Moonlighting Wives (1966, 86 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057320/
This was another Joseph W. Sarno film (I'd seen All the Sins of Sodom but way before I started keeping these comments) so I had some expectations coming in to the viewing. I wasn't expecting high quality but rather a plot driven sexploitation.
The film stars a lot of people for a little bit here and there (as evidenced by the IMDb page where the credits are pretty poorly done). Anyway, the movie is about a housewife who sets up a "stenography" business which is just a front for a prostitution ring. Eventually her world collapses on her.
The terrible thing about this film is that it can't decide if it wants to be a real film or if it wants to just be a sleazy sexploitation film. It ends up being neither. On the first front, it's not a real film because half the "talent" here can't act for anything. They were obviously chosen for their looks more than anything and sometimes I even question who was in charge of choosing on that merit. Anyway, hardly anyone can even remotely act so there's no way I'm supposed to be watching some deeply involving film. But on the other hand, the film isn't just a standard sexploitation since it focuses so much on plot to the point that there's no nudity at all. Characters are given development and we're even guided to like a few of the individuals. The main female lead isn't even a flat character but seems smart and guided and able to handle herself. Similarly, the police group in charge of catching the prostitution ring aren't just throwaway characters as they flesh out the story in their own way. All in all, there's a dichotomy here that pushes the film in two directions at once which ends up in it going nowhere at all.
By how the movie was pitched before the film, we're supposed to believe the following as the answer to the above conundrum: the film was originally a standard sexploitation to be directed by Joseph W. Sarno which he then immediately turned into a plot-driven film. Personally, I just don't feel like this answers anything. It's clearly apparent to me at least that neither direction ended up working and we're just left with a failed product on the whole. I mean, there is merit to how each side is handled as I alluded to above so it's not like it fails in each regard individually (in which case this film would be pretty much unwatchable).
Overall, I gave this film a 3/10. I think this is a fair rating for a film that pretty much just can't find a balance between two extremes.
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