P.P.S. (Prostitutes Protective Society) - 1966

PPS stars "Madame Sue and her Times Square Girls." I have to assume this means I just watched a film starring real NYC hookers. I cannot find proof of this anywhere, but have you ever wanted something so badly you willed it into existence, like a candy bar or the death of someone who annoys you? That is what I'm doing right now. Whether this is true or not, it is true. It adds yet another layer of insanity to director Barry Mahon's already batshit nudie/roughie/"action" extravaganza.

Lasting 62 wonderful minutes, PPS is an epic, nigh-Shakespearean revenge tale in which Madame Sue's ladies of the night are being systematically wiped off this wretched Earth by an angry mob boss. Why so angry? Sue refuses to give him 10% of her enterprise's earnings. After 40 minutes of just taking it like a good little whore should, thatta girrrlll, Sue and her cohorts decide to take the power back in the final 22 with her call to arms: "This is the way we work it. We're gonna get guns. And other weapons."

The craziness begins immediately with Madame Sue's voiceover.  She has an accent of maybe-Eastern-European-but-still-indeterminate origin so thick that I missed a good 40% of her words, which would not be a terrible loss had the majority of the film not necessitated her narration! Mahon's lack of budget forced a generous amount of shooting out in the seedy streets of 1960's midtown Manhattan. Permit-less guerilla filmmaking ensues, of course minus sound equipment, nor any other kind aside from the camera. So even if two characters are conversing on screen, Madame Sue's voiceover must explain their exchange.  And explain and explain. It's called padding, people. There is so much soundless footage and only a single funky song to play over them that Madame Sue ends up explaining that which needs not be explained just to break up the monotony. We do however receive a phenomenal time capsule in these verite interstitials featuring blindingly bright theater lights, the gaudiness of these dens of sin, and loads of gawkers fascinated by an actual, bona fide movie camera out in the open. It's bona fide!

Homage to The Searchers?

These grindhouse nudies can be pedagogical exercises in smut, such as PPS informing me that prostitutes tend to spend their days topless, and often sponge wash each other during multi-partner shower sessions. This is only logical. We see our share of breasts, a lesbian subplot that is called back to once or twice (impressive writing!), and multiple scenes of the girls non-acting through roundtable discussion of their hairy predicament. The line delivery is so wooden that this could be the reference point for all future parodies while simultaneously beefing up my case for these being true streetwalkers. You know, the case I proved true through sheer will.  It's a master class in ineptitude so nonsensical that it rises beyond criticism into a temporal plane of its own invention where the entirety of human knowledge resides, hidden
away from us worthless plebeians. It's a marvel to behold.

Logic!

The dearth of funds is also apparent in the blank sets, but also the choices of those sets. The mob boss who apparently rules the whole of midtown with unflinching ferocity can only congregate with his minions (and meet with Madame Sue) in an echoey metal stairwell. Imagine a discussion of criminal activity between six men crammed between floors, shouting orders and aggravations at one another until they must stagger their exit by four-second intervals so as not to be seen together.  Smart planning, boys.

Castration Prep

And then we have the sweet, sweet violence. Women are strangled from behind, lynched, stabbed in silhouette form, stabbed right in front of us, and shot while in bed with a John by a prohibition-era drum magazine Thompson. It took this much death around them for the ladies to non-chalantly choose to defend themselves. But defend they do, ridding their turf of all scum who would tax their earnings. These super sex-heroines slice, shoot, and drown their enemies until they are free from any imposed control. I should emphasize the startling mercilessness of their endeavor for 1966. The scorned women take the mob boss on a long, leisurely drive to a clearing, slowly tie him to a log while he stares down the barrel of a pistol, and proceed to slice his cock off. This must be a fantasy come true for the real (!) prostitutes in the film, and the real prostitute in all of us.

It's mayhem!