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Confessions of a Psycho Cat. (1968)

Dir: Eve/Herb Stanley

Naked, trippy, hippy swingers are stripping and rolling around with each other (in nude inserts supposedly shot and edited into the original straight horror/thriller version of the film 3 years later) and moaning that 'drug dude' Buddy has not come-a-calling. All these guys and gals have is some pot and they want something stronger.

Cue shots bugged out Buddy being suddenly being chased into a park by a crazy looking, riding crop-wielding Woman and another man.
After a crazy, Funk/Jazz fuelled chase where he ends up in a lake with an arrow in his leg; Buddy is saved by a handy bit of floating foam rubber and hides at the flat of the naked swingers. With topless totty draped over him he proceeds to tell his tale….

Buddy and two other Men (a down on his luck Actor named Charles Freeman, and an ex Championship Wrestler named Rocco, played by 'Mr Raging Bull' himself Jake LaMotta!) have been invited by a Virginia Marcus (Eileen Lord), the crazy woman herself (who's demented ways are explained by an hysterical childhood flashback where we see her obnoxious Brother hurl her little dog off the roof of a skyscraper!), to take part in a wager.
In a room with walls literally covered in animal skins and heads, she tells them that they will receive a post dated cheque for $100,000 and if they can stay alive for 24 hours..they will be able to cash the cheque.
The catch is she and her manservant will be hunting them down, and if she catches them she will kill them!

All three men have at one time killed someone, but been acquitted of the crime, Rocco killed a Wrestler in the ring, Freeman killed the Husband of his lover with a razor and Buddy gave a girl an overdose, and now all three need the money. So they agree and the hunt is on……

 

This demented excursion into the realms of obscure quickie cinema is made memorable by the performances and the delightfully bizarre cinematography.
Eileen Lord should have made more films (this would seem to be her only one) as she steals scenes with ease. With her huge pile of flyaway raven black hair, crazed staring eyes and massive champing mouth she rips up the screen. She goes from crazed loon to a, stuffed toy cradling, state of catatonia with convincing ease. And Lord is obviously having great fun with her role.

The other stand out is Jake LaMotta. Not that he's good, he's not, but he carries so much iconic baggage with him that to see him rant and snarl and spit his lines out is a sick joy for exploitation film fans. His punch-drunk features are spread across the screen via fast, zooms and his thundering, lopsided mouthed delivery of lines like "I'm not afraid of nothing, I am the champ" have a perverse fascination. It's pretty easy to see that ol' Jake was shouting out such dialogue as LaMotta the ex Boxing champ, just as much as Rocco the ex Wrestling Champ.

The aforementioned camera zooms are also joined by distorted fast pans, crazy camera angles, warping of the images and the ever present screeching Jazz score (that sounds like a group of acid trippers were left alone in a room full of instruments) to create a genuinely striking bit of 60's hallucinogenic. Psycho dementia.

Highlights are many, but the stand-outs are the razor murder flashback of Freeman's (where the white bathroom is spattered with black blood and the unfaithful Wife chews her knuckles as her black eyeliner framed orbs roll into craziness), the mad chase through the park with Virginia slapping her riding crop around like a whacked out General and the truly surreal duel between our 'Psycho Cat' (dressed in full bull fighter's gear including cape and sword) and a bellowing Rocco. If Scorsese and DeNiro had re-inacted stuff like this in "Raging Bull" perhaps it would have been a hit!

The added nude scenes slow the film down somewhat, especially one sequence involving a bearded bore who just can't get into the swing of things due to the thought of Buddy having a cheque for $100,000 (there is a lot of dialogue mentioning the original plot in these scenes to try and link them in) that is badly placed as we are building to the finale.
Although entertainment is supplied by a scene where he pulls down a ladies top and declares "Erm..you are a Woman"!

The funniest edited in sequence involves Rocco talking to a Hooker in his room. You can see the legs of the original actress, but she must have kept her underwear on. Due to this disgraceful behaviour she was obviously removed and a topless actress replaced her in badly staged (the posters on the walls don't quite match the ones in the original footage) dialogue exchanges with a ranting LaMotta. Try not to laugh too hard as she utter lines like "I'm sexy and that's what I came up here for…sex" as she kisses her reflection in a mirror!

So what we have is a long lost (now thankfully available again via a wonderful DVD from 'Something Weird') little gem that, some problems with the obvious padding scenes not withstanding, is a twisted, hallucinogenic, demented slice of 60's Exploitation fun.
Meow!