Janie (1970)

2013:Watching after the end credits of Alter of Lust,I saw an intriguing 10 minute clip of another flick which involved auteur film making duo Michael and Roberta Findlay. Trying to learn more about the mystery film,I found myself getting stuck,due to not knowing the title.2017: Searching for Adult films to view for ICM's poll on the best films of 1976,I started checking a sellers DVD list. Nearing the end of their listings,I spotted a screen-shoot that looked just like the mysterious movie,which led to me at last meeting Janie.The plot:After sleeping with her dad (!) Janie and her father lay in bed and start catching up. Aware that his daughter had to travel for miles to see him,the dad asks Janie how she gathered the money to come up and visit. Not holding back,Janie starts telling her dad about the blood money she used to pay him a special visit. View on the film:Credited to Jack Bravman,the distinctive "Roughie" elements of the flick show co-stars Michael and Roberta (who was also the cinematographer) Findlay to be the most prominent voices in the production. Mixing live audio and voice-over from Roberta, the movie continues building on the Findlay's theme of an erotic nightmare,where the hazy narration of Janie's inner feeling and free-Jazz over the rustic sex scenes cast a dream-logic mood. Climbing up the up-front Mary Jane Carpenter's legs as Janie,the screenplay by James Foley allows the Findlay to push her blunt-force murder scenes,and a creepy, dead to the world final note,as Janie gets her bit of roughie.

Janie (1970) ** (out of 4) Janie (Mary Jane Carpenter) is a young girl who apparently has some sort of bizarre sexual fantasy about her father. As the movie starts Janie is in bed with a much older man and she begins to tell him about her day. When then flashback to the various stories she tells, which includes her luring men in with her sexy body only to then kill them.JANIE is a film that I'm really shocked isn't better known by people. If you're a fan of exploitation then how is it you've probably never heard of this film? Well, I'm going to guess the reason it's not better known is the fact that it's really not that good of a movie. Yes, the plot description is a knock-out but sadly the film was burdened with some flaws including a low-budget, which probably kept the movie from achieving more.Still, if you're a fan of exploitation then this is still a must-see because, after all, how many awful sexploitation movies are out there and known to fans of the genre? This one here has a lot going for it including the lead actress who is extremely cute and she fits the part of a nymph very well. She's certainly easy on the eyes but she also makes you believe she could lure all of these men to their death. The budget doesn't allow for very gruesome murder scenes but there's still a little blood mixed in with the sex and nudity.The film clocks in at a very, very short 65-minutes and it's really not that long because there are all sorts of weird flashbacks throughout the film. We get countless flashbacks to previous murders in the movie and I'm going to guess these here were done so that the running time could be extended. The film isn't all that well-made but these types of movies don't really have to be the work of Orson Welles, now do they?Jack Bravman, who would later direct the horrid ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE, is credited with this film but many believe it was actually directed by Michael Findlay who has a small role in the film. This honestly doesn't look like the work of Findlay so I'm going to go with Bravman as the director.

Just in case you prefer your 70's exploitation extremely rancid, gratuitous, pointless, psychedelic and not needlessly stretched, well then you should definitely ask "Janie" out on a date! This cheap excuse for a motion picture barely runs over an hour, but it contains more sleaze and general weirdness than the majority of exploitation movies do in their normal running times. "Janie" is totally … demented, but at the same time hugely entertaining as long as tolerate constant errors in continuity, a lack of plotting, hideous photography and sex-laden situations that are politically incorrect to the extreme. Janie is a perky and sensationally torrid teenager with clearly more than one mental issue. She doesn't speak too much herself, but her guiding voice does all the talking for her. The narrating voice talks about the beauty of the autumn season (because then everything is dying or dead) and continuously reassures Janie that she's better than everyone else and that everybody in her direct surrounding should meet a violent death. According to the charming voice in her head, the only man good enough for Janie is her daddy, and thus she sets off to see him. On her journey Janie runs a car over her classmate and a random guy, stabs a pervert in the back, cuts up a lesbian and peeks through the keyhole to watch her stepfather beat the hell out of her mother. Eventually she arrives and has sex with her father, though not before strangling his bitchy mistress with her belt. As you see, just another average day in the life of a wicked teenager… What makes this film so awesome (in terms of tastelessness, so to speak) are Janie's reactions to murder & mayhem. She reacts to the sight of bloodied corpses like other teenage girls react to, say, the release of Justin Timberlake's new CD or a huge discount on pretty shoes. She giggles, playfully hops around and promptly begins to masturbate where she stands. Okay, most teenage girls probably don't do that when they buy shoes… Mary Jane Carpenter undoubtedly ranks very high on the unofficial list of "hottest-actresses-to-appear-in-just-one-movie" and she depicts her character like she's some type of exploitation version of Little Red Riding Hood. She looks genuinely irresistible in her too tight uniform and the boots are just … wow! The murders are gruesome but not exactly shocking and the overly cheap editing and acid-soundtrack are often quite annoying. But hey, it's all about boobs and dementia so why complain. One final trivia detail cult fanatics are likely to appreciate is that both Michael and Roberta Findley have supportive roles.

Although credited to Jack Bravman (a pseudonym), this is a crazy Michael Findlay film about a psychotic teenage tramp (Mary Jane Carpenter) who murders a bunch of people on her way across the country to have sex with her dad, a gross man in his fifties. The murders are numerous, but they're totally inept. The acid rock score is relentless and irritating after a while, although one doesn't tire of ogling the slutty looking Carpenter's bountiful body. The girl murders "stupid" people because the voice in her head tells her to and her sole purpose in life is to be with daddy. We see Carpenter's breasts and some butt shots, but there is no hardcore footage and very little in the way of sex. Edited in the psychedelic style of the period and experimental in form, it is an interesting document, but it's still too long at just on an hour.