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The Ultimate Degenerate (1969)

Dir: Michael Findlay

We open with music that sounds like it came from some 60’s crime flick playing over footage of Maria Curtis (the lovely Uta Erikson) taking her clothes off in front of her window for the peeping pleasure of the old guy over the road.
Her roommate Tammy (Donna Stone) does not approve of such goings on and moans at Maria and her lustful ways, but she is easily enough seduced into Maria’s bed!

The opening titles now play out over Maria’s and Tammy’s love making (where we discover Maria is most definitely not a natural blonde) as sweeping orchestral tones sooth our senses and Tammy’s truly stupendous globes start to spill forth from their black lacy cradle.
It all ends in tears though when Maria can’t help herself and flicks open the blinds so the old man can see them.
Tammy storms out and a miffed Maria decides she needs to get away and find somewhere she can ’express’ her nympho tendencies, “I was sick of this stinking town and all the garbage, Human and otherwise, that littered its streets…And anyway, I needed sex and I needed it my way”.

She answers an ad in a ‘Sex Paper’ put in by a scuzzy guy named Spencer (Michael Findlay himself) who puts on shows for clients in need of illicit sexual kicks and hires ‘the right girls’ to work for him for $500.
A guy named Bruno (Earl Hindman) answers her phone call and tells her to meet him at Coney Island so he can check her out.
Bruno approves of Maria’s charms and takes her to meet the mysterious, wheelchair bound, Spencer in his remote home (but not before treating her to the sight of three lovely, very naked, ladies in a spotlight streaked basement, dancing around to a funky tune while spraying each other with whipped cream) where she is stripped and injected by Spencer with “a harmless aphrodisiac of my own concoction”.

And with that one small prick (!) Maria enters the debauched world of Spencer’s sex shows where wild sexual abandon, perverse acts and utter ruthlessness in reaching a sexual high are the only rules….

 

Along with the ‘Flesh Trilogy’, “The Ultimate Degenerate” is probably the most acclaimed creation by Michael Findlay (with the help of his wife Roberta, who has a brief cameo here as well as providing some of the post-synch voice work) and it certainly delivers where sex, nudity and all round delightful weirdness is concerned.

Wild and wonderful scenes seem to be never ending where “The Ultimate Degenerate“ is concerned in fact, and this is easily one of the most jam packed with sleaze offerings from Findlay.
From the opening strip, the lesbian loving that follows, the extended cream-coated jive and non-stop nudity in general Mike is giving us no illusions in what he is aiming for here…full on, politically incorrect sleaze.

In a film of many fine trashy moments a standout scene is when Bruno sticks a can of squirty cream (there is a lot of cream in this film!) into his fly and proceeds to ‘ejaculate’ the stuff all over a naked girl on a couch, “Take that you filthy pig”!
The actress seems to be laughing for real at what’s happening and the supremely rough and cheap way the scene has been shot makes it look almost like an off-set prank inserted into the film itself.
In general though the movie treats it’s sexual antics in a far more serious manner and it is the staging of the sex acts that adds a spark to the otherwise generally plot-less goings on.

As well as the spotlight lit naked dancing, and general bizarre whipped cream shenanigans there is an excellent sultry striptease/dance sequence, illuminated only by a flickering flame and scored to ominous music, that has the insane Spencer watching from the shadows while doping himself up on his aphrodisiac.
It’s a classic Findlay creation where sex, underlying violence and the workings of a characters diseased mind are all mixed together into a dark and sleazy brew.
Findlay also has no qualms about showing as much full frontal female nudity as possible (which moves this into a more exploitative realm than either of the first two ‘Flesh’ films, “Touch of her Flesh” and “Curse of her Flesh”) and we are lucky that he has filled the film with so many sexy, open and natural (in all sense of the word) actresses.

Erikson does fine in her nudity heavy role and handles the sex expertly, which comes as no surprise as she was prolific in 60’s/70’s Sexploitation.
From doing sex inserts for the re-edited version of Andy Milligan‘s “Seeds“ to Findlay’s own “The Kiss of her Flesh” to Joe Sarno’s “
Passion in Hot Hollows”, all the way to the highly acclaimed, cult experimental sex movie “Bacchanale”, Erickson does what she needs to do perfectly and professionally and she has a gloriously natural figure (no silicone crap and body sculpturing here).

But Erikson is not the only prime example of womanhood that the movie contains.
Almost all the other actresses were in Findlay’s excellent “The Kiss of her Flesh” and all do fine jobs at sleazing it up. Donna Nolan as the prudish Tammy makes for a striking visual treat in her black underwear with a bra that barely conceals her mammoth mammaries.
Alice Noland and Janet Banzet play two of the other girls in Spencer’s stable, namely Carla, who we meet sporting welts on her back from Spencer’s whip and who does the ‘candid’ photography for the group’ “Be good, be sensual, or else I’ll be out of a job” and Dora who sports scary eyeliner, does naughty things with cigars and likes her lovers wet.

