The (Ultimate) Degenerate (1969) On The Cusp

One of the last Sexploitation grindhouse "Roughies."

The Degenerate (original title) came out just before color film and pornography put a stake in the heart of the Sexploitation Roughie subgenre. Roughies usually imply there is some violence or criminality along with the nudity. Think of your typical Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer novel, filmed with barely any MPPC restraints and you get the picture. Some of these low budget films were nevertheless shot in a very artistic manner, and had real scripts and if they follow the general Cigar Joe rule about 3% of all Sexploitation films made may be hidden gems. The two I've found to be top notch so far are Aroused and The Pick-Up. The Degenerate is decidedly not top notch, in fact it's way more ridiculous Sexploitation pushing boundaries than a Roughie.

I've been searching for lost gems that somewhat unfairly get tossed into the junk pile. It's made difficult by the fact that most Sexploitation reviewers are interested solely in the Sexploitation content, and pan some quality films with barely any nudity. When I read some high praise reviews for The Degenerate I had a hunch it was gonna heavy on Sexploitation and lacking in story.

During my search I've found that some promising Noir-ish looking Sexploitations productions suddenly lose their style and quality mid film, as if the production just ran out of money and quick denouements are forced. Others use cheap inserts of stock actors and actresses with no connection to the original story to finish themselves out. There is also a lot of just low budget, barely a script, here today in the grindhouse gone tomorrow junk out there. But even some of these clunkers have value for the tendency to guerrilla shoot in Times Square and on the streets of New York City, Southern California, Los Angeles, and The Valley, and elsewhere providing snapshot in time archival footage of a era that doesn't exist anymore. Others depict long forgotten strippers and their routines and not necessarily in burlesque or strip joints settings but in say the borrowed living rooms of the film makers.

Who knows how many of these good, bad, and ugly have been lost from neglect, decomposition, or just tossed in landfills, the result of delinquent storage fees, to make room in film storage facilities. Many titles exist only in promotional stills or their yellowing posters. They were all made for the grindhouse circuit and played the theaters at most ten days or two weeks. Video was in the future.

The Degenerate starts with auto wrecking yard footage. Looks like maybe the "Iron Triangle" in Queens. But there were others in the 60-70s in Maspeth, the Bronx, Brooklyn. Our only identifier is the overhead freeway rising on concrete pylons.

"The Iron Triangle, a 13-block area between Shea Stadium and the Flushing River in Queens, is the largest single stretch of junkyards in New York City, with more than 100 auto salvage yards, repair garages and automotive shops. Wedged amid bustling commercial areas in Corona and Flushing, the triangle is an auto salvage theme park." (By Corey Kilgannon, NYT)

Maria Curtis (Uta Erickson)

A woman's voice over informs us essentially that there are no wrecking yards for human wrecks. The voice belongs to our heroine Maria Curtis (Uta Erickson). Maria is an exhibitionist. She narrates that her across the yard neighbor old Alf Ellsworth is waiting for her daily performance.

We never see his end of it. Maria opens the shade like curtain on a burlesque show or the sliding panel over the window in a peep show. To the accompaniment of a flute and bongo theme Maria strips off her house dress to the disapproval of her roommate Tammy (Donna Stone). Tammy goes all catty, tells Maria she's disgusting. Maria counters that she is a prude.

Low Angle

Tammy (Donna Stone) and Reflections

Cue the violins. Of course since this is Sexploitation the above was a lesbian lovers spat which ends with Maria and Tammy in a tongue in groove session, all simulated. The reason for all the lesbian story lines was that in 1969 only full frontal female nudity was allowed under the law. So here is another example of some type of latter day Haye's Code requiring directors and producers to go around the law creatively, have a lot of lesbians in the plots and create an appetite for a whole new kink. Prudes and the Law work in mysterious ways.

High angle

We get nice camera angles with blacks that are quite inky. The contrasts are striking. You could frame random stills in a gallery. The titles start "Rivamarsh Pictures Presents".... "The Degenerate"

The film was directed by Michael Findlay (billed  Julian Marsh) a prominent underground New York filmmaker.  Michael along with his wife Roberta Findlay, directed and produced an abbondanza of sexploitation movies. They have been described by Linda Williams in Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible" (1999), as "the most notorious filmmakers in the annals of sexploitation".

The film stars Uta Erickson as Maria Curtis (billed as Artimida Grillet), Michael Findlay as Spencer, Earl Hindman as Bruno (billed as Leo Heinz), Janet Banzet as Dora (billed as Marie Brent), Suzzan Landau as Carla (billed as Susan James), Yolanda Cortez as Chiquita, Rita Vance as Conchita (billed as Rita Thule), Kim Lewid as Blonde Theater Girl (billed as Kim Turner), and Donna Stone as Tammy.

The story and screenplay was by Michael Findlay (billed as Julian Marsh), Cinematography was by Roberta Findlay (billed as Anna Riva), and Music was by Earl Windmin.

As the credits end so does the nap lap of Tammy when Maria jiggles the roll up shade which suddenly flies upwards to display their lovemaking to their peeping tom neighbor. Tammy tells Maria that her actions disgusting.

Later a very bored Maria decides to answer an add for a job for an eccentric millionaire living up in Vermont in The New York Review of Sex, a late-sixties underground paper that was a brief rival to Al Goldstein's notorious Screw Magazine.

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She calls the number and arranges a rendezvous to meet with Bruno (Earl Hindman). Bruno is Spencer's right hand man. He placed placed the add to gather more recruits. Bruno arranges an interview in Coney Island.

Bruno (Earl Hindman) 

Maria narrates that she needed sex and she needed it her way and she hoped this sex job could provide it.

