Otherwise Stupendous Vinegar Syndrome Set Marred by Incomplete Print of Lonely Sex
Vinegar Syndrome has done a great service to drive-in cinema fans by rescuing two rock-bottom exploitation "classics," Anatomy of a Psycho and The Lonely Sex, from Public Domain DVD hell with the release of this set, newly remastered in 2K from 35mm elements. The former movie is a campy early entry in the "psycho killer" genre, coattailing not only on Hitchcock's Psycho, but Anatomy of a Murder as well, while the latter is actually a serious, heartfelt, if flawed, exploration of the pain and isolation of the sexual misfit, years before such a subject could be explored openly in mainstream movies, with enough "smut" elements to get it played on the raincoat circuit. Unfortunately, while the transfer of Lonely Sex is a huge improvement on the Sinister Cinema edition I already owned, it's disappointing to find that it's missing a few minutes of footage.
As I watched my copy of the VS release yesterday, it seemed that Lonely Sex ended rather abruptly, and was missing the end...
The Lonely Sex , a stands on top of the mundane and surprises.
I have probably seen more exploitation films than most as my collection nears nears 8000 films in that genre alone. Many of these films are quite honestly meh. But the collector in me tarries on in hopes that once in awhile one rises to the top of the dung heap. What does a film produced in 1959 really have to offer that will impress completists like me? When in the following decades we are treated to films such as The Sinful Dwarf or They Call Her One Eye how can a black and white film in the genre really be memorable and more importantly a repeat view?
The acting by the three principle characters are believable, compelling with a subject matter that is timeless in todays world we live in. The first character we are introduced to is a letchorous "uncle" who eyes the daughter of one of his associates. You can almost see the bovine persperation on this sickos upper lip with each uncomfortable scene where her peeps or pops in on the girl be it in the bath or bedroom...
Recommended!
Anatomy of a Psycho
Hot on the heels of the release of Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront", Fred F. Sears made "Rumble on the Docks", which was basically a cheap juvenile re-imagining of the more famous film. This of course was only part of a larger, endearing exploitation pattern, because knocking off familiar properties surely is a whole lot easier than coming up with an entire original idea yourself. Judging by the title itself, "Anatomy of a Psycho" does this one better and piggybacks on not one, but two famous movies: `Otto Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". So we get a court sequence and some vague sense of the inadequacies of the judicial system as in Preminger, at the same time as the movie delves into the troubled mind of an adolescent. Nobody would expect a movie as good as its two most famous predecessors, but there's really a lot to enjoy here. The beautiful Darrell Howe makes for a truly fascinating psycho, even if he is obviously...
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