Idiot-Deluxe
"ANOTHER SEX MANIAC MURDER! - SMUT PICTURE RACKET BLAMED!" - The Hollywood Chronicler reports.1959's "The Sinister Urge" was the last movie Ed Wood Jr. would ever direct, so it serves as his directorial swan song and all I can say is, Ed went out in style! So what's to be said about it, sure it's a bad movie, but all of his movies are bad, but for me The Sinister Urge is one that endures and here's why. First of all the film comes loaded with several memorable and highly amusing characters, in which when these six characters (Lt. Matt Carson, Randy, Johnny Ryde, Gloria Henderson, Yaffe and Dirk Williams) interact with each other, the screen is absolutely flush with character and charisma. The Sinister Urge - a quickly-made cheapy, clocks in at just over 70 minutes, so as you might expect there's little in the way of wasted time and things get interesting in a hurry. I find that when the hour grows late The Sinister Urge is a perfectly charming little flick to wind down your day with - which in my experience, does not diminish with repeated viewings. Plus (and to brilliant effect) this film has the dubious distinction of being the -one and only- Ed Wood film to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's my opinion that this film gels together and that's primarily due to how good most of the casting is. Well maybe "good" isn't exactly the right word, "effective" may be more suitable.So what's it all about? Well unlike most of Ed Wood's work, The Sinister Urge actually has a very tight and cohesive plot, which for once seems to be rooted in reality.... for the most part at least. This charming Ed Woodian-tale takes us back to the late 50's, at a time and place, where you could find your friendly-neighborhood-smut-peddler's (Johnny Ryde and Gloria Hendersen) busy at work plying their wares and when backed by the local syndicate, the duo of Johnny and Gloria, along with "Yaffe", a quirky little business associate, this team of three makes for an A-1 smut-running racket. You see what these pioneering pornographers are vying for, is for a complete saturation of the local market and then to expand their operations from there. And as the queen bee, Gloria Henderson herself said "I've got a tremendous busy going here and it's getting bigger every month." But before the dastardly duo of Henderson & Ryde can ascend to the ranks of pornographic super-stardom (in Smut Town and beyond), there's a formidable obstacle in their path: Lieutenant Matt Carson and his side-kick Randy.To make the movie something a bit more involving than the production and distribution of softcore smut, schlockmeister Wood wisely included something that actually is a crime: Murder (or more accurately - serial murder). Which as it turns out, is very bad for business. Whose to say, if it weren't for the serial-killings which were happening on a routine basis, that Lt. Matt Carson and Detective Randy wouldn't of, in time, become regular customers of the smut picture racket. But however it's a string of serial murders, that gets the wily, veteran, policeman on their case. While I'm fond of all the great casting that's seen in this cheap n' trashy piece of schlock (but of course isn't that all that Ed Wood EVER made), but for me, in what was her one and only film appearance, it's the performance of Jean Fontaine who stands-out the most. She was simply a natural in the role as the witchy and conniving Gloria Henderson, who conveniently ran her dirty picture business from the comfort of her suburban home - her very own hive of sin. But in reality this woman seemed to be little more than an aging, sand-paper-voiced, cigarette-hag, who probably wasn't straying to far from her own personality.The films simply a riot and Ed Wood has some insanely crazy ideas about the affects of porn on society, which you'll hear in detail throughout the movie. But as I see it, the movie is at it's most stupendously ridiculous 20 minutes in, during a scene where Lt. Carson is conversing with Mr. Romaine, an elderly "concerned citizen" and tax-payer, whose all in a flutter, but leaves somber after Lt. Matt Carson "educated" him on all things smut. With such ludicrous claims as "The dirty-picture racket can be directly connected to a good percentage of the major crimes in this city." or "The smut-picture racket is worse than kid-napping or dope peddling." Then a little latter on we have a scene where some of Gloria Henderson's models, posing in panties and bras, in a privately-owned photography studio mind you, are arrested by Lt. Carson and his goons, for what was essentially, nothing more than a series of glamour shots. However and here's where it get's outlandishly out-of-wack, the bail for each model was set at $5,000 a piece. That's in upwards of $60,000 in today's money!!! For the crime of: glamour shots.With all these wild claims one can easily conclude, that Ed Wood had some incredibly bloated (even downright errant) idea's on the corrupting influences of porn (or "smut" as they call it - their product, quit tame by today's standards).Released in 1959 The Sinister Urge came at the end of what was truly an awesome era for bad movies, the late-50's and from what I've seen over the years, the only era that was better at producing bad movies was the mid-80's. An era, which at the same time, also has many of the very best movies as well - the 80's were an incredible time for movies.