But it’s not just the naked ladies that provide the fun.
The film brims with 60’s underground atmosphere and attitude and although much of the movie plays out inside a dark house an early sequence where Maria is contemplating her plan to leave New York gives us some wonderful footage of Times Square at night and all it’s myriad delights.
And sharp eyes will notice an illuminated cinema hoarding advertising the ‘American Premiere’ of Radley Metzger’s (“The Opening of Misty Beethoven”) adaptation of lesbian love story “Therese and Isabelle” which certainly dates this footage back to 1968.
Sadly the other hoardings can’t be made out due to the (admittedly effective) madly swirling camera.

As with all the finest Grindhouse fare the dialogue is as vital as the images and given the vast amount narrative that plays over proceedings there is much to enjoy . Maria’s musings are delightfully pretentious and fun and there are some class conversations, like this one between Maria and Carla:
“Carla, are you a lesbian”?
“Am I a what”!?
“Last night Spencer injected me with something and ever since all I can think about is sex. I want to grab you and rip those panties off and make love to you right now”
“I understand Maria, we’re all pretty horny around here, all the time”.
The post recorded dialogue does mean though that many conversations take place with as few shots of actual faces and mouths as possible, to save time and money trying to sync it all.
Something that will be familiar to any Grindhouse fan of Findlay’ s other works, and most famously the films of Doris Wishman, but it may be off-putting for some viewers.

Fast, funky jump edits are the name of the game as far as Findlay’s handling of the sex scenes is concerned, and his sexually charged images dance and flit around the screen in time with the Jazz heavy score.
He does go the more sedate route now and again where the more languid sex scenes are scored with classical music, but in general this is directed with the same funky pace as the majority of its soundtrack.

Findlay saves his crazy best though for a depraved hallucination sequence that features much flesh kissing by Bruno, many thrusting pubic mounds, bondage, skulls, naked people in gas masks, hot pokers and knives and yet more whipped cream. All filmed at crazy angles with a vaseline smeared lens and accompanied by scratchy, blaring organ music. It’s a real Findlay gem (expertly filmed by Roberta, under her ’Anna Riva’ moniker) and leads us nicely into the rather hurried ‘twist’ climax that is pretty lame, but adds some rare humour to the film.

Findlay the actor is far more subdued as Spencer than he was as the maniac Jennings in the ‘Flesh Trilogy’, and it’s left to his own lecherous looks and the descriptions of his character’s sexual kinks to add meat to the role.
Spencer not only likes to keep a stable of naked, sexed-up women but he also has a fetish for feet and their smell and likes to see corn cobs used for things you definitely won’t find in any cookery book.! In fact the corn cob scenes are in amazingly bad taste (so to speak) and you just have to marvel at the warped tapestry being weaved before you, and the descriptions, via Bruno’s overwrought narration, only add to the whole depraved craziness of this entire segment, “I thought to myself, ‘well this is too much, not even Spencer could enjoy anything as dumb as this‘. But then I saw him in the shadows and I was almost sick…he was playing with himself“.
Classic stuff.
Spencer also likes twisted S/M games resulting in one poor woman being tied to a chair and having pegs jabbed at her (very badly done) before having her intimate areas invaded by Spencer’s electrode (here Findlay does go all out, sporting a delightfully insane grin), and once again the wonder that was Grindhouse cinema does it beastly thing.

As well as the aforementioned female cast, Findlay is backed up well by Earl Hindman (also from “The Kiss of her Flesh”) who has fun as Spencer’s horny henchman Bruno (who despises his boss, but likes to enjoy the women he keeps) and takes great delight in his cream squirting antics.
All in all it’s the kind of acting adored by Grindhouse/Exploitation fans but sadly undervalued by most mainstream viewers (who let’s face it…should not be around these films anyway).

Overall then “The Ultimate Degenerate” is a fine slice of Findlay movie madness in particular and a fine slice of Grindhouse goodness in general. It delivers in all departments and, although the plot is threadbare, the many sexual, warped and basically depraved set-pieces help to ensure there is so much going on that it’s screenplay shortcomings are pushed into the background.
The bountiful amount of female flesh on display does no harm either!

Another gem of a release from ‘Something Weird Video’ (paired with the non-Findlay “The Lusting Hours” and “In Hot Blood”) that should be on every Exploitation fan’s shelf.