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The Touch of Her Flesh (1967)

Dir: Michael Findlay

Outside of the more widely seen "Snuff", Mike and Roberta Findlay's main claim to fame (or infamy) is their "Flesh Trilogy". A triple feast of scuzzy, low budget 'Roughies' that combined nudity (sometimes full frontal) twisted sexual psychosis, much rough breast fondling and cheesy murders.

In the first of the series, "The Touch of Her Flesh", we are introduced to Richard Jennings (Micheal Findlay, using his 'Robert West' pseudonym) a salesman and weapons expert (!) with a wandering, bleached blonde, Wife named Claudia.
Coming home unexpectedly he is shocked to see her in the arms of another man. So shocked in fact that he runs out of the house (which gives us some great views of 60's New York, complete with those long lost Grindhouse theatres) and gets knocked over by a car.
Coming around in Hospital he is told that he will be unable to walk for a while, and that he has lost an eye.
Giving a false name to the Doctor, he prepares to leave his old life behind and start on his twisted road to revenge. A revenge against the loose and sinful women that represent Claudia, and ultimately to his cheating Wife herself…….

The Findlays, with Roberta handling the cinematography (as 'Anna Riva') and Mike on Directing/editing chores (as 'Julian Marsh'), have created a truly bizarre hybrid of a movie. Not only in it's mix of 'Burlesque' set pieces and psycho murders, but also in it's mix of gratuitous exploitation and an almost innocent attitude to nudity.
The women are never shown in full frontal shots in this opening episode (only breasts and bottoms are on show) and are filmed in a close up, almost loving, fashion when slowly getting undressed (this simple act is turned into a number of long set pieces, almost striptease loops in themselves). By todays standards, and some of the Findlay's own, it's very tame stuff.
There is also an obvious fondness for the topless 'Go Go Dancing' of the time and the coy stripteases, as these are also given lengthy screen time.
There is even one sequence, with a nude Woman on a bed, lying on her chest, slowly writhing and thrusting her groin into the mattress, that is genuinely erotic.

But then there are the sequences leading to the murders. Here we are given the full 'Grindhouse' menu of exploitation. Roberta zooms in on the women as they are stripped, slapped and mauled (with some very rough breast pawing) by Jennings.
Even today, combined with the fact that murder then follows, this is rough stuff and as such is prime Exploitation meat.

The murders are sadly very tame though with the death by poison rose thorn (with very slow acting poison indeed) and later a poisoned blow pipe dart (with instantly acting poison) being particularly limp.
A knifing delivers a bit of blood, but a circular saw fails to deliver on its gory promise.
So we have to rely on the aforementioned sexually violent build-ups to satisfy our trashy needs.

Jennings himself is a curious mix as well. He's an almost puritanical character in his hate of the 'wicked woman', and yet takes great self-satisfaction in his brief but sleazy sexual encounters. And as a psycho he 's lots of fun! To see him stalk and spy (with his one good eye) on his victims while clumsily trundling along in a wheelchair, with his sinister eye-patch and wicked sneer, is a hoot.
He is also given some choice dialogue. Just try not to grin as he proclaims "Let me see those breasts of yours! Those breasts that he was fondling"! .

Technically it's yet again a mixed bag. We have some great camera and lighting set ups, that create a suitably bizarre and off kilter atmosphere, but some of the dialogue scenes are flat and suffer from the old Doris Wishman problem of no having live sound.
Now and again we hear voices but it's obvious the actors are not actually speaking, and during some conversations we are never shown the person who's speaking. Instead the shot is on the person listening (which then switches around when they answer) and this creates a distracting element to the scenes.
But these are common technical difficulties with such low budget, quickly shot exploitation films, and in their own way add to the charm of the whole piece.
It could even be argued that these very difficulties are what give these films their essential 'Grindhouse' identity.

The soundtrack is a bizarre mixture (are you noticing a pattern here?) of wildly out of place classic library music and funky soul/jazz tunes for the night club/Go Go Dancing scenes.
Also worth noting are the amazing titles where tiny bits of paper, with the names of the guilty parties involved written on them in marker pen, are stuck to various strategic parts of a naked woman.

The sequels, "Curse of Her Flesh" and "Kiss of Her Flesh", would up the ante on deranged ingredients and become much more exploitative, but "Touch" still provides a suitably grimy, bizarre, camp and wickedly unwholesome example of Trash Cinema from a, now sadly gone, age where it publicly shouted out it's sinful delights from huge billboards and glaring Grindhouse cinema hoardings.