TheLittleSongbird
That is not as if I immediately rag on Ed Wood's films. They are not great, but they are kind of entertaining and guilty pleasure standard in a way. The Sinister Urge did nothing for me though, and derails Night of the Ghouls as quite possibly Ed Wood's worst film. The scene with the cops and the tax-payer is quite funny and Kline is a fun enough character, but that was all really that I liked. Wood's films are not very well made, but The Sinister Urge manages to be one of his worst-looking and most amateurish films. The effects are clearly fake with little attempt to try and disguise it, and the camera angles and editing are like they're placed here and there with little thought to them. There are so many errors that you'd fill a novel's worth writing them down. The dialogue is both silly and stilted, it also paints the porn industry in such a negative light but it borders on extreme and somewhat one-sided. Don't get me wrong, porn is one of the last career moves I want to pursue, but I just wondered whether it really was as "evil" as The Sinister Urge painted it out to be. The fact that the film chose to stop the story for a character to make a speech to emphasise this doesn't help and it all came across as too heavy-handed. The story is plodding and dull, things are kept simply but so much so that it all seems rather static. The climax is also really bizarre and you are not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. The acting at best is wooden, worst of all is Jean Fontaine who is unbearably shrill and annoying. To conclude, even when I knew what to expect I just didn't care at all for The Sinister Urge. 2/10 Bethany Cox
ragreen259
Don't fall into the evil world of pornography!This movie is classic Wood. For some reason, I have a hard time seeing it as being made in 1961, however.It's great going through, looking for how many errors due to budget constraints there are, continuity errors, all the usual. Add to this the stiff acting and memorized lines, and you're all set. I enjoyed this movie, and see new stupid errors in it every time I watch it, it can supply you with hours of entertainment. Don't expect Ben Hur, but if you enjoy Ed Wood, or haven't seen anything else by him but want a classic example of his work, this is one you'll want to see.
sol1218
One of Ed Wood Jr. lesser known works about the smut racket where Wood himself has a cameo role in it. Not as the cop in drag with a tight womens wool sweater, which would have been more like it for Wood, but as a smut peddler having it out with his rival at a pizza joint that fronts for a porno distribution site. With a number of young women found dead in and around a local park their deaths are connected to a local smut ring headed by Gloria Henderson. Things get real bad for Gloria when the cops take into custody her top smut photographer Jaffe together with all the canisters of porno films, that he hid in his closet. Leaving her racket on the verge of being shut down not just by the cops but by the syndicate who are bankrolling her smut operation.The weak link in Gloria's smut business is one of her enforcers Dirk Williams who becomes so hopped up and morally corrupted by having a hand in her smut racket. Dirk he goes bananas when he sees porno films and pictures that he's peddling supplied by Gloria's right-hand man in her business the former legit Hollywood film maker Johnny Ryde. Dirk's uncountable urge for sex and violence is touched off just by the sight of smut photos and that drives him to commit rape and murder. The local cops know all about Gloria's operation but need solid proof and evidence to put her,together with Johnny Ryde, out of business. In the end it's Gloria herself who provides all the rope that they need to hang her without Gloria even knowing it. Director Ed Wood does the best he can to show the evils of pornography and how it effects naive and innocent young girls who come to Hollywood looking to make it big in the motion picture industry. Only ending up getting talked into making porno films by the likes of Gloria and Johnny Ryde to just pay off their bills. We see the tragic story of Mary Smith who ended up making smut films and photos for Gloria and finally fell victim to Dirks sinister urge. When he caught Mary alone in the park, by the duck pond, and ended up raping and murdering her. We also see in the movie "The Sinister Urge" how difficult it is to arrest the likes of Gloria Henderson and make the charges of the crimes she committed stick.Admittedly a laughable venture, which of his movies aren't, of Wood's because of the cheap budget and in some cases non-actors in it. The movie "The Sinister Urge"is still years ahead of it's time thanks to the foresight and vision of it's director Ed Wood Jr, in showing the evils and horrors of the then, in 1961, underground and illegal smut business in and out of Hollywood. That destroyed the lives of thousands of young girls like Mary Smith in mind as well as body.
