Sunday, March 20, 2011

Torture Me, Kiss Me (1970)


Director: David R. Friedberg

Starring: Linda Boyce, Elaine Seagal, Frank MacIntosh, Blaine Quincy, Christine Cybelle, Wendy Wood, Nick Linkov, Alf Geisler, Jan Saint, Uta Erickson (as Lesbian with Banana) and the Third Reich of New Jersey.

More Info: IMDb

Plot: Count Henri de Prave revisits the French bistro where he played a small part in the downfall of the Nazis years earlier. He recounts the story of how the evil Nazi Commandant Max von Hildebrandt, a friend of the Count, came to France with his sadistic ways and his ultimate downfall.

My rating: 2.5/10

Will I watch it again? Absofucking not, unless there's a special edition Criterion DVD loaded with extras including a director's commentary who explains what the fuck they were thinking.


With only just a few more films left to watch, I think I've just reached the bottom of the Nazisploitation genre's barrel. This 72 minute flick is about as dull as dull can get. Every, and I do mean EVERY, aspect of this thing is inept.


There is nothing here that suggests any reason for being filmed. I hope somebody made money off of this because at least then an argument can be made for going through with it. The only thing that kept me from giving this a 1 are a few little bits that are so bad they're good.


For example, after SEVERAL dull minutes of kissing and barely undressing the lovely frauleins, Max gets a call from his superior with some good news...

"I've been made Commandant in France!"

IN France. Not OF France or of a specific camp but IN France. Classic.

What makes this (and Blaine Quincy as Max) hilarious is that Quincy is really trying to do a good job of acting but his lack of experience prevents him from pulling it off without looking like he's in a bad high school play that's desperately trying to keep from capsizing. If he had played it more relaxed it wouldn't have been so bad. Normally playing it straight gets bigger laughs but not here. And while I'm at it, most of the players have thick NY/NJ accents including Quincy.

Ilsa (Christine Cybelle) is absolutely adorable (and the best part of the movie)
and she needs to have my Jersey-accented Deutsche babies.

I guess the budget didn't allow for shackles. The girls simply hold onto the chains!


Ray Stevenson's lesser-known halfwit brother.




Here's a couple of scenes that didn't make a lick of sense except that it padded the picture with skin.

Now, I'm all about a nude picnic...



but nude outdoor sponge baths are even better!



Here's Max bringing his Nazi work to bed while Ilsa needs some that sieg heil action.



Oh, yeah! I like where this is going!


What do you suppose they're going to do with that pre-peeled banana? (BTW, was the actress that incompetent that she couldn't get behind the concept of peeling her own banana?)









They're going to eat it, what else you pervert?








I love how the girl on the right looks up before she bites the banana as if she's thinking about not doing it.

I can go the live long day about how bad everything is but there's nothing in the film that couldn't be made better by cutting it down. It's only 72 minutes but this is one of those low budget, low talent movies that has an excessive amount of padding - lots of driving, lots of walking, lots of wasted film used for no purpose other than to make it longer. TORTURE ME, KISS ME could be cut down to a half hour and easily made watchable. As it stands, the few bits that might get a giggle out of you lose their impact because of all the lifeless bullshit on either side of it. Gee whiz, the girls are cute as hell and there's stuff in here I'd really dig seeing again but the director blew it by killing off everything interesting with all that other nonsense.

I've got lots of questions for anyone who can hook me up with anyone involved with this picture. The more I talk about it the more I like it and I'm likely to upgrade this to a 5 before this post is over. Somebody stop me.





I really wish I had some editing experience with some program to the point that I could tackle fucking with something like this to shorten it to see if it would help. It couldn't hurt. I'm willing to be that a considerably shorter version, say like about 20-30 minutes long, with some friends and liquor could make this a very entertaining film. Unless it's you that likes to be tortured, avoid this one. It's for die hard Nazisploitation completists only. Available from Something Weird Video.

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