A Thousand Pleasures

A Thousand Pleasures is a B&W film from softcore entrepreneurs Michael and Roberta Findlay.

During the credits, an unidentified naked go go dancer performs in front of three mirrors. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the film, and we never see her again.

As the film opens, our hero is washing dishes in a frilly apron, while his shrew of a wife berates him for being a slob. He stabs her to death, loads her into the back of the old station wagon, and goes on a road trip. Shortly thereafter, he picks up two female hitchhikers, who give him a blow job and lure him into their house. Little does he know that they are more than just two hitchhikers with very bad wigs. They are evil lesbians with very bad wigs, and they kidnap him as part of their master scheme to steal his sperm and get pregnant. They want a baby to replace the baby they already have, who is in her mid 20s, and is first seen in a crib wearing only diapers.

When our hero first sees the "baby", she proceeds to take off the diapers, get out of her crib, and masturbate with a candle. Of course, he hero decides to give her something better than a candle to play with, but is interrupted by the two evil lesbians who demonstrate their lovemaking while wearing bad wigs, then give him knockout drops. He wakes up in a bathtub to find a woman he calls Booberella playing with him. She takes him to bed.

Then he tries to escape, and a guy (convenient friend of the lesbians with bad wigs) knocks him over the head. He wakes up in time for a sex show, which entails one of the lesbians with bad wigs breast-feeding the "baby," while the other whips her with a bull whip. He decides he might as well screw Booberella again. Meanwhile, another women tries to seduce the convenient friend, who burns her with a cigarette.

Booberella warns him he is in trouble and should leave. He tries to escape, but is captured again. One of the lesbians with bad wigs knocks him senseless with a hearth shovel, then the two burn his feet in the fireplace so he won't try to escape again. When he comes to, he drags a straight razor out of his pocket, and crawls over to baby, slitting her throat. Next to go is the first lesbian with a bad wig. The second one is more of a challenge, but he manages to choke her to death.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Booberella, despite having warned him earlier, is not his ally. She ties him to a bed and chokes him to death with her left tit.

Finally, Booberella and the extra woman decide to become lovers and raise baby together.

I know baby is dead.

So did they.

The film is narrated as a flashback by our hero, by the way, who somehow managed to recall things that happened after Booberella strangled him to death!

Ed Wood, move over! The Findlays are every bit as incompetent as you, but add a special dimension of strangeness. This particular Findlay film is from their top shelf. It has an actual plot, demented thought it is, and some dialogue. Apart from that, the only positives are:

that they got six women out of their clothes.
fetishists will want to see the whipping and bondage.

NUDITY REPORT

6 women get naked, and all but one (Janet Banzet - breasts only) show everything.

The other five were Donna Stone, Uta Erikson, Kim Lewid, Linda Boyce, and the unknown dancer in the credits.

DVD info from Amazon

The B&W images are surprisingly clear and crisp. This film is packaged with another Findlay film, Take Me Naked.

On the other side of the ledger:

In a style reminiscent of TV's Batman, Roberta saw no reason to have the camera parallel to the floor.
What dialogue there was was clearly dubbed.

The Critics Vote ...

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 3.8/10, based on a mere eight votes.

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.

My 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. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. 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. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. 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-.

Based on this description, this rates a D+, but every scholar of the era and genre needs to see a Findlay film, and this one could be worse.