The Touch of Her Flesh (1967)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Weapons expert Richard Jennings (a creepy portrayal by writer/director Michael Findlay) catches his faithless wife Claudia (voluptuous eyeful Angelique) in bed with another man. Jennings blows a mental gasket and embarks on a vicious misogynistic killing spree in which he tortures and murders all women that he deems to be irredeemable scarlet harlots. The almighty sleaze cinema duo of Michael and Roberta Findlay come through with an on the money unremittingly harsh and scummy aesthetic: Plentiful tasty distaff nudity, steamy soft-core sex, buxom go-go gals shaking their stuff on stage (cue the fantastic R&B tune "(I Got) The Right Kind of Love"), lots of great footage of 60's New York City in all its seedy splendor (the scenes at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in particular are absolute gold; bet that stuff was shot sans permits!), a dazzling array of trashy underwear, and jolting moments of sadistic violence that pack one hell of a wicked punch (a beheading by buzz saw rates as a definite brutal highlight). The stark black and white cinematography provides a cool noir look. The deliberate pacing proves to be oddly hypnotic. Noted soft-core auteur Joe Sarno's fetching brunette wife Peggy Steffans is memorably sexy as a hooker victim. Best of all, the whole rough'n'ready upfront style of this fabulously fetid flick gives it an extra seamy (and discomfiting) edge. Essential viewing for hardcore grindhouse movie aficionados.

If you would look up the term "misogyny" in the dictionary, there's a fair chance there will be a poster image of this little movie next to it. The DVD box describes this film as one of the most shameless, sordid and sleaziest exploitation movies of the sixties, and also one of the most inexplicably profitable ones. Apparently "Touch of her Flesh" was a huge success in the so-called Grindhouse circuit and almost promptly – within just one year – spawned two similarly titled sequels. Well, all these aforementioned things may be true but the reputation should also include that "Touch of her Flesh" is dreadfully boring and contains an impossibly high amount of insufferable padding sequences. Richard Jennings, a dork with a passion for weapons, walks in on his wife having sex (well … more of a breasts-fondling marathon, really) with another guy, runs out of the house whiningly and bumps into a car. Short one eye but with a hatred towards women that keeps increasing, he goes out to kill random girls that use their luscious bodies to seduce poor and defenseless men. His victims include a go-go dancer, a prostitute and a nude model before going after his own unfaithful wife again. Admittedly this sounds pretty horrific and like the ideal sexploitation guff, but unfortunately the actual murders take less than a seconds whereas the "preludes" seem to last forever! Okay, granted, these girls are pretty hot and they all have sensational racks, but watching them swing around for ten whole minutes is just plain dull. Jennings' monologues are what make this a true 60's sick-flick, as he compares women with everything that is filthy, unreliable and scum. "Touch of her Flesh", as well as its two sequels, is the work of the notorious director's due (and married couple) Michael and Roberta Findley. Together, they made a lot of infamous but overall terrible exploitation flicks. Ironically enough, Roberta delivered her best work ("Tenement: Game of Survival", "The Oracle") after her hubbie died in a helicopter crash

Well, a-hem! ... This was my first introduction to the gritty works of husband and wife sleazemeisters Michael and Roberta Findlay, and it was quite an experience, let me tell you! This is about as far removed from our recent PC World as you can get! This was the first of a sexploitation trilogy of "FLESH" films that proceeded to get more and more violent, perverted and misogynistic with each filthy installment. That means they became more and more entertaining as they went along and, needless to say, this series is an absolute MUST for those men who enjoy raunchy grindhouse kicks, or men who just don't like women (and also for those of us who do, if you know what I mean). Things get a little confusing to start off with... For TOUCH, Michael Findlay directed (as "Julian Marsh") and starred as Richard Jennings, the world's first super-maniac, acting under the moniker of "Robert West" (but too bad he's not as interesting an actor as he is a filmmaker). His wife Roberta went by the pseudonym of "Anna Riva". The story deals with the anger and hatred a mild-mannered husband starts to feel for women after he finds his no-good wife screwing around in bed with another man. Running into the New York streets in a daze, he is struck by a car and loses one eye (which seems to alternately get healed and blinded again from scene to scene throughout the three movies) and also gets temporarily paralyzed. He becomes confined to a wheelchair and turns into a nutcase with an ax to grind - first against every stripper/hooker/go-go dancer he can find, and then ultimately against any member of the female race - PERIOD.There are many nude lovelies to gawk at during the 75 minute running time, and some rather inventive murder techniques for the times. But even with all the slime there is to savor here, I tended to feel that after getting off to a strong start, the pacing lagged too often with this first go-round. Things were to improve twice more, beginning with the first "sequel" in this chauvinistic series, THE CURSE OF HER FLESH. ** out of ****

Possible minor spoilers.First came the nudies--harmless fluff flicks with the cast bouncing around in various stages of undress. Then came the roughies--rape, dominations, whippings, BD/SM. And then...there were the ghoulies. And no one did the ghoulies better than Michael and Roberta Findlay, the all-time king and queen of the New York grindhouse circuit. I must say that this Flesh surprised me. I expected some shaky, cheap-thrill blood-guts-and-boobs epic...and I got a surprisingly professional, highly personal endeavor that comes dangerously close to the realm of Art. I am not kidding!Michael is Richard Jennings, a middle-class man with the archetypal Madonna-whore complex. When his wife turns out to be the latter, crippled Richard seeks vengeance against the sex industry and the women who populate it; viewed today, it eerily predicts how Bully Boy would destroy much of the vibrant, seedy world that allowed for the creation of this film. In a fantastic psychedelic discotheque sequence, a cute black go-go girl receives a poison rose and after some lengthy topless gyrations (go-go fans take note), drops dead in mid-freakout. A stripper slithers around in what turns out to be her last show. But the ultimate target is unfaithful wife Claudia (Claudia Jennings? Is this where the drive-in queen got her inspiration?), a busty blonde dubbed in Roberta's distinctive New Yawk tones.This is a steamy, seamy walk on the wild side from the people who did it best. Michael (as Robert West) turns in an excellent performance as the star psycho. The dialogue is minimal and dubbed (quite well in Richard's case); some of it is very funny--"My dear Claudia! Let me see those breasts of yours! Those breasts that he was fondling!" With a little gore, plenty of female skin, and an atmosphere thick with gritty vitality. Sadly, the film is a time capsule of a by-gone era. The Findlays are gone now (Michael has passed on, may he rest in peace; Roberta has disappeared from sight); the seedy vitality of Times Square has been replaced by soulless corporate fiberglass. If your mindset is outside the mainstream...if you think that sleaze is not necessarily a bad thing...you owe it to yourself to see this hour of monochrome madness. We miss you, Mike.