One Shocking Moment (1965)
** (out of 4)
Ted V. Mikels produced, wrote and directed this film about Cliff (Gary Kent), a husband who moves himself and wife Mindy (Lee Anna) from Grand Rapids, MI to Los Angeles, CA where soon afterwards their marriage starts to fall apart because he starts to see the wild side of the city. ONE SHOCKING MOMENT certainly isn't going to shock people today but at the time you can see why it probably drew in some audiences. At the same time, you can't help but think that some of the raincoat crowds were disappointed because this really isn't like most of the sexploitation pictures from this era because Mikels actually wrote a decent screenplay and there's a lot more character driven stuff than just your typical non-stop nudity. Don't get me wrong as there's quite a bit of nudity from start to finish but this here is never the main focus of the film. I was really surprised to see how much plot was here and even more shocking is the fact that the film remains entertaining for the most part. I found the performances to be better than you normally see in this type of film and especially by Kent who would go onto appear in some pretty big drive-in pictures. As with a lot of these films, this one here can't fully hold its 71-minute running time so the final fifteen-minutes or so really drag. Still, fans of the genre or the director will still want to check it out.
** (out of 4)
Ted V. Mikels produced, wrote and directed this film about Cliff (Gary Kent), a husband who moves himself and wife Mindy (Lee Anna) from Grand Rapids, MI to Los Angeles, CA where soon afterwards their marriage starts to fall apart because he starts to see the wild side of the city. ONE SHOCKING MOMENT certainly isn't going to shock people today but at the time you can see why it probably drew in some audiences. At the same time, you can't help but think that some of the raincoat crowds were disappointed because this really isn't like most of the sexploitation pictures from this era because Mikels actually wrote a decent screenplay and there's a lot more character driven stuff than just your typical non-stop nudity. Don't get me wrong as there's quite a bit of nudity from start to finish but this here is never the main focus of the film. I was really surprised to see how much plot was here and even more shocking is the fact that the film remains entertaining for the most part. I found the performances to be better than you normally see in this type of film and especially by Kent who would go onto appear in some pretty big drive-in pictures. As with a lot of these films, this one here can't fully hold its 71-minute running time so the final fifteen-minutes or so really drag. Still, fans of the genre or the director will still want to check it out.