Fresh and Exciting

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

If you would look up the term "misogyny" in the dictionary, there's a fair chance there will be a poster image of this little movie next to it. The DVD box describes this film as one of the most shameless, sordid and sleaziest exploitation movies of the sixties, and also one of the most inexplicably profitable ones. Apparently "Touch of her Flesh" was a huge success in the so-called Grindhouse circuit and almost promptly – within just one year – spawned two similarly titled sequels. Well, all these aforementioned things may be true but the reputation should also include that "Touch of her Flesh" is dreadfully boring and contains an impossibly high amount of insufferable padding sequences. Richard Jennings, a dork with a passion for weapons, walks in on his wife having sex (well … more of a breasts-fondling marathon, really) with another guy, runs out of the house whiningly and bumps into a car. Short one eye but with a hatred towards women that keeps increasing, he goes out to kill random girls that use their luscious bodies to seduce poor and defenseless men. His victims include a go-go dancer, a prostitute and a nude model before going after his own unfaithful wife again. Admittedly this sounds pretty horrific and like the ideal sexploitation guff, but unfortunately the actual murders take less than a seconds whereas the "preludes" seem to last forever! Okay, granted, these girls are pretty hot and they all have sensational racks, but watching them swing around for ten whole minutes is just plain dull. Jennings' monologues are what make this a true 60's sick-flick, as he compares women with everything that is filthy, unreliable and scum. "Touch of her Flesh", as well as its two sequels, is the work of the notorious director's due (and married couple) Michael and Roberta Findley. Together, they made a lot of infamous but overall terrible exploitation flicks. Ironically enough, Roberta delivered her best work ("Tenement: Game of Survival", "The Oracle") after her hubbie died in a helicopter crash

Michael Findlay and his wife Roberta were responsible for quite a few cult classics of sleaze in the 60s and 70s, and "The Touch Of Her Flesh" is one of the films that earned the couple their cult-status amongst lovers of sleazy Grindhouse cinema. This is a film that is recommendable to my fellow fans of cult-sleaze for a pioneering character. As probably many other Exploitation fans out there, however, I must say that my admiration of this film, and my acknowledgment of its pioneering cult character exceeds the actual fun that I had watching it. It is definitely entertaining to watch, but then again, the long scenes of women dancing seductively etc. may have been sleazy and exciting then, but they are quite dated and overlong for today's standards, especially due to the fact that these sequences are very tame compared to what was to come in the 70s. This is also what is to acknowledge about this film however as it is pioneering in its sleaze and weirdness. There is little talking, or, more precisely, dubbing, as people never look at the camera when they talk, which is quite annoying at times. I know this from a bunch of older films, but this is definitely the only film from the late 60s I've seen, that still uses this form of dubbing, which really needs getting used to. Nothing but the low budget can take the blame for that, however.After catching his catching his exotic dancer girlfriend with another man, a troubled arms dealer gets involved in an accident. Reciovering from his heavy injuries, the man has become a psychopath on the hunt for sexy women to murder...This is the first part in a trilogy of "Flesh" films. I have yet to see the sequels "The Kiss Of Her Flesh" and "The Curse Of Her Flesh", and Ia am exited to do so, as I have big respect for this little cult flick, and I highly recommend any lover of Exploitation cinema to see it. People who are not as familiar with exploitation cinema will probably find it crappy, since one has to perceive this film's pioneering character in order to acknowledge it adequately. The film has more than just a sentimental value of originality, however. Director Michael Findlay also stars in the role of psycho Richard Jennings, and the guy's craziness is very entertaining to watch. Female eye candy is also omnipresent throughout the film. It is interesting to see how beauty trends change, as "The Touch Of Her Flesh" concentrates on the display of big breasts and buxom curves. This is not a movie I'd recommend to everybody, but I strongly advise my fellow fans of sleazy Grindhouse cult not to miss it. This is pure cult cinema, and for Exploitation fans like myself it has a certain value as a pioneering classic of weird sleaze. Be warned though: it tends to bore.

