THE TOUCH OF HER FLESH is a typical cheap and sleazy sexploitation film from the US of A. This one's black and white, like the rest, and very cheap in terms of staging. However, it's also better-plotted than expected, with a storyline involving a guy who finds his wife in bed with another man, causing him to have a car accident and then become a psycho and going on a murder spree. This film reminded me of the work of H.G. Mikels in places but the genuine plotting is outweighed by the endless strip routines and bedroom small-talk. As ever, the version available on Amazon Prime is heavily censored.

Well, a-hem! ... This was my first introduction to the gritty works of husband and wife sleazemeisters Michael and Roberta Findlay, and it was quite an experience, let me tell you! This is about as far removed from our recent PC World as you can get! This was the first of a sexploitation trilogy of "FLESH" films that proceeded to get more and more violent, perverted and misogynistic with each filthy installment. That means they became more and more entertaining as they went along and, needless to say, this series is an absolute MUST for those men who enjoy raunchy grindhouse kicks, or men who just don't like women (and also for those of us who do, if you know what I mean). Things get a little confusing to start off with... For TOUCH, Michael Findlay directed (as "Julian Marsh") and starred as Richard Jennings, the world's first super-maniac, acting under the moniker of "Robert West" (but too bad he's not as interesting an actor as he is a filmmaker). His wife Roberta went by the pseudonym of "Anna Riva". The story deals with the anger and hatred a mild-mannered husband starts to feel for women after he finds his no-good wife screwing around in bed with another man. Running into the New York streets in a daze, he is struck by a car and loses one eye (which seems to alternately get healed and blinded again from scene to scene throughout the three movies) and also gets temporarily paralyzed. He becomes confined to a wheelchair and turns into a nutcase with an ax to grind - first against every stripper/hooker/go-go dancer he can find, and then ultimately against any member of the female race - PERIOD.There are many nude lovelies to gawk at during the 75 minute running time, and some rather inventive murder techniques for the times. But even with all the slime there is to savor here, I tended to feel that after getting off to a strong start, the pacing lagged too often with this first go-round. Things were to improve twice more, beginning with the first "sequel" in this chauvinistic series, THE CURSE OF HER FLESH. ** out of ****

Possible minor spoilers.First came the nudies--harmless fluff flicks with the cast bouncing around in various stages of undress. Then came the roughies--rape, dominations, whippings, BD/SM. And then...there were the ghoulies. And no one did the ghoulies better than Michael and Roberta Findlay, the all-time king and queen of the New York grindhouse circuit. I must say that this Flesh surprised me. I expected some shaky, cheap-thrill blood-guts-and-boobs epic...and I got a surprisingly professional, highly personal endeavor that comes dangerously close to the realm of Art. I am not kidding!Michael is Richard Jennings, a middle-class man with the archetypal Madonna-whore complex. When his wife turns out to be the latter, crippled Richard seeks vengeance against the sex industry and the women who populate it; viewed today, it eerily predicts how Bully Boy would destroy much of the vibrant, seedy world that allowed for the creation of this film. In a fantastic psychedelic discotheque sequence, a cute black go-go girl receives a poison rose and after some lengthy topless gyrations (go-go fans take note), drops dead in mid-freakout. A stripper slithers around in what turns out to be her last show. But the ultimate target is unfaithful wife Claudia (Claudia Jennings? Is this where the drive-in queen got her inspiration?), a busty blonde dubbed in Roberta's distinctive New Yawk tones.This is a steamy, seamy walk on the wild side from the people who did it best. Michael (as Robert West) turns in an excellent performance as the star psycho. The dialogue is minimal and dubbed (quite well in Richard's case); some of it is very funny--"My dear Claudia! Let me see those breasts of yours! Those breasts that he was fondling!" With a little gore, plenty of female skin, and an atmosphere thick with gritty vitality. Sadly, the film is a time capsule of a by-gone era. The Findlays are gone now (Michael has passed on, may he rest in peace; Roberta has disappeared from sight); the seedy vitality of Times Square has been replaced by soulless corporate fiberglass. If your mindset is outside the mainstream...if you think that sleaze is not necessarily a bad thing...you owe it to yourself to see this hour of monochrome madness. We miss you, Mike.

