A Sweet Sickness (1968) Sexploitation Cinema Verite

Cue the exquisitely appropriate cheap surf guitar music.....

"Hollywood, to millions is still the glamour capital of the world. But I've seen a lot of changes in the past few years. Back in the 20s and 30s little gals from the Midwest would come to Hollywood to meet the right producer, get discovered. Some did become stars overnight, and built huge mansions to let the world know they'd arrived. They'd throw fantastic parties at the expensive nightclubs on Sunset Strip. The days of the super glamorous stars seem to be gone and the super night clubs have changed into hangouts for hippies and teenyboppers.

One thing that hasn't changed in Hollywood though is the constant invasion of young gals from all over the country coming to Hollywood to be discovered. But a fabulous body isn't enough. It also takes talent, a lot of talent. Most starry eyed young beauties end up on the "casting couch" and a one way ticket back to hicksville."

"The struggle never ends it's sort of a sickness, but it's a "sweet sickness" because there's always promises of another chance.... It maybe next year will be your year. Promises that go on around the clock that somehow begin in the excitement of night and end in the sobering reality of dawn." (Narrator)

Cue the sexploitation jazz. Cut to a break of dawn Hollywood Blvd. A water truck washes away last nights garbage and pecker tracks down the sewers. Cut to Hollywood bungalow window. Zoom into a bedroom with an alarm clock going off it's 7:00 AM.

So begins A Sweet Sickness, directed by actor Jon Martin. The film was written by G. Foy. Cinematography was by Manuel Conde. Film Editing by Ray Nadeau and Sound Paul Hunt

The film stars Vincene Wallace (Vixen! (1968)) as Dee (credited as as Vincene Craddock), Vicki Carbe as Connie (credited as Vicki Corbe) Art T. Romans as Dave, Poochie Norton as the Club M.C. Victor Izay (Young Guns (1988)) as Drunk / Producer (credited as Victor Sandor), Dick Osmun as Landlord (credited as Dick Osmon), Marguerite Zalud as the Dancer and Raul and The Revelations as the Band.

Dee (Vincene Wallace)

Connie and Dee

Connie (Vicki Carbe )

Catherine the "bad" girl shares an apartment with her friend Dee. Dee is the "good" girl, but she can't make her half of the rent. Catherine has to catch a flight to a three day 750 buck gig in Vegas. She's a somewhat successful TV actress stage named Connie Stevenson.

Our voice over narrator tells us that Connie has learned the rules of the game and that she now works regularly. Dee is the newbie. Connie tells Dee...

Connie: The only way to get anywhere in the business is to put out a little, and besides no one needs to know.
Dee: I'd know.

Connie leaves for her trip. The bungalow manager bare chested, wearing a "Big Lebowski bathrobe," flip flops, and jeans sees her go and heads over to No. 1. He knock on the door. Dee thinking it's Connie opens it. She just wearing her panties the manager pushes his way in. He pushes her back on the bed and begins to kiss her. Dee fights back at first but is soon moaning.

Cue the bongo flute instrumental

In an early use of shaky cam we get a love making sequence.  In a reflection of a sleazy paperback title .....

Dee's half of the rent taken care of.

Dee goes to see her agent Dave. He's got her a gig at the Bonanza gogo club. Its a strip auction, but he tells her he has to see her he with her clothes off.

Obviously a lot of women look better with their clothes on, can't have saggy boobs, cellulite, appendix or cesarean scars, no? He puts on cheap guitar jazz. and Dee strips. She's not wearing a bra but does wear panties, a garter belt and stockings.

Dee's Strip Dance

After her performance her agent reaches out for a grab. Dee tells him if he does she'll call the cops. She runs out of the office. Later the agent calls her at the bungalow. He tells her he's still got that stag dinner auction at the gogo club. He tells her it pays 250 bucks less his cut, and whatever you make after the performance is yours to keep. This is the kind of business we're in he tells her. After you make it big you can spit on them.

Dave's Call

Dee does the gig. Afterwards while a real gogo dancer does her routine. While Dee gets dressed she has to fight off the "panty" auction winner who tells he he wants what was it the panties, and the pissed off club manager who expected her to be putting out. But he pays her the $250.

Bonanza Club

Strip Auction

Note: The real gogo dancer Marguerite Zalud's routine was very tastefully erotic and artistically impressive. Another archival gem that is a bit of priceless preserved 1968.

Marguerite Zalud

When Dee gets home Connie calls and tells her she'll be staying longer. Dee tells her she's going to look for her own apartment. Connie is in bed with another showbiz type, this cues another cheap guitar music seven minute artistically shot sexploitation interlude.

Dee's apartment hunting leads her to a high rise where the agent showing her the place is really a pornographer who chloroforms her from behind when she opens the refrigerator door.

chloroform 

When Dee come to she's laying wearing only her panties on a mattress. Some one gives her a joint. She smokes it. A standing cameraman is filming and taking stills. Two other women and the realtor/pornographer are sitting on either side of her. The other women begin to disrobe. Cue the psychedelic music, some floating camera movements and lens distortion gives the next sexploitation sequence a very trippy feel. We also get more Reddi wip.

Psychedelic Porn Shoot 

It was obviously something that caught the popular imagination at the time judging from Herb Alpert's breakout album covers popularity.

"....the photo surely help propel Whipped Cream & Other Delights, released in 1965, into the number-one slot on Billboard’s list of top-selling LPs for 1966, beating out The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, The Mamas and the Papas, Lou Rawls, and Barbra Streisand." (Bruce Handy, Billboard)

The session ends with Dee lying fully clothed in the bottom of a phone booth smelling of booze and getting woken up by policemen. When she takes them to the scene of the crime nobody's there.

in a phone booth

Dee decides enough is enough, and she decides to take Connie's advice and use the casting couch to screw her way to stardom in Noirsville.

Noirsville

Capitol Records Building in b.g.

Fredericks Of Hollywood on right

casting couch

Welcome to sleazy "Big Time" Hollywood Dee

The film is like a strange Cinema Verite, what it's sort of warning about, i.e., women sleeping their way to the top, is similar in that particular storyline to Pre Code Baby Face (1933) with Barbara Stanwyck. It also reflects actress Marilyn Monroe and others back in the day screwing and blowing their way up the studio talent ladders, and which is obviously is still going on today with the latest Harvey Weinstein scandal. Here without MPPC moralizing the film has Dee and Connie actually doing and condoning it in the process. How noir is that.

This is another archival film of interest with a lot of footage of Hollywood Blvd vintage 1967-8.

A Sweet Sickness is just another example of the quote from The Last Drive In.

""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!"  (thelastdrivein.com)"

Screen caps are from a Something Weird Video screener. 6/10