Aroused (1966) from Brainscan

What can you say about a movie that died?  Oh, that's not fair.  Aroused (1966) is not half-bad.  And that's not true...it is half-bad but that means its also half-good and so you wind up paying a price for some entertainment. 

Story starts with a professional gal, played by Marlene Stevens, servicing a client who acts as though he's out on a date.  Treat a hooker like a lady, I suppose.  At her bedroom window is another fella who has a problem with prostitutes...something about his mommy or some such nonsense.  So what does the poor lad do?  He spends his free time peeping on them as they work their craft.  This is something like a vegetarian who hangs out at a steak restaurant watching 'em fry up some dead cow.  Deranged guy kills off Marlene's character, after which he ... uh, well ... has her do in death what she'd done so well in life.  End Scene 1.

Marlene's lesbian lover comes home, finds a guy hovering over the body of her roomie and gets about this close to sticking a knife in him.  A few side notes: 1) This gal is one strange lesbian because she will do a guy for fun later in the movie; 2) The actress playing her is credited as Djanine Lenon, but IMDb says her real name is Janine Lenon...but this is the only movie she ever did, according to them, so how did they know what her real name was?  And since it was the only movie for which she was credited, why not use the name in that one, lonely endeavor?  3) The guy she almost knifes plays a cop who is as big a fuck-up as John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction.  Not that he blows the head off some guy named Marvin ... no he does things that are way worse.  First he sets up another hooker as bait without providing her with adequate protection.  That woman, played by the gorgeous Fleurette Carter, bites the dust.  Then he screws the hooker played by Djanine after he's sent his wife home with a guy he barely knows and who, as it turns out, is the deranged prostitute killer.  In The Big Apple you do not send a gal home with anyone who is not related to you or her.

Not to worry. The young wife (played by Joanna Mills) survives, then a host of working women get their revenge by removing the bad guy's offending masculinity. Yikes!  A suppose if a guy's gonna eat fried chicken, he's a-gonna get greasy. 

What about the nekkidness?

  • You see Marlene topless in bed, topless in the mirror of her bathroom (no, Doris Wishman did not make this movie) and finally in a triple-B shower performance.  The third, furry B is unintentional and occurs in only a frame or two.   Marlene was a real cutie who shoulda done about two dozen more movies.

  • Djanine is topless in a post-coital scene.  Her expression changes as she realizes her cop-lover is a dumbshit. Djanine was also more than sorta attractive ... reminds of me a 70's actress whose name I cannot remember.  She, too, should have had a very long career.

  • Joanna Mills, who plays the wife, gives up some bum and exactly three frames of one nip. Joanna did make several more movies and did a couple of guest shots on TV.  It seems from Aroused and The Love Merchant that she preferred to give up very little on camera.

  • And then there is Fleurette Carter.  Her topless and bloodied body makes an appearance.


So there you have it.  No one I know would watch this puppy more than once but lots of people I know would find it worth 75 minutes on a cold night when the cable was down and the streets were frozen over. 

 

DVD INFO

  • The DVD includes three New York-based nihilist roughies:
    • Rent a Girl
    • Aroused
    • Help Wanted Female

 

NUDITY REPORT

See the main commentary

The Critics Vote ...

 

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

  • A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
  • B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
  • C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
  • C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
  • C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
  • D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
  • E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
  • F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

 

Based on this description, this film is a C-, competent genre fare from a specialty genre.

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