We All Go Down (1969) Junkie Sexploitation Noir

“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.”

― Pablo Picasso

"FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…
THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NO WHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!" (The Last Drive In)

Directed by Gerard Damiano, his first film.

Produced by Gerard Damiano. Cinematography by
Eric Breitbart. Music by Horn O. Plenty. Film Editing by Gerard Damiano (as Jerry Gerard) Sound Department Tony Fresto.

The film stars Bill Doukas as Pete, Alice Haley as Nancy, Justine Simmon as Peggy, Gillian Martine as Judy (as Kelly Kurtis), Daniel Moge as Rick, Bob Shoffuer as Burt, James Burnette as Jay, Ada McAllister as Carrol and Jayson Troy as the Pusher.

The film is an envelope pusher, it's Noir more in its subject matter than in its somewhat basic cinematography, though it does have a few noirish stylistic flourishes. There are no redeemable archival footage sequences of the streets of New York City or of Times Square. Everyone in the film "Goes Down" one way or another. A junkie's obsession. alienation, and self mutilation, the 60s sexual revolution, human relationships, with the cloud of nuclear annihilation driving the crazy cultural cab. But it's mostly about making a buck on the Sexploitation/Grindhouse theater circuit. The film knows it's audience.

Nancy (Alice Haley) and Pete (Bill Doukas)

A junkie Pete, hits up his gal pal Nancy for doe. She wants more from the relationship he just looking for a fix. She asks him to stay a little while and make love to her. Another majorly screwed up New York City woman. With all the millions of NYC guys to choose from Murphy's Law she picks the junkie.

She's dripping for it. But this is Sexploitation, There's no teary eyed pining for the jerk, snooze Pete you loose. No sooner does Pete split, Nancy heads for apartment mate Peggy's bedroom.

Peggy (Justine Simmon)

Peggy: Is that creep gone? I don't mean to harp on you but he's no good. All he wants is money.
Nancy: Peggy please!
Peggy: OK. I'm sorry I mentioned it, I just don't want you to be hurt, that's all.
Nancy: Your bitching isn't helping any.
Peggy: I'm sorry I've been in love like that myself, I'll take your mind off him.
Nancy: Now your talking...

Cue the cheap hip guitar music. We get a stylish lesbian encounter between Peggy and Nancy. There is no hardcore anything, but plenty of T&A&B and simulated tongue in groove. The poor girls just cant help themselves. This was the year full frontal female nudity became legal, and the reason for all the lesbian slanted story lines.

tongue in groove

forgetting Pete....

Cut to a topless/bottomless bar and cue more cheap guitar music, however according to Joe Tedesco (who was in the editing room with Damiano, the composer and a Moviola) the topless dancers and other scenes were shot and  inserted post production at the producers suggestion once it became kosher to do so and. Hey, the more money they could rake in from the grindhouse crowds on 42nd Street the better. This is the reason you never see Pete and his buddies really looking at the dancers, or any shots of them together.

lt. to rt., Bert, Rick and Pete

Anyway the show consists two gogo dancers. A brunette, a blond, and one costume between them. The brunette wears the black trimmed sequined bikini top, the blond wears the matching bikini bottoms. You're left to assume that on their next set they switch out with the brunette wearing the bottoms and the blond wearing the top. What else can those poor gals do?

Pete, his friend Rick and Bert are drinking beers. Pete is all twitchy, fidgety, itchy. He's chewing on a straw. He's scored but hasn't shot up yet. Bert, a spoiled rich boy, is ragging on Pete about being an addict. Pete can wait any longer and heads to the men's room to geeze the junk he copped. Here we get a nice juxtaposition of Rick at the bar vs the bar top gogo dancers vs Pete taking out his outfit, rolling up his sleeve, wrapping his belt around his arm to pop his veins and shooting up.

Bert tells Rick that if it wasn't for Pete's parents Long Island Sound beach house and the parties they throw there he'd have nothing to do with him. Rick tells Bert that Pete's alright if you get to know him. Bert changes the subject to Rick's girlfriend, tells Rick that she got him wrapped around her finger. Bert tells Rick that he knows about a cool party he should got to, to cure him of his girlfriend.

right Judy (Gillian Martine)

Cut to Judy and her mother at a kitchen table. They are having a discussion about how to handle men. Her mother tells he that he'll come back with his tail between his legs. The doorbell rings it's Rick and Pete.

Judy flips out when she sees Pete with him. They leave. Rick ditches Pete and heads to the far out party that Bert told him about. At the psychedelic poster festooned apartment party there's chicks, booze, and joints being smoked.

the party

smoking weed

rolling a joint in a "groovy" apartment

Of course the weed soon has one couple shucking off their threads. Cue the bongo & flute music. The others watch, get horny, and begin to get it on. Rick splits.

Meanwhile Pete wakes up at his dad's beach house with Carrol, another of his girlfriends watching him. She wants him to quit doing drugs. Pete tells her he loves her, Carrol replies you love drugs. Soon Rick arrives with Bert and Jay the girls arrive later. The crowd of people has Pete freaking out again. He can't handle it. Carrol tries to stop him from going to his pusher.

Ada McAllister as Carrol 

Pete: I gotta get a little A...I can't cut this straight...There's too much happening...I can't make it...This is freaking me out...It's too much...I have to have some A..."

He goes off to score more A, his pusher only has acid. The pusher tells him it will tide him over till tomorrow.

Acid tonight, A tomorrow!

The Pusher (Jason Troy)

Pusher: Acid tonight, A tomorrow!

Back at the beach house of course, another orgy begins. Burt the "moralist" against addicts is trying to screw Judy. Degenerate Jay plies Carrol's sixteen year old cousin with booze while taking off her clothes hoping to have sex with her.

Noirsville

Pete sitting in his caddy drops acid and has a bad trip. He hallucinates among other things, his two girlfriends Nancy and Carrol hiding under a blanket who both strip off their bras and panties and throw them at him when they are revealed. Himself hanging crucified while both women give him love bites him on the neck. Then Nancy coming towards him with a gigantic hypodermic which she injects into his belly. Bizarrest of all has Pete himself floating before a surreal giant orgasmically contracting vagina. It looks like a hairy giant snapper trying to devour him. It alone is worth viewing the film for, lol.

Acid Trip

Pete freaking out comes to momentarily in the car and runs into the beach house and yells that he's drowning. When Burt and Jay don't want to get involved or call an ambulance Pete gets up and cuts off his own finger.  Reluctantly Burt drives Carrol and Pete to a hospital but forces them out on the street rather than get involved.

Back in her apartment, Nancy answers the door and finds out that Pete sold her to his pusher for a bag of junk. The guy at the door covered the expense and bought her from him. He tells her he's going to collect one way or another.

going to collect

Nancy is at first outraged but apparently still horny for a man. She decadently tells him she'll make sure he gets his money worth and begins a striptease.

The film ends with Pete getting released from a drug recovery sanitarium. When Rick arrives to pick him up Pete tells him no thanks, a "real" friend would have helped him more.

In the hierarchy of Exploitation films dealing with sex the stages were Nudie Cuties, Sexploitation, Roughies, Rough Core, and White Coaters. White Coaters functioned as the old Public Service films showing what was forbidden in the guise of doctors studies and cautionary warnings about sex. The next step was straight Hard Core loops.

We All Go Down is a curiosity because it's right on the cusp between Sexploitation and Rough Core. Screen caps from Something Weird Video. Some interesting bizarre sequences but still a pretty amateurish production on the whole. 5-6/10.