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Mondo Keyhole
[Psychotronica]
1966; color
Directed by Jack Hill
Starring: Nick Moriarty, Victoria Wren, Cathey Crowfoot, Chirstopher Winters & Carol Baughman
The Raw Ones
[Psychotronica]
1966; color
Directed by John Lamb
Starring: Kellie Everts
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Alternately titled "Rape... The Worst Crime Of All" (among other variations on that theme), Mondo Keyhole seems like the type of film that, back in the day, would inspire women armed with Master's Degrees and NOW signs to stand outside a ticket window chanting slogans that could have been written by Dr. Suess. And, who knows, maybe it did. Maybe the film deserved it. Walking around all grainy and poorly lit and politically incorrect and all. Uh... yeah. Let's not go any further down that path. I don't need any (more) hate mail. Anywhoo, this is certainly one of the more curious roughies I've seen over the years. Although I've always found the roughie in general to be rather curious. (What's even more curious is that two of the genre's more "famous" directors were women, Doris Wishman and Roberta Findlay. But let's not get off topic.) Mondo Keyhole was directed by none other than Jack Hill who, during the bonus commentary track offered in this DVD package, rates this film as the lowest low in his career. Assuming he knows his own career better than anyone, we'll have to take his word for it. To me it does seem to stick out a bit in his filmography but maybe not any more than, say, Pit Stop. (His stock car racing movie.) To his credit, he doesn't avoid questions about the film or try to distance himself from it in any way, as is evidenced by the fact he volunteered to offer commentary in the first place. Jack Hill is just a classy motherfucker like that! Even though we've never met, I like that guy. I don't always sit through these tracks but I really enjoyed the ones we watched / listened to when we did the So Hard To Kill, So Easy To Love feature so I decided to hear his side of the story right after my initial viewing of the movie. (I know; when it comes to movies I can be a bit of a masochist.) It really shed quite a bit of light on the production. In fact, it may be more interesting than the film itself. (I think we were all kind of expecting that though, right?) I'm not sure any explanation would calm those offended by the idea of a story revolving around a pre-internet pornographer who can only achieve sexual satisfaction by stalking and raping random women who cross his path, much to the chagrin of his horny housewife; but, rest assured, the offender does get his in the end. (You have to show the revenge in the rape / revenge story, by the way; otherwise the gimmick doesn't work out right.) Of course I'm not a hundred percent sure this guy wouldn't enjoy being tied up and beaten by two relatively hot chicks in awesome fetish outfits so, to that end, the ending was a little confusing. Perhaps considering everything that preceded it, we should have expected a confusing ending as well.
Our second feature, The Raw Ones, may sound like a similarly minded roughie from the title but it is in fact a textbook example of the nudist film. (Right up there with the roughie as one of exploitation films' more curious genres.) And, in fact, the narrator may have been reading from a textbook. His delivery was certainly boring and academic. In short, I felt the same way about the movie. Maybe an hour and a half of watching flabby naked people exercising, picnicking, fishing, etc. sounds fun to you. If so, this flick is right up your alley. Personally I'll take Hideout In The Sun or Nude On The Moon any day.
—Bunny
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