Long considered a lost film, 'Take it out in Trade' marked the end of Ed Wood's career as a director (barring a VERY brief stint in the late 70's/early 80s when shooting test footage for 'Beach blanket Bloodbath). His last film? Well...it's no 'Glen or Glenda' or 'Plan 9' But the Ed Wood charms are absolutely still there bubbling under the surface.
'Take it out in trade' is (vibe wise) essentially a mash up of 'The Sinister Urge' and 'Orgy of the Dead' viewed throught he prism of a Ray Dennis Steckler porn film. The plot; a detective for hire is brought in by worried parents who's daughter has packed up and left home with no explanation or clear reason. The detective is hired to locate her and bring her home for a decent payment.
Where is the daughter? Well this is a 70's semi softcore porn flick. So as you can imagine, she's working in a high end brothel. And what follows is essentially a 'back and forth' between softcore and mid hardcore sequences of the girls of the brothel 'doing there thing' and the detective visiting associates of the girl trying to find some kind of lead that'll put him on her trail.
I really do have quite mixed feelings about this one, the plot isnt particularly mindblowing (its a porno made for next to nothing...Written by a now chronically alcoholic Ed Wood...This was never going to be 'Citizen Kane') But I must admit I found the character work here to be utterly delightful, and easily the main selling point of this feature. The characters arnt particularly well written you understand, but Ed's ability to find outsiders, weirdos and crusties is clearly still going strong here as the actors brought in here let their personalities overtake ANY kind of dialogue that Ed could have written.
For my money, the personal highlights of this are an extended scene in which our detective vists a heroin addict with STRONG Edith Massey vibes who genuinely seems lost in the scene and is clearly looking for instruction off camera. And probably the *other* highlight of this film (So good its on the poster) a cameo from Ed himself playing a loose lipped but slightly slurring drag queen who chews through the scenery like termites on drywall.
The whole vibe of the movie is one of unease, but not unpleasent unease...an unease that stems from a genuine loss as to what on EARTH the films going to pull out next. Which makes it all the more dissapointing that 7 times out of 10, what it does 'pull out next' is usually a badly shot softcore scene that feels like Stecklers work on a good day.
The scenes are overly long, regularly cross the line, have no level of eroticism or depth, REGULARLY repeat shots (and even MORE bizarrely, they'll reuse shots from previous scenes, in later scenes, to try and pad the runtime) you see 1 or 2 instances of female full frontal, but strangely, large chunks of the movie just consist of M/F humping with underwear (and in some cases trousers too) on at all times, or F/F humping in similar circumstances...I dont know whether the full frontal nudity sprinkled throughout was a result of them realising they COULD go harder midway through filming, or Eds reluctance to shoot penetration...But in either case it doenst matter, the scenes arnt well orchestrated, feel rushed and badly cut, and they go on for bloody AGES with no real resolution.
I found myself genuinely getting quite bored of the sex after a while just for how pedestrian and 'of the motions' it really was, and found myself much more compelled towards the eccentric journey of our lead Detective on his case. in many ways I wish they'd just stuck to that plot line as i'd have had a much more satisfying time (and more Ed would have REALLY been a boon considering he's only in one scene for around 4-5 minutes)
The directions not Ed's best, like the sex scenes there isnt really much coherency to the arrangements of shots, it doesnt really seem to have much of a creative flare, and almost feels like Ed's voice has been watered down when compared to films like 'Orgy of the dead' (which Ed wrote and you can ABSOLUTELY tell) or 'Love feast' (which Ed starred in and brings his own eccentricities to the role)
This? feels kind of limp, It has its moments...but not enough to help it really get a foothold in the same way Ed's other works appealed.
The cine too is fairly bland, its largely flat profile, VERY little B-roll, sequences run on static, locked off shots for WAY too long, the heavy use of recycled footage is problematic and...seemingly at random, the film will suddenly swap from pedestrian padded editing to an almost breakneck flurry of edits (presumably to get in on the dying rasps of 60's 'freakout' culture) Much like the characters and the script, this has its moments visually, but is otherwise kind of bland and cheap feeling.
On the whole? 'Take it out in Trade' didnt quite set my socks on fire, its a poor way for Ed to go out, with his voice as a scriptwriter watered down to the absolute basics, his directional flare curtailed down to the barest minimums. Its a largely uninspired work, with drab, dull and at times unpleasent to view sex scenes and a threadbear script that just about manages to hobble on in terms of its plotting.
On the other hand, the cast are all UTTERLY nuts (in the best possible way) and pretty much save the film from TOTALLY falling off the rails. The script DOES facilitate some genuinely bizarre moments from them, and the strange editing and use of footage sometime yields frankly odd results that I found appealing.
I think I prefer this to 'Orgy of the deads' "Nudie Cutie" style of just throwing a girl out to strip off for 8 minutes while the amazing Creswell sits just off screen throwing 'futurisms' out...this actually feels like a film rather than a peep show...But I dont think this will quite have the rewatch value of Woods non pornographic works. I could maybe see it pairing up with some of Steckler or John Waters early works...But if I wanna watch an Ed wood Movie...this wont be the one im first to reach for.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/take-it-out-in-trade/
No comments:
Post a Comment