The Ultimate Degenerate (1969)

The Ultimate Degenerate (1969) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Wanting to break away from her lesbian lover and fulfill her sexual desires, Maria (Uta Erickson) takes a job for the bizarre cripple Spencer (Michael Findlay) who has a wide range of women living in his home. His allows them to live there and get all the sexual desires they want but Spencer also has a few dark secrets.Underground filmmaker Findlay also wrote and directed this film, which was the last roughie that he ever made. I will freely admit that the entire roughie genre isn't my favorite but there's no question that this here is a rather bizarre film that manages to mix sex, violence and desires quite well. The best thing the film has going for it is the atmosphere created by Findlay and this comes through due to the nice cinematography and music score.I also think a big reason for the film's entertainment comes from Erickson who appears in nearly every scene and she certainly manages to hold your attention. The film was made just before hardcore scenes started to take over but it was able to feature a lot of full frontal nudity, which adds to the sexploitation nature. The film also manages to have a pretty wicked finale, which I obviously won't ruin.THE ULTIMATE DEGENERATE isn't a masterpiece as there are still way too many scenes that really don't go anywhere and I'd argue that even at just 71-minutes the film seems long at times. Still, the movie is entertaining for what it is.

Cruel crippled wacko Spencer (a superbly slimy portrayal by writer/director Michael Findlay) gets women through want ads in an underground newspaper to come to his remote palatial abode and perform strange sex shows for him. Spencer meets his match in the shapely form of shameless exhibitionist Maria (gorgeous blonde Uta Erickson), who becomes quite paranoid and homicidal after Spencer's bitter assistant Bruno (nicely played with seething resentment by Earl Hindman) injects her with a tainted aphrodisiac. Findlay certainly gives the viewer their grubby money's worth with this exceptionally depraved dilly: There's abundant full-frontal female nudity (60's skinflick regulars Donna Stone, Janet Banzet, Suzzan Landau, and Rita Vance all look quite sumptuous romping about in their birthday suits), lesbianism, voyeurism, wild nude dancing, torture, sadism, murder, copious use of whipped cream (don't ask), foot fetishism, sex with a corn cob (!), choice footage of Times Square in its seedy 60's splendor, and one doozy of a surprise twist ending. Roberta Findlay's stark black and white cinematography boasts some pretty trippy visuals and inventive camera angles. Earl Windmin's groovy bebop jazz score hits the swinging spot. A deliciously warped marvel.

This dreadful film has some of the worst dialog replacement I've ever heard. In fact, I don't think any sound was recorded during the filming. The oddest thing, and if the movie had been seen by more than a few pervs it might have cost the producer some money, is the fact that at 1:09:35 the music is Miklos Rozsa's "Rowing of the Galley Slaves" from the MGM "Ben-Hur" album. I sincerely doubt that the producer licensed the use of Oscar winning music for this awful movie.Most of the cast used pseudonyms in the credits, and it's completely understandable why. The producer/writer/director and his wife used pseudonyms as well. Maybe they got famous later and this film wouldn't be a scab on their mutual resumes. Bad as it is, I couldn't stop watching it until its eagerly awaited end.

Now, this is the first sexploitation/grindhouse film that I thought worth paying money to see.I can imagine a whole theater full of men in white overcoats getting a thrill from this feature which had full frontal throughout the entire 70 minutes.Nude dancing and lesbian activity would have thrilled them for the first 60 minutes, then the film, which had a noir overtone, turned darker with sadistic encounters and even death.This is the best Michael Findlay sexploitation film I have seen, and it certainly beats his video nasty Snuff.