The Sinister Urge (1960)

The Sinister Urge (1960) * 1/2 (out of 4)Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s hard-hitting look at the smut business has Lt. Carson (Kenne Duncan) and Sgt. Stone (Duke Moore) trying to solve a couple murders where the victims had just taken part in the pornography world. They believe the victims can be traced to a certain woman (Jean Fontaine) but they need to find out who's actually doing the killing. THE SINISTER URGE is Wood's attempt to show how ugly and evil the porn business is so I guess it's kind of ironic that this would be his last directing job for ten years until he would start working in, you guessed it, the porn business. As you'd expect, this here is a pretty poor film that like most of Wood's stuff has an interesting idea but the story is all over the place and in the end it just makes no sense. It seems that Wood was wanting to do the story about a psycho turned on by porn and then mix in a detective tale and the two items just didn't mix very well. The film is certainly a tad bit sleazier than the normal 1960 production but this doesn't make up for the weak dialogue or bad performances. It's funny but the film really puts down those who take advantage of girls who come to Hollywood to become stars and the film also preaches that girls should just stay home. The first female victim has such a Southern accent that I'm guessing Wood found her as she stepped off the bus. Wood's regular outlaws (Duncan, Moore, Conrad Brooks) are all here and it's worth noting that this here was Duncan's last feature film. Fans of Wood's work will still want to check this out but it's certainly miles behind his classics.

The best of Ed Wood's films-- his love song to Bela Lugosi, 'The Bride of the Monster' (1955), the amazing Wood-de-force, 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' (1959) and his masterpiece 'Glen or Glenda' (1953)--all contain the elements of his classic 'film making' style. These include poor direction, stilted acting, fakey looking action, monologues and dialogs ranging from the poor and sit-at-the-desk pedantic to the surreal and bizarre, non sequiter sequences, mistakes not edited out, non matching inserts of stock and original footage, lack of camera movement, cheap post production overdubbing -- oh, the list could go on forever if I had a film making degree from USC.This film shares these elements, but somehow, for me they just didn't 'click' this time. Too many boring sequences of Kenne Duncan (as Lt. Matt Carson) sitting at his desk talking to Duke Moore (Sgt. Stone) either about the relationship between pornography and crime, or to explain the developing action of the story that is mostly not shown. Here is the ultimate crime of visual or print story telling-- don't tell what happens, show what happens (don't say a man is evil, to make your point describe or show him kicking a cat or squashing a lizard with his foot). We finally do get a visual story: a mix of a serial killer (a well cast Dino Fantini) knifing models in the park after looking at their 'smut' photos; a small town girl, eager to make it in Hollywood, getting tricked into the porno racket, and the battles of the 'smut' merchants Johnny Ryde (Carl Anthony) and Gloria (the bizarrely dressed hoarse voiced Jean Fontaine) with the police, their customers and 'the syndicate'.This description makes the film sound better than it is. Little that goes on is of note, except for its unintentional humor (another great part of Ed Wood's 'style'). This is why it's best to watch the 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' 1994 version (available on DVD) that not only glorifies the humorous high points ("You're filming your shirt!" etc.), but also helps us wade thru the tedious dead spots, of which there are many.We know why Ed Wood relied so much on explaining off stage action rather than showing it: it was a simple lack of budget and time (but also skill). This does not put him up on the level of doing the best with the least. That honor properly goes to the great Edgar G. Ulmer whose landmark Poverty Row films 'Detour' (1945) and 'Man From Planet X' (1951) are master classes in film making technique in working on virtually no budget or time.Ed Wood can never be considered in the same rank as other film makers, but occupies his own unique and special place: The Top of the Bottom. The MST3K version helps it a lot, but still I'll have to give it a 2.

Edward D. Wood Jr (or E.D. Wood credited for the film) is practically revered today as a filmmaker forgotten and neglected in his time as just another Shlock-Meister of B-movie (or Z-movie) cinema. His legacy is now, well, being the ultimate in bad schlock kind of movie-making, where you can almost see the sets about the tear at the seams, the actors going through their lines like they know they won't get any pay for it, and camera-work (and perhaps editing too) that becomes jarring in the worst possible ways. While the Sinister Urge, Wood's last 'real' film before diving deep into obscure porn directing (ironic considering the film's subject here), does not have a kind of classically bad way about it like Plan 9 From Outer Space. That film has since become a kind of cult classic where the actor in place of the late Bela Lugosi in the film, the various props and sets (including the 'saucers'), and horrendous narration becomes most of the ironic fun. The Sinister Urge in comparison doesn't have that impressive ambition to be something more than it can never be, as this film is nothing more than an under-cooked 'warning' film about porn movies, and the people who may kill to be apart of them.The Sinister Urge is 71 minutes long, which doesn't overstay its welcome (though one may try and define 'welcome' with an Ed Wood picture) as a film with many static camera angles and very few moments of ingenuity. One of those- the scene where the brakes don't work with the car- is ironically successful, as it really shouldn't be at all workable as a scene, but as a little piece of suspense it could be worse. Most of the rest of the picture isn't so lucky- again, many, many actors who seem like they are not only content to not become stars, they're almost doomed to be in pictures like Wood's. Often the performances are wooden, but of course part of the real problem with watching such actors is the often silly dialog. It tries to be 'realistic', but Wood has no gripe with stopping somewhere to have a character (usually the lead cop character) to lay out a dull speech about the message of the story. On top of the story not really being too coherent, anyway, the director's method of the 'cut, print, perfect' method can be seen quite often with some laughable mistakes abound.Now, does all of this make the Sinister Urge as astoundingly, amusingly bad as Plan 9? Not really; there's nothing too memorable about how the film is bad here, unless you're a die-hard fan of the director. He does try here and there to keep some storytelling merit, with his style being so uncomplicated and static it shows his ambition. But the lack of talent overcomes everything else, not to mention the cardboard-sided points of the film. It's also not too unworthy of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment either, which has now made the film available on DVD. The commentary is spot-on usually and funny, though as with Plan 9 you may still want to make wisecracks on your own. That's Wood as the mustached guy who fights at the Cafeteria in one scene.

You know that when Mr. Wood made a film he did put all of his heart and soul in each one of the films (ok the ones I saw and the 50's films that most people see) The problem being is that he was completely incompetent as a director. You can't polish a turd and all of these films are turds. But he did try his best, in my opinion this is one of the best and funniest, with or without MST. A fairly static film, the only action happening with a fight scene. The rest of the film consist of all the actors explaining about the plot. Carl Anthony is the most static of this bunch. Kenne Duncan and Duke Moore, two of the laziest cops on the beat. Then the rest, Jaffe, Mr. Taxpayer, Dirk (a swell guy), Kline (KLINE!!!!!) and best of all: GLORIA. The scariest woman on the planet who's probably passed on by now of throat cancer, or squeezed to death by some of those outfits, likely from Mr. Woods own collection. Why this film is not on DVD like the rest of the Ed Wood collection I don't know. Somebody get out there and pester Wade Williams productions and get this on DVD too.