The Alley Tramp

Enjoyably terrible, Z-grade stag film. Some unintentional laughs, though not consistently funny. Herschell Gordon Lewis is no Ed Wood, but this cinematic trash is good for a few chuckles.

Alley Tramp, The (1968)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Horror master Hershell Gordon Lewis took a break from the gore and went for sex and nudity in this over the top sex comedy. The film tells the story of a 16-year-old girl who catches her parents having sex so she rushes to her third cousin and the two begin sleeping around. Although she's in love, the teenage girl wants sex with more men and that includes her mother's secret lover. I'm sure this type of trash played all over 42nd Street in various Grindhouse theaters and on that level the film is a minor success. As you'd expect, the acting is laughably bad as is the script but laughter is good in these types of films. When the girl seduces her cousin it's rather sexy and hilarious at the same time. There's also some hilarious moments with the girl's father as he tries to avoid having sex with his wife. There's plenty of T&A from the mother and daughter so if you like trashy fun then this should be right up your alley.

You could do a lot worse with 69(!) minutes of your time. Here is a tight little potboiler of 16 year old Marie and her sexual awakening. Of course you have to forget that the actress is well above that age. Just compare her to the actress playing her mother and you will note that there can't be more than a couple years between them. This has the stilted acting (?),stationary camera shots (it occasionally pans from left to right) and awkward scene endings (the actors freeze and wait for a camera dissolve) that good ol' H. G. Lewis is known for. If you are part of the raincoat crowd you won't be seeing much boobage and buttsteak but what is shown is attractive. There is a shot of "mom's" prat when her lover scoops her up in the dining room to carry her upstairs. I don't know how they snuck that one in. A curiosity of the late 1960's for sure but this isn't art!!

Herschel Gordon Lewis is best known for his "gore" movies, but with the exception of "2000 Maniacs" and perhaps "The Gruesome Twosome", I find those pretty overrated. I actually like a lot his other stuff better. This sleazy trash-fest, for instance,ranks right up there with "Scum of the Earth" and "The Prime Time", but with much more overt sex and nudity since it was made in the more permissive late 60's era. A teenage girl witnesses her parents having sex, which naturally turns her into a raving nymphomaniac. She spends a lot of time slowly stripping off and admiring her body in the mirror (as the hetero male audience pants and drools). She starts seducing every guy she meets from from her square male third cousin(!) and study partner (who's initially more interested in French than frenching)to her mother's boyfriend (who she carries on with right under her mother's nose by threatening to reveal the affair to her father). She ditches school to have sex in the park with random boys and men. Of course, it all end badly.

Besides the lovable and inimitable trash stylings of H.G. Lewis, the other main asset of this movie (with emphasis on the first syllable of that word) is lead actress Julie Ames. She is very cute and appealing both in and out of her 60's blouses and mini-skirts. While I'm not sure it's a good thing, she's one of the few actresses I've ever seen that is both remotely believable as an actual teenager AND mouth-wateringly sexy (sex offenders with access to time machines should definitely be kept away from this movie). Sure, she can't act worth spit, but then neither can anyone else in this movie. Her ridiculously young-looking "mother" meanwhile is definitely NOT remotely believable as the mother of a teenager, but she's appropriately trashy and slutty. Her father, a kind of "Ward Cleaver" turned seedy swinger who is also getting some on the sly from his equally trashy secretary, is also pretty memorable.

This is genuinely enjoyable late 60's sleazefest (the end is both trashy and hilarious). Like most H.G. Lewis films it's very low-budget and certainly not a masterpiece, but it is worth sitting through.