Mondo movie madness

Skin in the Fifties – Uncensored, authentic sexploitation from the 1950´s featuring The Flesh merchant
- Swedish version originally published on http://swegore.wordpress.com/


Genre: Sexploitation
Director: W. Merle Connell
Actors:
Joy Reynolds
Lisa Rack


Production year: 1956
Package: 2 DVD Disc Keep Case
Runtime: 56 min + lot of extra material. 180 minutes worth according to the cover
Subtitles: no
Language: English
Bonus materials:
Disc 1:
Four extended nude scenes from the film
Trailers for Joe Sarno films:
Moonlighting Wives
Inga
Seduction of Inga
Daddy Darling
Swedish wildcats
Confessions of a young American housewife
Vampire ecstasy
Girl meet girl
Preview trailers for:
Skin in the 50´s
Skin in the 60´s
Grindhouse trash

Disc 2:
Loops:
Blonde vs. brunette
African frenzy
Ho-hum
Skin game
Impatient model
Cuties & cocktails
Bedtime hour
Bumper lil
Nudes on a beach
Mirror, mirror
Stacy Farell
Valentine #2
Diamond Lil
Chen
Danse de l´ebandan
Follies bergere
Girl in a cage
Her one desire
Sales girls


Secret key trailer vault:
Sensual incantations
Topless Tapioca Wrestling
Forbidden desires
Taylor Wane´s erotic game
Softcore Divas: Behind the G-strings
The Breastford wives
The house on Hooter hill
The busty stag party
Dracula’s dirty daughter
Skin in the 50´s
Skin in the 60´s
How to get Alternative cinemas DVD catalogue
And a nice Booklet featuring stills and liner notes


Distributor: Secret key Motion Pictures
UPC-code: 878746002493
Writer: Christer Persson


Plot:
The young and innocent Nancy arrives unannounced to her big sister Paula in Los Angeles. Impressed with her sister’s apparent success in tinseltown with nice flat and luxurious clothes, Nancy is certain she will obtain the same things in life! Imagine her confusion and disappointment when her big sister wants her to go right back home again. Secretly she gets an address to an “Art School” from a card she finds back in Paula’s flat. Nancy has no intention to go back home at all. Nancy may be fresh of the bus, but she knows what she wants. So when Paula thinks her darling sister has got on the bus again to a happy and uncomplicated life back home, Nancy manages to get locked up in a luxurious brothel in no time at all. From now on, her only chance to survive is to co-operate with the male guests at the place or get a severe beating from the boss. Poor Nancy has been pulled into a vortex of sex and humiliation... 1950’s style!

AUDIO / VIDEO
When talking about the video, it’s not much to be happy about. 4:3 picture, but who is fooling who here! Since all the materials on the discs are low-budget productions from the fifties, no one can expect any other format than that! It is not Lawrence of Arabia we are talking about. It’s a bit of a surprise though to see so many scratches when it’s supposed to be an restored version, and when naked bodies are onscreen it gets even worse (I wonder why?). The quality of The Flesh Merchant also changes from scene to scene sometimes, but I guess there are perhaps multiply sources of film material they have put together.


The sound is better... slightly. I love the way they talk in these old movies, and you’ll have no problems hearing the dialogue or surrounding sounds. The music is good, but a bit out of context sometimes, a sweeping romantic orchestral tune feels a bit improper when the young Nancy is about to get molested... but what do I know about music? I do know that it is in 2.0 stereo sound anyway. Who needs fancy Dolby or THX sound editing?


Bonus material
The staff at Secret Key really should give themselves nice Christmas bonuses, ´cause they have been really good this year. The bonus material is amazing! If you are a smut peddler (as I am) you will really enjoy everything on these discs, and then I mean EVERYTHING!


Lets see what we got here... no less than 21 (twenty-one) loops of stripping, dancing, tennis playing (?!) girls from the 50´s. Sort of a collection of moving pin-up girls doing stuff that was really arousing at the time. These loops are quite innocent and funny, and even though some of the girls seemed to have taken a hard fall down the ugly tree, you can fully understand that men spend their small change in nickelodium-machines. Thanks to the invention of DVD, you only have to pay once for a whole bunch of them, to watch over and over again in your own house. I know you will! The qualities of the loops are not top-notch all over, but who cares? A hidden treasure that many have talked about but few have seen!


A collection of Joe Sarno trailers is included for good measure. Joe Sarno made one of the most well known porn film from Sweden, Fäbojäntan, which almost everyone knows about. I also appreciated the Secret Key trailer vault. A lot! Voluptuous girls make me a happy guy, and you have to love titles like The Breastford wives and House on Hooter hill! These trailers show that the fascination for the female body (with or without clothes) is still as popular as always.


The preview of Skin in the 60´s really got me waiting to see it. The booklet that is included is well written and interesting with some nice stills to look at when you get tired of reading so much.

Summary
Never has white slave trade and sex seemed so sweet. The acting surprised me a bit, it was better then I expected. Sure, there are no academy award winning performances in sight, but it’s kind of solid anyhow. Joy Reynolds, who looks exactly like a Gil Elvgren pin-up girl come to life and has a similar natural look as Bettie Page, is great in the lead role as the naive Nancy. The surrounding cast is not as good as she is, but no one makes a fool of themselves. On the other hand, what do I know? Most of the cast only starred in this picture.


Anyway, The Flesh Merchant really tries to be a grim reminder that the life for a working girl just ain´t as glamorous as Julia Roberts got thousands of naive American girls in the 80´s with blockbuster Pretty woman, to believe. The only problem is that director Connell did not seem to know if he wanted to make an educational film about the horrors of prostitution or if he wanted to show of light-footed girls naked. So he does both. At the same time. However, I don’t judge him, I liked the film anyhow. And as it’s only 56 minutes, you don’t have time to get bored either. However, the film is only one of the things crammed into the two discs! The loops are hilarious and a real showstopper! I know what I’m going to play on the teve the next time I throw a party at home! The twenty trailers are also obligatory to watch and the above-mentioned Breastford wives and the likes from Secret key trailer vault are more likely to make you blush, since they are newer films.


The Flesh Merchant, the 21 loops and the infinite (almost anyway) selections of trailers on the two discs makes this the kind of DVD something you really should invest in! Not only do you have the chance to experience these old forgotten classics, but you are also contributing to the noble cause of restoring and collecting movies that would be lost forever otherwise. And do you know what? You also get to see many, many naked girls in the process! Stop reading and order a copy right away!


Three things I learned from the movie:
-Never trust a bearded man! The police officers are all clean-shaven, and those you can trust.
-Apartments in the fifties were lit by many bright lamps. Much like a film set!
-What we see as “erotic dance” has changed since then.

Three things to look forward to in the movie:
-Joy Reynolds
-The loops. THE LOOPS!
-Everything... really!