All things considered, this is a slightly above average New York-lensed roughie. Director-producer-screenwriter-cinematographer-editor Joseph Mangine displays a talent for the hand held camera, and his black and white photography is consistently well framed and well shot. His script, of course, leaves much to be desired, but then this IS a softcore sex picture, so expectations should be tempered from the get go. Nonetheless, there is a certain wry humour at play in this picture, especially when the pot party's participants get the munchies and expound at length on the pleasures of Butter Brickle ice cream. The acid trip denouement isn't much, but if you're familiar with the genre, you've seen much worse. Something Weird's print is, happily, in terrific shape.
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JohnSeal27 May 2005
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Red-Barracuda1 February 202260's drugsploitation about a guy who looks like an alien from the original Star Trek series who invites a bunch of hippies over to his house to smoke hash, take LSD, bang his wife and play slot cars. Things get tricky when a bunch of bikers turn up and get violent. For a drug film this is actually pretty decent. The cinematography is very good, it has a psychedelic soundtrack and it manages to remain engaging throughout. Definitely one of the better drug movies of its time.
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Hey_Sweden27 March 2016"Smoke and Flesh" was a rare writing & directing effort for veteran B movie cinematographer Joseph Mangine ("Squirm", "Alligator", "Alone in the Dark" '82). Shot in NYC, what little story it has revolves around a character named Turk (Richard Howell), who throws a wild sex-and- drugs party. Things go fine until a slimy dude named Skiff (Lee Parker) crashes the party, intending to get some revenge for some slight that happened earlier. But Turk figures out just what to do with Skiff and his buddies.
There's not much that's memorable here, unless you count the use of whipped cream in one scene. This movie may also not be depraved enough for the tastes of some viewers. All in all, it's somewhat mild for a sexploitation flick. One scene of disrobing is actually shot from beneath a bed. There's still an acceptable amount of bare female flesh for the intended audience, and some generally agreeable nonsense throughout. One major debit is the music score, which is not only omnipresent, but overbearing, as it tends to drown out the dialogue from scene to scene.
On the plus side, given that Mangine also co-edited this, and shot it himself, it LOOKS pretty good. There's some inventive camera work, and appropriately atmospheric lighting. The performances are adequate for this sort of thing.
Even though this runs a scant 69 minutes, you can see some definite padding at times. It's mostly recommended to people who enjoy discovering trashy obscurities.
Five out of 10. -
madsagittarian9 May 2003God bless Something Weird Video for digging up any old films in people's vaults, basements, trash bins, etc., and unleashing them again for a new generation of discriminating viewers who appreciate the subterranean qualities of "fringe cinema". (Now if only they would find some more Phil Tucker films... hint hint)
SMOKE AND FLESH sounds like a title for a Tennessee Williams play, but is instead a near-plotless account of a sex and drugs party gone awry. This is the SCORPIO RISING of the 60's softcore sex film-- on the surface it is a campy piece of trash, but hindsight reveals it to be a scathing portrayal of 60's liberation gone straight to hell.
This film is cheerfully bereft of any pesky things such as character development. It seemingly operates as a simple exploitation picture-- if all you want is people getting high and rolling in the hay, well, that's all you're gonna get! Even so, this study of mankind's primal activities shows just how much less civilized we are than the beasts.
The long opening scene shows this dude in leather on a motorcycle going through alleys, parking his hog, going up a fire escape, hopping over into another building, and finally, into someone's apartment to buy some dope for tonight's big party. That's the crux of this whole picture: the extremities people will go for some pleasure. And what ensues in this party is a non-stop laugh riot up until its bizarre third act.
There's enough steamy sex and campy laughs to keep you interested. Most memorable is the guy making love to a beautiful woman (with generous amounts of whipped cream for good measure), and the 50-ish professor who encourages these hippie studs to make love to his wife for some research he's doing! Wilheim Reich, eat your heart out.
The movie turns sour when bikers crash the party and begin to have their way with the booze and the women. The stoned-out hippies retaliate by putting acid in their beer! So much for "peace and love", man! Sure this campy romp ends on an ugly note, but this is not necessarily a flaw. What is this picture but a sobering look at the outrageous limits of a supposedly liberated society.
