Perversion for Profit

"They lack the dignity of our dutial Christian heritage." So says "outstanding news reporter" know-it-all George Putnam (pronounced 'Putt-Numb', the man can't even pronounce his own name!). He is referring to the mongers of perverse material that are covering the nation with smut and trying to corrupt our youth (let's face it, they don't have anything better to do). We sit and watch as this creepy guy narrates, talking directly to the camera (staring uncomfortably right at you) about the evils of girly magazines, nudist journals, physique pictorials "and all the rest" (as he puts it). Since soft-core pictures of women's boobies will automatically turn you into a perverted slob.

Shots of him are intersperced with barely censored illustrations from said magazines. Full page spreads from Playboy, One, Sunshine and other tepid publications are displayed, with pieces of colored tape covering objectionable areas. That is, just barely.

This movie leaved basically nothing to the imagination, in terms of whit it exhibits visually. When seen today, the film becomes something else: a fascinating look at an underground Adults Only culture. The skin magazines of the 1950's and 1960's, which were legal, were hardly as `perverse' as the harcore 16mm `blue' movies that were being made at the time. Putnam promises that `What you have been shown here is not the worst' and he'd be right, but according to him, shots of half-naked women sitting around at a pool looking bored were depraved and deranged. Of couse the major bone that the consevatives have to pick is mentioned over and over: kids can legally get this stuff. There's no drive towards a solution, though, like maybe restricting the ages, plastic wrap, etc. How typical.

Of all profiteers of perversion, it is the homosexuals who fair the worst. Putnam holds up an image of a ten-year-old boy in a g-string (not a very pretty sight if you ask me - and I'm gay), and says `See at what tender age homosexuals prefer their conquests!' And he promises us that there are also slides and movies showing tawny young men in alluring states of undress (yummy).

Also glowered upon is sado-masochism. While recent films like Secretary attempt to explain it in a positive light, most of the world is still in the dark when it comes to S/M. Can we expect a thoughtful, positive or at least somewhat enlightening view on the subject in this film. No. Mr. Putnam treats it the same way he treats everything else, by doing the verbal equivalent of stamping a great big OBSCENE on every last image he shows us.

So, it's a sad story. This film that apparently conservated a lot of peoples minds on the the subject of obscenity. Despite Putnam's claim that they aren't trying to sensationalize their presentation, it's clear that that's what they had on their minds. Yet the movie is also talky and dull. Skip to the good parts, and then never, ever watch this movie ever again.

After watching a few Ed Wood films, I think I can safely say that if you want a bad film that is truly hilarious, you should look for this one instead.

The narrator very sternly intones against the "flood-tide of filth" that he considers against Christian values, and carefully and methodically gives examples of this "filth," showing almost as much as you'd see if you'd bought it yourself. But it's not all pretty pictures: the narrator explains a bit about it as well: that people can get sexual satisfaction from hurting themselves or others, and that various forms of fetishism deserving thorough discussion are "threatening our children": "the extreme spiked heel and the tight boot, the burning cigarette, the laced leather garment, the nakedness," "the worship of the whip, the riding crop, rubber and leather garments."

Aside from the S&M, which didn't disturb me at all, the film does also focus on child pornography; it's hard to dismiss that.

Yet still, by the end of it, the film has given so much detail in decrying all these "perversions" that one wonders whether the protest were a bit more personal than the staunch narrator pretends. It's easy to imagine the writers stacking up more and more magazines, saying to themselves "oh, that /is/ perverted ... yet oddly intriguing... such a nice boot...."

I've seen a number of reviews here by people who seem to think that this film is some kind of documentary. It's nothing of the kind. This is nothing more than a good old-fashioned exploitation film.

This film had no more intention of "saving souls from smut" than "Reefer Madness" had of dissuading people from smoking pot. The whole point of the exercise is to circumvent the legal and moral restrictions of the day and to make a fast buck while doing it.

These films all follow the same pattern:

1. "XYZ is evil/immoral/deadly"

2. "Here are some examples of XYZ so you'll know it when you see it."

3. "Fight XYZ!"

As the Master of Exploitation, Dave Friedman, points out in his autobiography, "A Youth in Babylon," the idea was to get the rubes to part with a few bucks to see something they could never see at the local Bijou.

Disguise it as "hygiene" or wrap it in patriotism or religion and the cops won't bother you.

Some other classic examples of the genre are "Mom and Dad," "Sex Madness", "Exposing the Nudist Racket". I believe all of these are available online.

This film features George Putnam (who is described as an "outstanding news reporter" in the credits) talking about porno magazines. He informs us about the filth that is invading our homes and corrupting our youth and turning fresh-faced youngsters into homosexual communists etc etc. While most the film is like some sort of spoken word version of Reefer Madness, the most hilarious part is when Putnam starts reading from some pulp novel about street thugs filled with old-timey lingo and everything. First, imagine a guy who would have been described as a "square" back in the day reading the following passage with a lot of emotion: "What are we alive for but to get all the kicks we can? Sex, that's a kick. Sure damn good one. A guy can never get enough of that. Drinking, that's another kick. An okay kick. Marijuana, sure. Them's good, too. If you don't let it get the upper-hand with you. Heroin, H, there was something to be said for that. I tried it, but horse isn't such a good kick because it takes more than it gives. And before long, you use it and you don't get any kick." That's just the gist of it. There's plenty more to be made fun of here. Although, some of the stuff he brings up in here looks pretty bad. One magazine appears to contain child pornography. I'm just sitting there thinking, "Um, that's not the kind of thing you write to your local congressman about. I think think that's the kind of thing you tell the police about."

Wow. I just caught this on TCM and at first I couldn't stop laughing. Putnam's pompous and self righteous delivery was especially funny at first then it became extremely irritating. As a former deejay and radio talk show host, the delivery was making me nauseous. Of course, the problem is, that in 1965 this vocal delivery was not than unusual. Thank goodness we don't talk like that today. The production values were lower than low. The announcer (who obviously thinks he is the voice of God) stands in front of a map of the U-S and holds cue cards for the camera. As for the content, once again it started off hilarious but about half way through the repetition became annoying. I became tired of being preached at and told all things sexual were bad, evil and the work of Satan. Not to mention communists. His "facts" were incredible. The problem is they were probably just accepted as facts by many people. For instance, did you know that moral decay caused 16 out of the 19 most successful civilizations to decline and fall apart? Not the strength of their enemies, but moral decay. Who knew? Such a slippery slope. I'm very, very glad that our viewpoint on these things have changed over the years. I don't think I would like to live in a society that viewed the world in this way. I do feel almost cheated though as several of the reviewers mentioned it was 60 minutes long and the version I saw was only 30 minutes. Shucks. If you get a chance to see this go ahead and give it a look see. If you have to pay for it, don't bother. But if it's free, go for it. 12/31/2012