The Flesh Merchant

i wondered if i was watching the same movie shown here, since on the back of the "Cult Classics Collection" (Mill Creek, 2006) the run time is listed as 90 minutes (its really 60, as IMDb correctly shows). In addition, on IMDb, the title is Flesh Merchant, with the subtitle Wild and Wicked. The acting is just hideous, the sound is iffy, the photography not bad. This was directed by Merle Connell, who incidentally, directed Test Tube Babies, also on the Cult Collection. A young girl comes to the big city to visit her sister and be successful. Right off, she lands a job as a nude model, quite willingly, where they convince her to go to "The Colony"....where the rewards are even better, and her roommate is called "Easy".... This was the only acting gig for most of the cast, and we can see why. It has the feel of a really low budget John Waters movie, but without the fun characters and plot. Whenever the star says her name "Nancy Walker", I can't help but think of the real Nancy Walker, who would have been 34 when this movie came out. The real Nancy had made four films by 1956, so i have to think she had the name first, since her birth name was "Anna Myrtle Swoyer", and appears to have changed it by 1943. Producer Dan Sonney must have made big bucks off this flick, since he sure didn't spend it on actors or location. He also was the producer for "Knockers Up", "My Tale is Hot", and "Daughter of Fanny Hill" in the 1960s. Gotta love it. Will make a fun rental ,but I sure wouldn't spend more than a dollar or two to see it.

Young, innocent Nancy Sheridan (Joy Reynolds) tires of dull, small-town life and heads for the big city. There, she meets up with her older sister Paula (Lisa Rack) who, in Nancy's eyes, is living the high life. Nancy soon winds up in an "art" studio, where a group of slimy, seedy men attempt to direct her "modeling job".

Nancy is sent to a club called "The Colony" -run by even slimier men- for her new, higher paying "career".

It only gets worse from here.

THE FLESH MERCHANT is another semi-exploitation film posing as a cautionary tale. While it's not completely wretched, it's not very exciting or entertaining either. This is one of those "naughty" movies that great-granddad used to sneak off to see. It's only "shocking" if a fleeting glimpse of a female posterior gives you the vapors! In reality, it's tamer than a neutered tomcat...

THE WILD AND WICKED is another educational/exploitation flick from W. Merle Connell, who handled a string of sensationalist fare along the lines of TEST TUBE BABIES. This one's much like an earlier entry I watched (in the same Mill Creek box set) entitled GAMBLING WITH SOULS, except without the gambling angle.

In essence, the film charts the journey and moral degradation of a pretty young woman who finds herself cast adrift. She unwisely falls in with a crowd of men who run an establishment dedicated to the art of pleasure, in other words a brothel. Will she ever manage to escape their clutches?

Wow. The plot is certainly an arresting one and the calibre of the acting is a little better than the norm in this low-budget quickies. And THE WILD AND WICKED certainly contains plenty of the latter, some truly scuzzy characters in support. The abrupt non-ending is the worst part of it, but there are some fun moments along the way like the manhunt for the criminal.

The Flesh Merchant (1956)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Above average sexploiation film about 21-year-old Nancy (Joy Reynolds) who travels to Los Angeles to visit her sister and with dreams of getting into modeling. She meets a modeling agent but he's actually just a pimp and soon Nancy finds herself at a resort selling herself to older men. Director W. Merle Connell was no stranger to the exploitation genre and a quick look at his filmmography will show titles like TEST TUBE BABIES, THE DEVIL'S SLEEP and UNTAMED WOMEN. He certainly knows how to fill his film's with interesting characters and that there is what helps THE FLESH MERCHANT from being boring. Running just under a hour there's certainly no time that's wasted as we're pretty much introduced to the girl, see that she's willing to make a few bucks and it's off to the whorehouse she goes. The film runs at a very quick pace thanks to the director but the screenplay also deserves a lot of credit for the rather fun characters. The Nancy character is just as naive as you'd expect and the warning, soap-box preaching sister is a real hoot as well and especially at the end. There's the wiser hooker who is getting too old for the game and of course all of the pimps are downright fun in their own way. If you're looking for a serious drama about the horrors of street walking then you're not going to find it here. This is an exploitation picture that wants to "warn" of things but at the same time highlight the fun of being at one of these clubs. There's even a quick bit of nudity, which was clearly a wink at the mostly men who would be watching this. The performances are actually a lot better than you'd expect as well. THE FLESH MERCHANT isn't a lost masterpiece but for fans of the genre it's certainly worth watching.

A naïve young woman follows her older sister into what turns out to be a prostitution ring.

The wild and wicked. Heck, the only thing wild and wicked about this 60-minutes is a fleeting glimpse of a bare butt. Otherwise it amounts to a fashion parade at what looks like a mountain dude ranch, where everyone sits around like a nightclub. There's not even a passionate clinch to suggest what might be going on in the rooms. Oh sure, there's plenty of polite innuendo about what's being served up here, bordello style. But nothing that might offend 1950 norms, even the exploitative kind. Then there's the most poorly staged shootout on record, I guess to inject a little action, since we're not getting any other kind.

Have to agree with Mark D-2, however. Lisa Rack delivers an A-grade performance as Paula, while the pert Joy Reynolds manages a pretty good Debbie Reynolds. And what a burst of inspiration getting that wizened old hooker to put in a sudden jolting appearance. But what's with the ending. It's like someone tripped over the tripod and decided to call it a wrap. Did they run out of film. Anyhow, the movie does prove how tightly the 1950's lid was clamped down, even on supposedly disreputable flicks like this one.