The Ultimate Degenerate (1969)

Wow! Such a good movie.

The Worst Film Ever

Charming and brutal

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

From the ever dependable Michael Findlay comes this 72 minute exercise in sadism and perversion. Uta Erickson stars as Maria Curtis, bored with her life despite her regular routine of "putting on a show" for a neighbour. She answers a personal ad, and takes off to become part of a troupe of girls that similarly "put on shows" for demented, crippled sicko Spencer (who's played by director Findlay). They're required to indulge in all manner of freakish activities, and the other girls mostly take it in stride. Maria, however, begins to wonder what she's gotten herself into.It's interesting what Findlay does with this one. It's extremely trashy, of course, with a great deal of the required nudity and sex for this genre. Performances are adequate all the way down the line. Findlay himself delivers a crazy eyed performance; Erickson is reasonably engaging in the lead. It's also quite intriguing to see Earl Hindman here in the supporting role of Spencers' scheming right hand man Bruno. In later years, Hindman became quite recognizable for his roles on 'Ryan's Hope' and 'Home Improvement', and almost assuredly tried to forget that he ever appeared in this sort of thing. The ladies are good sports, given what's required of them. Findlay shoots all of this in the most stark manner possible, with very striking black & white cinematography by Findlay's wife / filmmaking partner Roberta. It's almost like a combination of a grindhouse and an art house film. The action builds to an incredibly surreal and haunting finish, complete with madness and murder.Fans of the Something Weird catalogue will want to give this one a look.Seven out of 10.

Cruel crippled wacko Spencer (a superbly slimy portrayal by writer/director Michael Findlay) gets women through want ads in an underground newspaper to come to his remote palatial abode and perform strange sex shows for him. Spencer meets his match in the shapely form of shameless exhibitionist Maria (gorgeous blonde Uta Erickson), who becomes quite paranoid and homicidal after Spencer's bitter assistant Bruno (nicely played with seething resentment by Earl Hindman) injects her with a tainted aphrodisiac. Findlay certainly gives the viewer their grubby money's worth with this exceptionally depraved dilly: There's abundant full-frontal female nudity (60's skinflick regulars Donna Stone, Janet Banzet, Suzzan Landau, and Rita Vance all look quite sumptuous romping about in their birthday suits), lesbianism, voyeurism, wild nude dancing, torture, sadism, murder, copious use of whipped cream (don't ask), foot fetishism, sex with a corn cob (!), choice footage of Times Square in its seedy 60's splendor, and one doozy of a surprise twist ending. Roberta Findlay's stark black and white cinematography boasts some pretty trippy visuals and inventive camera angles. Earl Windmin's groovy bebop jazz score hits the swinging spot. A deliciously warped marvel.

This dreadful film has some of the worst dialog replacement I've ever heard. In fact, I don't think any sound was recorded during the filming. The oddest thing, and if the movie had been seen by more than a few pervs it might have cost the producer some money, is the fact that at 1:09:35 the music is Miklos Rozsa's "Rowing of the Galley Slaves" from the MGM "Ben-Hur" album. I sincerely doubt that the producer licensed the use of Oscar winning music for this awful movie.Most of the cast used pseudonyms in the credits, and it's completely understandable why. The producer/writer/director and his wife used pseudonyms as well. Maybe they got famous later and this film wouldn't be a scab on their mutual resumes. Bad as it is, I couldn't stop watching it until its eagerly awaited end.

Starts out as if this is going to be one of Findlay's better efforts and certainly the performances are bright enough and the voice over/lip sync works well enough, this just loses it about two thirds through. I don't know whether it was the umpteenth use of whipped cream or the over enthusiastic use of corn on the cob, but after being fairly well paced and well shot with decent sexy action, this treads water as if everyone had run out of ideas or possibly a certain someone had a penchant for the aforementioned activities and wanted nothing else. It's a shame because the first use of the cream being spurted over the nude psychedelic dancers is most effective as was the initial dealings with the phallic vegetable. Lots of oddities and some really good moments just spoiled by the over indulgent final quarter or so.