Lustful Addiction (1969)
** (out of 4)
Director Phillips became known for his softcore films coming out of San Francisco back in the true grindhouse days. I've heard a lot about him but this here was my first sampling of his sexploitation filmography. The film tells the story of a drug addict hooker who doesn't mind sleeping with her dealer just to get a discount. Her desperate addiction to drugs might just cost her a true love relationship with a clean guy. I've seen countless sexploitation films throughout my life from various studios but the majority of them have come from Something Weird and their big catalogue of titles. I must admit that this film is better than the majority of those due to the direction of Phillips but in the end this can't save the film all together. The best thing going for the film is its direction and cinematography, which really makes this stand out compared to others like it. The low-budget film doesn't feature any spoken words but instead just narration, which is the biggest problem as the dialogue being spoken is quite horrid. It sounds like the narrator is trying to be some sort of Bob Dylan with its poetic use of words but they all come off quite bad and at times laughable. The cinematography is very good throughout and the use of B&W really makes for a seedy looking picture that is able to pull the depression of the the character. The film doesn't have any credits so I'm not sure what the main actresses name is but she does a pretty good job in her role. She's very easy on the eyes as well so that's certainly not a bad thing. The film is also very bleak, dark and depressing but I found the softcore scenes very erotic. I normally don't find these sexploitation films to be that sexy but I thought this one was and that includes an extremely hot scene with our woman hooking up with another female stripper. In the end the movie eventually just runs too long, even at 70-minutes, and doesn't have enough going for it to make it a total success but it's certainly better than a lot of others out there.