While sex was still relatively taboo on the screen, MICHAEL FINDLAY and ROBERTA FINDLAY compensated for what they couldn’t show sexually with lots of violence, the infamous “Flesh” trilogy (The Touch of Her Flesh, etc.), and some of the sickest films of the sixties (A Thousand Pleasures, The Ultimate Degenerate). But as soon as they could get away with explicit sexuality, they abandoned Sexy Shocker territory and entered the world of the Deviate. Though Michael does the voice of Dr. Rogers, this film’s shrink, he passed the writing, producing, and directing chores over to wife Roberta -- who also provides the grating voice of the heroine with a richly nasal (and hilariously out of place) Queens accent.
“Nothing was sacred on the Altar of Lust,” says Viveca Hansen as she lies on her psychiatrist’s couch. Viveca is small and homely with a sad-sack face and a long, blonde pigtailed wig that makes her look like a fairy tale Gretel. She begins her tale of woe in the fields of her Scandinavian homeland by her maniacal stepfather, Hans: “I knew then that he wanted my body! He always wanted it!” “And you had no wish to give up your virginity?” Dr. Rogers asks susspicuously. “No, never! Not to him!”
Viveca comes to Manhattan where she meets Don (HARRY REEMS) and falls in “love at first sight” -- with his dick, which we see far too much of (and in various states of attention) during the torrid course of this movie. For a while, the two live together blissfully: “We made love to each uttha wherever and whenever we wanded. Our souls met upon the bare earth and we nurtured each uttha!” Which translates as almost-but not-quite-hardcore sex scenes that -- to this particular Deviate -- is simply marvelous.
But the cohabitational bliss ends when Viveca finds Don with a “shameless” blonde vixen named Marie and makes a startling discovery: Viveca wants Marie instead of Don. “Doctah, I’m a lesbian! Can you cure me?!”
Don invites Viveca to a party in Greenwich Village and Viveca zeroes in on a gal named Linda while Don is “entertained by a belly dancer” in another room. Again, the sex scenes are among the most explicit and erotic this side of actual hardcore.
In the end, after Viveca finishes her sordid story, Dr. Rogers tries “some very unorthodox therapy” on her. Literally on her...
This is pure Smut Gold. God bless you, Miss Findlay.
From a mahvalous 16mm print. -- Don the Deviate, American Moralia
SKU: 3185
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1971
Color: Color
Starring: Harry Reems
Co-starring: Ann Young
Other cast: Betty Cook, Stan Freemont
Directed by: Roberta Findlay