz' a poppin' climax, being tritely bookended with a pleasingly earnest voice-over from the mercurial mondo mastermind himself!

Appearing somewhat rudimentary in style and content, 'Scum of The Earth' is most certainly not without dramatic interest, since one can't help but readily sympathize with our ingenious protagonist's increasingly desperate plight, and there's an amusingly broad, almost pantomime-esque quality to her abusers nastiness! These sleazy smut-rakers and their outrageous machinations remain consistently fun to watch, perhaps a few years earlier these dastardly sinister archetypes of cartoonish despotism would have no less callously tied shrieking damsels to the train tracks whilst repeatedly swirling oily moustaches with hubristic aplomb!

Initially released on VHS by psychotronic curators 'Something Weird Video' many loons ago, it is certainly no small joy to view this formative example of H. G Lewis's trope-inventing filmmaking in much improved HD quality, perhaps not one of the more essential works from his inimitable cannon of kaleidoscopic, crimson-soaked lunacy, and while not the best place to begin investigating H. G Lewis's exhilaratingly orgiastic oeuvre but undoubtedly an important, hugely influential trashy B-Picture in its own right. Without belabouring the point, one can plainly see how utterly essential the charismatic, Bill Kerwin's myriad acting contributions have been to the continued relevance of H. G Lewis's extraordinary, convention-baiting, sin-suppurating, epoch-defining, heroically hyperbolic, celluloid freight train of midnight movie madness!

Scum Of The Earth, is about a young girl named Kim, who is asked to do portraits for a photographer named Harmon. Kim, finds out how much she will be making and it will be enough to send her to college so she agrees to model for Harmon. Soon Harmon tells her that he wants her to pose topless for the photos and that she will be paid more than double what she was making before. Kim, is scared but agrees to do it. Kim, then releases she doesn't like what she has gotten into and the boss of these photo shoots named Lang, won't let her leave and soon Kim, finds out she is in for a lot of trouble. Scum Of The Earth, is written and directed by cult filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis, who is best known for his gory horror films such as Blood Feast (and this film stars a lot of the cast of Blood Feast) but this film is not a horror. It instead is a drama about an illegal pornography ring. I'am a big fan of Herschell Gordon Lewis's low budget B horror films and I like his non horror movies as well. They aren't the best looking or acted films but they are always guaranteed to entertain and Scum Of The Earth does that. The film is compelling and I wanted to see how the story would turn out and the film got more intriguing as it went along. I would've preferred if the film were perhaps a little longer but I did like what I saw and was entertained. Another entertaining B film from the master of gore Herschell Gordon Lewis.

If anything of "SOTE" is to survive, it is the monolouge and direction of Lawrence J Aberwood's speech as Lang, where he dresses down a young model and the fury of the earth's mysogony pours fourth from his repulsive gob, as Lewis cuts closer and closer into this strange piehole of hell. I think it's probably the best sequence Lewis ever directed. If it appeared in a less rediculous film it might be more recalled, but I guess "Blood Feast" stole it's thunder. I like that when Lang knows the jig is up, he is pretty philosophical about ditching his business. I mean, how much money can you make selling cheap cheesecake in the High School underground? Aberwood's excellent work is matched by William Kerwin, who is quite believeable as the morally conflicted photographer. The rest of the cast stubbles along. As this may have been the first "roughie", there is only one rough scene and it's not that rough.

I was looking for another film called SOTE, but accidently ordered this one which I had seen years ago. The "You're dirty!" speech makes it more than worth seeing again.

"Sandy Sinclair" (Sandra Sinclair) is a pretty blonde who, for unspecified reasons, feels forced to model in the nude for a photographer named "Harmon Johnson" (William Kerwin). Likewise, Harmon also feels somewhat trapped into photographing her because another man by the name of "Ajax" (Craig Maudslay Jr.) has threatened to destroy his studio if he doesn't cooperate. However, since both Sandy and Harmon are getting paid for their efforts, they reluctantly continue. Then one day, Sandy is told by the overall boss, "Mr. Lang" (Lawrence J. Aberwood), that she can essentially retire provided that she finds her replacement. She then recommends an attractive teenager by the name of "Kim Sherwood" (Allison Louise Downe) who is currently in high school but needs money for college in the fall. At first, she is told that the pictures will be relatively modest. However, as she continues, each session becomes more and more risqué to the point that she soon finds herself being blackmailed by another accomplice named "Larry" (Mal Arnold) to pose entirely nude. Fearing that her father might find out, she does as she is told, which then results in even further degradation from both Larry and Ajax. Now, rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was a relatively mild "exploitation" picture which leaves much to the imagination. Of course, the fact that this was produced in the early '60s probably has much to do with that. The acting was okay, but in any case, this was a very basic type of film which certainly won't appeal to all viewers. That said, I recommend it for mature audiences only.