Most assuredly, SMOKE AND FLESH seems like a picture from another world now, but what distinguishes this from a dozen other exploitation films is its curious misanthropy, and its surprisingly creative B&W photography. It is apparent that the filmmakers were at least trying to make something out of the undemanding conventions of its exploitation contents (check out when the bikers freak out on LSD- everything is shot in negative).
It is discovering lost goodies like this while flipping blindly through the titles way back in your favourite non-corporate video store that makes an incurable film archaeologist so much fun. -
juliankennedy2319 February 2005Smoke and Flesh: 3/10: Lets see a motorcycle gang that drives around in Mom's station wagon, check. A gent with an actual motorcycle who buys his driving leathers at the bondage store and begins the film with a ten-minute ride in silence, check. Strip slot car racing and swinger porn complete with a man who could be a Star Trek alien no make-up required, yup check.
Why only 3/10? Well the music sounds like a mentally challenged beach band. The black and white cinematography is a little too creative with lots of shots of fish tanks and slot racing cars. (They show an entire race.) The motorcycle/station wagon gang turns the movie from pseudo trippy party fun to a bit of a downer.
The first half of Smoke and Flesh is cool albeit disjointed the second half had me reaching for the fast forward button -
Scarecrow-884 July 2011Some people get together for a party, with booze, weed, and sex all part of the festivities. Some yahoos from a bar decide to crash the party and cause disruption to the "harmony". Plenty of nudity and lasciviousness (one guy sprays whip cream down a girl's naked body using his tongue to lap it off; there's a strip game using a toy car track and miniature vehicles, so on and so forth), but the sex is edited in way to shy away from explicit love making. Lots of wasted suburbanite couplings, body groping, and the director attempting to inject as much style as he can with lots of various camera angles (he shoots under the bed as a couple undress, has a camera mounted on a motorcycle showing the rider heading for a certain destination, etc.). One priceless sequence of events has an older man (suffering a glandular condition leaving him unable to satisfy his wife sexually) asking a stud to bed his wife while he takes pictures (the camera shoots the old man's teeth up close as he salivates, eyes wide with excitement!). It's just so sleazy. There's lots of gabbing with swingers all getting unwound as they take in intoxicating substances, their inhibitions slowly freed from the shackles of restraint. There might be some campy moments here and there to keep you interested, but I was mostly bored by it. Just a bit too tame for my tastes.
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NoDakTatum21 October 2023According to the film makers, if you have an empty paper towel roll, a flour sifter, and a slot car racing track, then you've got a party! Turk (Richard Howell) is throwing a big pot party at his pad. He's invited a good half dozen friends over, and a character known as "The Man," (Joel Bently) who is bringing the marijuana. Everything goes swimmingly until four hoods travelling around in a car spot Turk's girlfriend Sue (Ann Brandt), and decide to crash the shindig. A cube of LSD and some quick thinking means a return to pre-hood fun!
This film was done on the cheap, shot in black and white, and probably shown in grindhouse theaters thanks to the copious amounts of nudity and drug use. However, Joseph Mangine, in this one of only two directorial efforts, does such fun things with his camera, I couldn't help but watch it. The film opens with an extended sequence involving The Man traveling by motorcycle to Turk's. I was reminded of New Wave French cinema watching the bike travel cold wet streets, with the camera strapped on the motorcycle's gas tank. The uncredited music score is infectious, and will stick with you for days. One couple to watch for is Walter (Bo Barten) and Charlotte (Victoria Astor). Walter has a glandular problem, and watches his wife have sex with other men, taking notes for a planned book. Most of the cast go through the motions, the hoods are as scary as a newborn baby, but touches like Sue's near assault with just a swinging light illuminating the scene, and a certain sex scene involving whipped cream, make this film hilarious, and dare I say it, fun. Come on, where else are you going to see a strip game of slot car racing, or a cannabis fueled philosophical discussion about how similar humans are to fish? Even the title sounds European, I'm assuming "Sexy Pot Party" was too obvious. This is goofy stuff, and makes me wish Mangine had been able to do more, if someone could have given him a budget of more than a couple of hundred bucks.