Watch The Sinister Urge For Free

Sick Product of a Sick System

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"ANOTHER SEX MANIAC MURDER! - SMUT PICTURE RACKET BLAMED!" - The Hollywood Chronicler reports.1959's "The Sinister Urge" was the last movie Ed Wood Jr. would ever direct, so it serves as his directorial swan song and all I can say is, Ed went out in style! So what's to be said about it, sure it's a bad movie, but all of his movies are bad, but for me The Sinister Urge is one that endures and here's why. First of all the film comes loaded with several memorable and highly amusing characters, in which when these six characters (Lt. Matt Carson, Randy, Johnny Ryde, Gloria Henderson, Yaffe and Dirk Williams) interact with each other, the screen is absolutely flush with character and charisma. The Sinister Urge - a quickly-made cheapy, clocks in at just over 70 minutes, so as you might expect there's little in the way of wasted time and things get interesting in a hurry. I find that when the hour grows late The Sinister Urge is a perfectly charming little flick to wind down your day with - which in my experience, does not diminish with repeated viewings. Plus (and to brilliant effect) this film has the dubious distinction of being the -one and only- Ed Wood film to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's my opinion that this film gels together and that's primarily due to how good most of the casting is. Well maybe "good" isn't exactly the right word, "effective" may be more suitable.So what's it all about? Well unlike most of Ed Wood's work, The Sinister Urge actually has a very tight and cohesive plot, which for once seems to be rooted in reality.... for the most part at least. This charming Ed Woodian-tale takes us back to the late 50's, at a time and place, where you could find your friendly-neighborhood-smut-peddler's (Johnny Ryde and Gloria Hendersen) busy at work plying their wares and when backed by the local syndicate, the duo of Johnny and Gloria, along with "Yaffe", a quirky little business associate, this team of three makes for an A-1 smut-running racket. You see what these pioneering pornographers are vying for, is for a complete saturation of the local market and then to expand their operations from there. And as the queen bee, Gloria Henderson herself said "I've got a tremendous busy going here and it's getting bigger every month." But before the dastardly duo of Henderson & Ryde can ascend to the ranks of pornographic super-stardom (in Smut Town and beyond), there's a formidable obstacle in their path: Lieutenant Matt Carson and his side-kick Randy.To make the movie something a bit more involving than the production and distribution of softcore smut, schlockmeister Wood wisely included something that actually is a crime: Murder (or more accurately - serial murder). Which as it turns out, is very bad for business. Whose to say, if it weren't for the serial-killings which were happening on a routine basis, that Lt. Matt Carson and Detective Randy wouldn't of, in time, become regular customers of the smut picture racket. But however it's a string of serial murders, that gets the wily, veteran, policeman on their case. While I'm fond of all the great casting that's seen in this cheap n' trashy piece of schlock (but of course isn't that all that Ed Wood EVER made), but for me, in what was her one and only film appearance, it's the performance of Jean Fontaine who stands-out the most. She was simply a natural in the role as the witchy and conniving Gloria Henderson, who conveniently ran her dirty picture business from the comfort of her suburban home - her very own hive of sin. But in reality this woman seemed to be little more than an aging, sand-paper-voiced, cigarette-hag, who probably wasn't straying to far from her own personality.The films simply a riot and Ed Wood has some insanely crazy ideas about the affects of porn on society, which you'll hear in detail throughout the movie. But as I see it, the movie is at it's most stupendously ridiculous 20 minutes in, during a scene where Lt. Carson is conversing with Mr. Romaine, an elderly "concerned citizen" and tax-payer, whose all in a flutter, but leaves somber after Lt. Matt Carson "educated" him on all things smut. With such ludicrous claims as "The dirty-picture racket can be directly connected to a good percentage of the major crimes in this city." or "The smut-picture racket is worse than kid-napping or dope peddling." Then a little latter on we have a scene where some of Gloria Henderson's models, posing in panties and bras, in a privately-owned photography studio mind you, are arrested by Lt. Carson and his goons, for what was essentially, nothing more than a series of glamour shots. However and here's where it get's outlandishly out-of-wack, the bail for each model was set at $5,000 a piece. That's in upwards of $60,000 in today's money!!! For the crime of: glamour shots.With all these wild claims one can easily conclude, that Ed Wood had some incredibly bloated (even downright errant) idea's on the corrupting influences of porn (or "smut" as they call it - their product, quit tame by today's standards).Released in 1959 The Sinister Urge came at the end of what was truly an awesome era for bad movies, the late-50's and from what I've seen over the years, the only era that was better at producing bad movies was the mid-80's. An era, which at the same time, also has many of the very best movies as well - the 80's were an incredible time for movies.

