60's Michael Findlay Part One

THE TOUCH OF HER FLESH

(1967)

Overall: WOOF

The first in roughie sleazebag "filmmaker" Michael Findlay's Flesh Trilogy was The Touch of Her Flesh, which sets up the saga of his misogynistic, women-murdering, eye-patch-wearing sociopath.  After catching his stripper wife cheating on him, Findlay's Richard Jennings runs out into the street, gets hit by a car, loses his eye, is crippled for a few months, and then decides that all women who take their clothes off deserve to be killed.  To say that there is anything else to this movie or the following two in the series would be disingenuous, but the seedy nature of the "story" is only part of its lasting infamy.  Shot with no sound, the sparse dialog that never matches anyone's lips is added in post and at least an hour and seventy minutes of the hour and seventy-eight minute running time is spent with naked women dancing, fornicating, or just being naked.  It may be of historical interest to slasher buffs since it kind of qualifies, (be it on the Z-grade nudie flick variety), but make no mistake, this is the definition of trash when it comes to celluloid.

THE CURSE OF HER FLESH

(1968)

Overall: WOOF

 

For round two of the Flesh Trilogy, Michael Findlay and wife Roberta made a comparatively more professional "movie", (meaning that there is actual proper sound recorded this time and not just loose dialog tossed in off camera), but one should still have their expectations lower than low with the resulting The Curse of Her Flesh.  Findlay's serial killer returns with no explanation as to how he survived being shot in the heart with an arrow, plus we also get his dead wife's lover as an even worse character, one who prattles on and on like a beatnik chauvinist and shares Findlay's disdain for any woman that has had sex with anyone.  Once again, the opening credits are the most interesting part, (they were projected on Roberta's naked body in The Touch of Her Flesh and here they are graffitied on a bathroom wall), plus Findlay stages a genuinely dangerous fight scene on a moving pickup truck for the finale.  Otherwise, this is the same insultingly boring hogwash that shoehorns in a "plot" yet is overwhelming focused with naked ladies doing naked lady things for untold minutes at a time.

THE KISS OF HER FLESH

(1968)

Overall: WOOF

Closing out the Flesh Trilogy was The Kiss of Her Flesh; Michael and Roberta Finlay's third and last movie from 1968 which collectively look as if they cost eighty-five cents to make.  This roughie continues the Jezebel-killing exploits of Finlay's Richard Jennings, (and the credits show up as pieces of paper over you guessed it, a naked lady's body), only this time he is hunted down by the sister and her husband of the guy that he killed at the end of The Curse of the Flesh, so oh how the tables have turned.  The opening scene features Findlay sucking on boobs and torturing a woman with crab claws before electrocuting her through her hoop earnings and things do not get anymore wholesome from there.  As opposed to the previous entry, we are back to recording everyone's dialog in post and then poorly matching it to the actor's mouths, but the lustful depravity is even more icky than usual since we also have acid douche, poison semen, incestual sister sex, fake German accents, anal beads being pulled out of Earl Hindman's ass, and Findlay's dong getting tied to a string that is attached to a gun that will go off if he gets a hardon.  It is easily the most inventive in the series when it comes to diabolical sleaze, but it is also the one that will most require a shower after viewing.