SPOILERS INCLUDED Of all the Sixties exploiteers Michael Findlay had the reputation for holding nothing back. Although for years primarily known for Seventies horror movies like the bulk of Snuff or the Yeti themed Shriek of the Mutilated- for a look at the man at the height of his powers those time machines have to be set for New York City at the end of the dirty Sixties. Findlay's notoriety began with a trilogy of movies shot between 1967 and 1969- The Touch of Her Flesh, The Curse of Her Flesh and The Kiss of Her Flesh. This- the opening chapter- introduces us to Richard Jennings (Robert West aka Findlay) a stuffy suit and tie man with an unhealthy obsession for firearms and knifes. Jennings is married to Claudia (Anna Riva aka Roberta Findlay) who is cheating on him with off Broadway actor Steve (John Amero) 'with all those weapons he could be a real lady-killer' ponders the object of Claudia's affections. When Jennings cuts home early on the way to a weapons convention he gets an eyeful of the couple making lurve. Hurt, Jennings maniacally flees from the apartment and is hit by a car- losing an eye and being temporary paralysed for his troubles. Now bitter and wheelchair bound Jennings drunkenly stares into space, planning his revenge on womankind. He delivers a poisoned rose to a stripper, then from the back of a disco, sweats it out, voyeuristically watching on with his one eye as the stripper goes down for the count to the tune of 'I've got the right kind of lovin', baby just for you'. Jennings then wheels himself to a burlesque house and executes an even more audacious killing- murdering a stripper on stage by using a blowpipe which he's discreetly smuggled in under his coat. Fearing Richard's wrath Claudia has hidden away with Janet a nude model in a woodwork factory. When the 'pig that poses nude for Claudia' is spotted chatting to a prostitute, Richard poses as a potential john for the hooker. Literally pushed back to her bedsit Jennings takes to torturing the truth about Claudia's whereabouts out of her 'I'm not afraid to hurt you, very badly'. She spills the beans but Jennings is so completely off the rails by this point that he messily stabs her to death anyway. Now fully mobile Jennings decides to pay a visit to his wife and her buxom friend. By the pictures end Jennings is tearing his wife's clothes off 'let me feel them before they die' and victoriously decapitates her with a bandsaw, but any further efforts to make the world a safer place for misogynists are terminated.... for now. Touch retains a raw power even today, but for a world where a few years previous frolics in nudist camps had been the norm- this must have been the celluloid equivalent of an almighty slap in the face. For the record, the real Michael Findlay is described as a sensitive, sweet person who for his films played out every dark idea he ever had and projected them on the big screen. Jennings transformation from businessman respectability to unkept, eyepatch wearing sex psycho amazes still, and the character seemed to have a profound effect on Findlay as well. Later he would use Richard Jennings as a pseudonym alterego in his films and as late as 1976's Virgins in Heat references to the ubiquitous Mr Jennings lurk in the background. By the mid Seventies Findlay's career was joyriding in all directions, associated with drive-in horror films like Invasion of the Blood Farmers- Findlay was also a 3-D enthusiast and became involved in a revival of the faded gimmick, it didn't work but he did get to fly to Hong Kong and supervise Kung- Fu films. Back in New York, he also followed his (then separated from) wife Roberta into hard-core including a 3-D epic called Funk. With so many tricks up his sleeve its hard to know what Findlay would have pulled out next, plans were ahead for an all out horror film a-la The Last House on the Left, but time was against him. In May 1977 Findlay made a fateful trip to the Pan Am building in New York, the rest is grim history. Viewed chronologically, there is an almost competitive streak to Findlay's films- in that much fun seems to have been had by creating sex and death scenarios even more outrageous than the last film. By the end of the Sixties Findlay had perfected his act with a near faultless sense of shock value. The 'Of Her Flesh' series particularly Touch are urban in tone, so vividly set against a New York backdrop that they are frozen in time shots of the Big Apple in its rotten 60's prime. Touch is so awash with burlesque houses, menacing neon lights and grotty hookers hotel rooms that no director really deserves to be forever tied to that era than Findlay does. For years his films were as notorious as they were little seen, both elements speculatively fuelling each other. In the late- eighties the 'Of Her Flesh' pictures emerged on murky bootlegs mostly run off directly from well projected prints- the rest of the oeuvre was in limbo. Now as we enter a new millenium most of the highpoints of the Findlay back catalogue have resurfaced giving a definite insight into the era in which Findlay defined sleaze. Sadly with Findlay and the times and places he inhabited long gone, its really all there is left. Adios Richard Jennings.