The best of Ed Wood's films-- his love song to Bela Lugosi, 'The Bride of the Monster' (1955), the amazing Wood-de-force, 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' (1959) and his masterpiece 'Glen or Glenda' (1953)--all contain the elements of his classic 'film making' style. These include poor direction, stilted acting, fakey looking action, monologues and dialogs ranging from the poor and sit-at-the-desk pedantic to the surreal and bizarre, non sequiter sequences, mistakes not edited out, non matching inserts of stock and original footage, lack of camera movement, cheap post production overdubbing -- oh, the list could go on forever if I had a film making degree from USC.This film shares these elements, but somehow, for me they just didn't 'click' this time. Too many boring sequences of Kenne Duncan (as Lt. Matt Carson) sitting at his desk talking to Duke Moore (Sgt. Stone) either about the relationship between pornography and crime, or to explain the developing action of the story that is mostly not shown. Here is the ultimate crime of visual or print story telling-- don't tell what happens, show what happens (don't say a man is evil, to make your point describe or show him kicking a cat or squashing a lizard with his foot). We finally do get a visual story: a mix of a serial killer (a well cast Dino Fantini) knifing models in the park after looking at their 'smut' photos; a small town girl, eager to make it in Hollywood, getting tricked into the porno racket, and the battles of the 'smut' merchants Johnny Ryde (Carl Anthony) and Gloria (the bizarrely dressed hoarse voiced Jean Fontaine) with the police, their customers and 'the syndicate'.This description makes the film sound better than it is. Little that goes on is of note, except for its unintentional humor (another great part of Ed Wood's 'style'). This is why it's best to watch the 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' 1994 version (available on DVD) that not only glorifies the humorous high points ("You're filming your shirt!" etc.), but also helps us wade thru the tedious dead spots, of which there are many.We know why Ed Wood relied so much on explaining off stage action rather than showing it: it was a simple lack of budget and time (but also skill). This does not put him up on the level of doing the best with the least. That honor properly goes to the great Edgar G. Ulmer whose landmark Poverty Row films 'Detour' (1945) and 'Man From Planet X' (1951) are master classes in film making technique in working on virtually no budget or time.Ed Wood can never be considered in the same rank as other film makers, but occupies his own unique and special place: The Top of the Bottom. The MST3K version helps it a lot, but still I'll have to give it a 2.

"The Sinister Urge" is proof if any was ever needed that Ed Wood was a completely and utterly inept writer and director. He does, of course, have a surprising number of fans who actually like some of his work ("Bride of the Monster", I have to admit, isn't really all that bad of a film), but "The Sinister Urge" is so chock-full of Ed Wood clichés (redundant dialogue, amazingly bad acting, and taking hypocritical preaching to a whole new level are but few of the features of this film).I've seen "The Sinister Urge" several times in its "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version, which features some of the funniest and most seemingly random riffs in the history of that show- one scene features Mike and the bots breaking into song... but I won't spoil that for you. Tonight I watched this film without their aid and it is a prime example of complete cinematic incompetence. From start to finish the script is unbelievably bad, not even in an earnest "Plan 9" sort of way- there's only the occasional laugh here, unless you can find humor in something so pathetically horrid. Similarly, Wood is incapable of even a second of flair in his direction of the film.There are people in this world who will tell you with a straight face that this is a fine film, an indictment of the seedy world of pornography (oh let's face it, compared to what we have going now, the porn industry in 1960 was one big huge convent). These people are absolutely, unequivocally NUTS. One only has too look at Wood's filmography to see that he had already written several smut films, including notorious early nudie Western "Revenge of the Virgins", prior to this film's release."The Sinister Urge" is one of the most boring, plodding, miserable excuses for a film in all of cinema. I'm not a big fan of picking on Ed Wood, to be honest, but this is proof (along with the many other films of his that aren't widely known) that Wood is an astoundingly incompetent director.1/10

I really think smut gets a bad rep. This Ed Wood schlocker attempts to correlate the smut racket and the ills of society's problems. Well, at least back in 1961. Of course, this isn't shown so well and Ed delivers his usual bland scenes of dialogue where the characters are trying to further progress the story. Or were they trading borscht pie recipes? Well this all adds up to a movie that seems like a 10 hour skin grafting session.Is it bad? Of course, no question. Or was it made out to be that way? After seeing Ed Wood's works, it looks like his actors are giving serious, genuine performances, but there's a sense that they're having fun with it (that is until Ed explained how he was going to pay them). Characters galore range from crazed psychotic who really intimate with a switchblade to 9 fingered wonder Harvey B Dunn who adds new meaning to `giving the bird'. Some scenes are so kampy, it's funny. An interview with naïve actress really had me laughing when the interviewer slyly explains what type of film they'll be shooting. Also, a group of teeners (aka more of Ed's extras) witness a fight break out for no reason!! To try and explain the hilarity of this scene would not do it justice. Count how many desk scenes there are till your wall paint starts peeling! And that Kline, can he steal a scene or what?Ah, but let's not forget Jean Fontaine as Gloria. Her grating voice really adds a menacing presence (I will never look at a leotard the same way ever again). Maybe smut wasn't the problem and Gloria was the root of the problem? Well, that or her seal tight ensemble displayed throughout the movie! Listening to Gloria's logic and way of reasoning makes me realize that caning may not be such a bad thing after all. And her great line "Dirk? No, that can't be Dirk. Uh-uh. No, that's not Dirk. No" is well worth the price of admission. There's so much more like shooting on the smut set of scantily clad (?) actresses, abrupt jump cuts, a police raid (HA HA HA), the Syndicate….oh man, some directors wish they could create movies with the flair Ed Wood had. I'm starting to see method in Ed's madness.