Something Weird Video | Buy at Something Weird | Review by Sinferno
While most people think that the cultural phenom that is Xploitation film reached it's high point in the 70's with the unrated arena cinematic showplace that was the drive in, the truth is that the 60's were an era where many of the sub-genres first began to congeal. For example, long before there was "Ilsa", the most evil Nordic looking blonde beauty who played various heads of state in all her movies and thrived on senselessly torturing people, there was "Olga", a similar femme fatale who ran bordellos, ruled them actually, with an iron fist and a supple whip. While this movie isn't an Olga film, the director Werner Rose, who was responsible for that series, also shot this one, so at least this Professor Lust comes from an accredited school of sleaze. Any man who created the ideological mother to the infamous Dyanne Thorne character obviously understands the basic nuts and bolts of these sorts of flicks, long before they were even known as canon.
Professor Lust (pronounced Loost) is a stodgy old instructor at a college who resembles Jack Palance in speech, mannerism and general social affect. While on campus grounds, he is a paragon of virtue, traditional ways and decency. In fact he even preaches about the immoral ways of campus life and today's (1960's) youth. But when class is dismissed, he retreats to his quiet off-campus abode and sniffs powder from a silver cane in typical Jekyll and Hyde fashion before becoming his own polar opposite: a corrupt, sleazy and arrogant codger who is involved in everything from drugs, gambling, and porno to murder for profit rackets.
Normally such a change in personality is a stretch for a 1967 film shot entirely in black white with a running time of less than 70 minutes, but the acting on the part of the professor is awesomely authentic. Try and picture your once kindly own Grandpa running a crime empire with an iron fist, using murderous threats and savage put downs, all with an ever-present arrogance that makes Monty Burns from the Simpsons look like Jimmy Stewart, and you will see how this otherwise bizarre premise for a film can be made serviceable, enjoyable-funny as hell! Of course every fiend needs his foil, and for the professor that is none other Miss Zimmerman, a fellow teacher at the university who has begun to suspect that our intrepid Professor has been behaving suspiciously and therefore has started to follow him around in order to gather evidence of his dirty doings and expose him to the faculty. Yet because Lust is not only a street savvy, but learned man and by definition nobody's fool, he kidnaps Miss Zimmerman, drugs her, then adds her to his stable of sex slaves, using her exclusively to serve his most hardcore customers, he puts it: "Our most obnoxious clients in our distinguished roster of monstrosities."
Insanity, audacity and acts of awe inspiring entitlement are the very lifeblood of the antics in PROFESSOR LUST, but the next day when Miss Zimmerman awakes in her own bed, feeling bruised, used and piecing together strange fragmented memories, she figures a way to rid the world of Mr Lust forever in such a way that even tenure couldn't save him: teaching the Professor a lesson of her own, one he will not soon forget. The ending, while truly satisfying, does leave itself open to a sequel which I don't think we are going to get (some forty years later). It's sad because this thing really calls for a remake. Aspiring cult directors (I know you are out there, reading this because we often chat/fight in email) should really pick up the rights for this one and make a modern version of it. With some decent makeup/transformation effects, color cameras, and an unrated rating, this old Professor could teach a whole new generation some lessons about the basics of Sexploitation 101.
| Yucko/Neato Factor: Despite its "unrated" rating, all nudity is rated R (breasts) as this was made in the sixties. Moreover, all of the really dark premises in this film are implied rather than "fleshed out'. But the character arc of the Professor from mild mannered educator to perverted tyrant and finally to ineffectual victim is so intricate and varied that it keeps your attention. |
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| Production Values: Black and white. Moreover a few times the sounds and dialogue did not match the action onscreen. Still, it didn't break the laws of it's own world. |
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| Realism: Change the Professor's "mystery chemical" to a certain opiate derivative and replace his cane with a giant coke spoon, and much of this would seem more probable than not. |
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| Value for Price: For $10.00 it's a fun hour, as long as you prefer campy to trampy. Sixty six minutes long plus a bunch of poor nudie shorts which the packaging didn't bother to mention, so I won't either. |
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| Plot: The plot is solid, kids. It has all the traditional elements, even if they are bizarre, simplistic and academic, if you will pardon the pun. |
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