SPOILERS INCLUDED Of all the Sixties exploiteers Michael Findlay had the reputation for holding nothing back. Although for years primarily known for Seventies horror movies like the bulk of Snuff or the Yeti themed Shriek of the Mutilated- for a look at the man at the height of his powers those time machines have to be set for New York City at the end of the dirty Sixties. Findlay's notoriety began with a trilogy of movies shot between 1967 and 1969- The Touch of Her Flesh, The Curse of Her Flesh and The Kiss of Her Flesh. This- the opening chapter- introduces us to Richard Jennings (Robert West aka Findlay) a stuffy suit and tie man with an unhealthy obsession for firearms and knifes. Jennings is married to Claudia (Anna Riva aka Roberta Findlay) who is cheating on him with off Broadway actor Steve (John Amero) 'with all those weapons he could be a real lady-killer' ponders the object of Claudia's affections. When Jennings cuts home early on the way to a weapons convention he gets an eyeful of the couple making lurve. Hurt, Jennings maniacally flees from the apartment and is hit by a car- losing an eye and being temporary paralysed for his troubles. Now bitter and wheelchair bound Jennings drunkenly stares into space, planning his revenge on womankind. He delivers a poisoned rose to a stripper, then from the back of a disco, sweats it out, voyeuristically watching on with his one eye as the stripper goes down for the count to the tune of 'I've got the right kind of lovin', baby just for you'. Jennings then wheels himself to a burlesque house and executes an even more audacious killing- murdering a stripper on stage by using a blowpipe which he's discreetly smuggled in under his coat. Fearing Richard's wrath Claudia has hidden away with Janet a nude model in a woodwork factory. When the 'pig that poses nude for Claudia' is spotted chatting to a prostitute, Richard poses as a potential john for the hooker. Literally pushed back to her bedsit Jennings takes to torturing the truth about Claudia's whereabouts out of her 'I'm not afraid to hurt you, very badly'. She spills the beans but Jennings is so completely off the rails by this point that he messily stabs her to death anyway. Now fully mobile Jennings decides to pay a visit to his wife and her buxom friend. By the pictures end Jennings is tearing his wife's clothes off 'let me feel them before they die' and victoriously decapitates her with a bandsaw, but any further efforts to make the world a safer place for misogynists are terminated.... for now. Touch retains a raw power even today, but for a world where a few years previous frolics in nudist camps had been the norm- this must have been the celluloid equivalent of an almighty slap in the face. For the record, the real Michael Findlay is described as a sensitive, sweet person who for his films played out every dark idea he ever had and projected them on the big screen. Jennings transformation from businessman respectability to unkept, eyepatch wearing sex psycho amazes still, and the character seemed to have a profound effect on Findlay as well. Later he would use Richard Jennings as a pseudonym alterego in his films and as late as 1976's Virgins in Heat references to the ubiquitous Mr Jennings lurk in the background. By the mid Seventies Findlay's career was joyriding in all directions, associated with drive-in horror films like Invasion of the Blood Farmers- Findlay was also a 3-D enthusiast and became involved in a revival of the faded gimmick, it didn't work but he did get to fly to Hong Kong and supervise Kung- Fu films. Back in New York, he also followed his (then separated from) wife Roberta into hard-core including a 3-D epic called Funk. With so many tricks up his sleeve its hard to know what Findlay would have pulled out next, plans were ahead for an all out horror film a-la The Last House on the Left, but time was against him. In May 1977 Findlay made a fateful trip to the Pan Am building in New York, the rest is grim history. Viewed chronologically, there is an almost competitive streak to Findlay's films- in that much fun seems to have been had by creating sex and death scenarios even more outrageous than the last film. By the end of the Sixties Findlay had perfected his act with a near faultless sense of shock value. The 'Of Her Flesh' series particularly Touch are urban in tone, so vividly set against a New York backdrop that they are frozen in time shots of the Big Apple in its rotten 60's prime. Touch is so awash with burlesque houses, menacing neon lights and grotty hookers hotel rooms that no director really deserves to be forever tied to that era than Findlay does. For years his films were as notorious as they were little seen, both elements speculatively fuelling each other. In the late- eighties the 'Of Her Flesh' pictures emerged on murky bootlegs mostly run off directly from well projected prints- the rest of the oeuvre was in limbo. Now as we enter a new millenium most of the highpoints of the Findlay back catalogue have resurfaced giving a definite insight into the era in which Findlay defined sleaze. Sadly with Findlay and the times and places he inhabited long gone, its really all there is left. Adios Richard Jennings.

Roberta and Mike Findlay made over a dozen nudie/sickie/roughies in the 60s and early 70s, culminating with SNUFF in the late 70s. Of all those films, the FLESH trilogy is the most memorable. TOUCH OF HER FLESH, CURSE OF HER FLESH, and KISS OF HER FLESH were three sickie classics starring Robert West as Richard Jennings, a one-eyed psycho who kills strippers in sadistic ways. This was his beginning and is a tad boring, but pays off.Richard Jennings witnesses his wife having sex with another man and runs into traffic. Losing one eye and temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, Richard vows his vengeance and vents his frustration while searching for his wife by killing strippers in inventive ways. He sends one a rose with thorns dipped in poison, shoots a poison dart into the stomach of another, and by the finale, a dagger, a buzzsaw, and a crossbow fit into the whole mess.TOUCH OF HER FLESH is really sick. First the audience is treated to coy sex scenes and stripping/go-go scenes, followed immediately by scenes of death and gore. I guess that's why they call them sickies. All the acting is bad, but most of the women would fit right in a Russ Meyer film! Top-heavy tarts make up most of the nudity here, which is pleasing to the eye and sort of differentiates this from other films of its kind. There are some good instances of cinematography and editing that are above par in an exploitation film as well.TOUCH OF HER FLESH is not for everyone and will probably offend those looking for a softcore sex film from the 60s. The version I saw was cut, as the film only ran an hour (original running time is 70 minutes), but the sex was not graphic; it's the gore that should draw audiences. Sadistic viewers should enjoy it, but I'm surprised cries of misogyny haven't plagued this film from its release! Not heartily recommended, but is worth a look if you're curious. And you should be if you're reading a review of this!