Looking back while watching these films now, it will seem to anyone viewing that the 60s and 70s were a bizarro world where preoccupation with sex was out of control. You got to remember that America had just come out of the conservative 50s. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the JFK assassination, Vietnam and the shadow of imminent nuclear annihilation was hanging over our heads. Who can blame us for wanting to "Turn on, tune in, drop out," (and have sex). Were we out of our minds or were we really the sane ones? The film crudely parallels the similar bizzare real sexaholic antics of TV Actor Bob Crane in Noirsvilles recently reviewed bio noir Auto Focus (2002).

Times Square ctrca 1969

We get some beautiful Black & White footage of both Times Square at night and aerial shots of Coney Island shot from the Wonder Wheel before Maria meets with Bruno.

Coney Island circa 1969

Maria and Bruno first meet

Maria meets Bruno, they discuss the details and head up to Vermont in Bruno's Checker Marathon station wagon.

Checker Marathon

Spencer's mansion

Spencer's mansion in Vermont has a full theater in it's basement. Maria is told to go downstairs to the theater to watch a show. The show consists of a group of naked gogo dancers dancing to rock music. They are doing "performance art" spraying each other with Reddi-wip. How sixties decadent. The sequence provides ample ogling material for the grindhouse raincoat crowd. Below.

Performance Art

 

Reddi-Wip

When we finally meet Spencer (Michael Findlay) we find out that he is a wheelchair bound "aphrodisiac" drug pushing degenerate, the ultimate degenerate of the title. He's sort of a sexual merry prankster/Timothy Leary. He has Maria brought to his dining room table where he injects her with his concoction after he has Bruno remove her clothes. Spencer tells her that she will experience the "most delicious sensations." Far out man.

Spencer (Michael Findlay)

Spencer (Michael Findlay)

Another excuse for full frontal....

Spencer has her lie on the table as if she is the next dinner course and has Bruno caress her with his hands and tongue. This provides another visual interlude that displays Uta Erickson's charms.

Voyeur Spencer

"Uta Erickson was one of the most popular actresses in New York City-based sexploitation of the mid to late-60s. She is most familiar from the films of Michael and Roberta Findlay, including The Kiss Of Her Flesh, A Thousand Pleasures, Mnasidika, The Curse Of Her Flesh, and The Ultimate Degenerate. Erickson was also a favorite of directors Doris Wishman (Love Toy), John Amero (Bacchanale), Barry Mahon (Sex Killer), and Joe Sarno. Sarno and his wife Peggy Steffans recall Erickson was of Norwegian descent, and they gave her the best roles of her career in Marcy and Passion In Hot Hollows. Where Erickson is now is a mystery, but she left behind a slew of memorable appearances in low-budget exploitation films and was a much more talented and strikingly beautiful presence than many of her contemporaries." ( Casey Scott - dvddrivein.com)

Spencer tells Maria as she is dressing...

Spencer: Sexual closet queens, men and women come to him for their amusements and to satisfy. My shows downstairs are designed to arouse, my bedrooms are designed to satisfy. I think you'll work out very well.

Bruno takes Maria up to her shared bedroom telling her that Spencer is a bit off his rocker and has imaginary men and women come to him. Maria's roomate is, of course, sitting naked with close cropped hair reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar, you could frame the still and call it "Nude in Armchair."

Maria says hello and gets no response so she decides to take a shower, this leads to a sort of Spaghetti Western Mexican standoff with a series of quick cuts with some Dutch angles of searching fingers, peek-a-boo closeups and erotic looks accompanied some sleazy bongo jazz that becomes increasingly frantic leading to what else... no, guess again, a restrained fade to black.

Dutch angle

The next morning another housemate Carla (Suzzan Landau) comes into Maria's room and slips into the bathroom, her back is covered with welts. Like any femme concerned with her looks she comes out and does some exercises, Here we get more noir-ish lighting and low angles that cast interesting shadows. Maria notices the welts.

Reflections

Carla (Suzzan Landau)

Maria asks Carla if she's a lesbian. Carla says no, Maria confesses that after Spencer's injection all she can think about is sex. Carla tells her that all the girls are pretty horny because Spencer gives them a morning concoction in their orange juice that keeps them tuned up for love. Cue the violins another artistic erotic sapphic make out session lensed by female eye Roberta Findlay you think is about to start but again it's so to speak nipped in the bud by Carla who tells Maria that she better get downstairs and not get Spencer mad.

We cut to the basement theater, and a strip show is in progress with stripper Sally (Cindy Freemont) doing her routine in front of her boyfriend.who is seated naked on a chair in front of her.

Striptease

Sally (Cindy Freemont) 

Maria enters with Carla and they sit in the theater seats. Later while watching "Chiquita Banana" (Yolanda Cortez) do her act, Spencer sends Maria up to pose for a set of pictures with Carla as the photographer. Spencer says a client wants, women covered in whipped cream, the model is Maria. Spencer also wants a lesbian photo shoot between Dora (Janet Banzet) and Maria an excuse for more sexploitation, throw in a dance by firelight and a new way to butter corn cobs. It gets a bit ridic, and definitely degenerate.

Noirsville

 "Chiquita Banana" (Yolanda Cortez) 

photographer Carla

Reddi-wip explo[tation ;-)

Betcha the Reddi-wip company never ever thought of this....

Spencer goes a bit too far when he electrocutes Conchita. This deed has Bruno switching Maria's aphrodisiac with a violence inducing hallucinogen. Maria, freaking out that the other girls are being killed by a weird couple wearing gas masks, attacks and kills Spencer with a barbecue fork in an innovated POV camera sequence.

Available from Something Weird Video. It's got interesting crisp black and white Noir-ish cinematography. It's educational in depicting how real natural women looked like in 1969 and has archival glimpses of Times Square and Coney Island. Just for the curious 6/10.