The Sinister Urge
Tags: cult, murder

Plot synopsis:
The film revolves around a series of murders of young women. The opening scene features an unnamed blonde woman (Betty Boatner) running along a mountain road, wearing only her undergarments. She is clearly scared for her life. She enters a city park and manages to reach a telephone booth. Her attempt to escape her assailant ends in failure, when the man also reaches the booth. He quickly kills her and leaves her corpse next to a lake. The corpse is soon discovered by visitors of the park. The scene shifts to a police station, where Police Lieutenant Matt Carson (Kenne Duncan) receives a phone report on the latest murder. He instructs subordinate Officer Kline (Fred Mason) to gather information from the witnesses who called in the discovery of the body. Then he summons his associate Sergeant Randy Stone (Duke Moore) and they head out towards the crime scene. They take note of the youthful appearance of the victim and suspect a connection to the "smut picture racket".
The next scene takes place in the film studio of pornographic director Jaffe (Harry Keatan), an elderly man who is somewhat elfin in appearance. Jaffe is currently shooting a scene involving three women posing for the camera. He fusses over the details of the scene he is shooting, in a scene both depicting and mocking his artistic pretensions. His superior Johnny Ryde (Carl Anthony) interrupts him to bring orders from their boss, Gloria Henderson (Jean Fontaine). She wants their inventory moved to a safer location. Jaffe promises to do so after completing of his shooting. He never actually finishes, since Carson leads a police raid into the studio. All participants in the shooting are arrested, and the inventory of films passes into police custody.
Back at the police station, Carson and Stone are berated by their superior, who demands quicker action in exposing the racket. Afterwards the two officers are visited by local businessman Mr. Romaine (Harvey B. Dunn), who demands to know why are taxpayers' money wasted in persecuting harmless deviances such as pornography. In his view, they should be preoccupied with more serious crimes and with the gangs of young hoodlums roaming the streets. In response, Carson claims that the dirty picture racket is connected to major crimes. He then reveals images of the murder victims, and explains the connection between them working for the racket and their violent deaths. He then asks the shocked Romaine if he has a daughter. As he exits the door to leave, the visibly shaken Romaine explains that he has two daughters.
The next scene takes place in the suburban house of Gloria Henderson. Gloria is visited by Johnny Ryde, who informs her of the recent police raid. The conversation shifts to Shirley, a person permanently silenced by Dirk. This is the first time the name of the killer is revealed in the film. The conversation also reveals that Shirley had learned too much about the inside operations of Gloria's organization and was attempting to blackmail them. Johnny states that he is worried about Dirk himself, since he clearly enjoys using his knife. The conversation next moves to another operation of the pornography ring. They have been peddling bondage photos to high school kids, but these young customers have started demanding newer material.
The scene shifts to a hangout for the teenaged crowd, Jake's Pizza Joint. Teen customers are depicted happily dancing and eating. Then two young man approach each other, with switchblades in their hands. A fight begins, and Dirk Williams (Dino Fantini) is seen observing from afar. The fight is taken outside and evolves into a street fight attracting onlookers. Inside Jake, the owner, finds time to negotiate the purchase of more smut pictures from Janet, an agent of the pornography ring. He complains, however, about the inventory of photos he already has. Claiming that copies are already owned by everyone from ages 7 to 70, so finding new customers is hard. The fight outside attracts the attention of the police, so Jake and others are arrested. The two street fighters are revealed to be low-level smut peddlers, who were fighting over turf area.
Later, Janet leads three other women into attacking Clauson, a distributor of smutty pictures who was embezzling funds of the organization. The man ends up hospitalized. The scene shifts back to Gloria's house. Gloria and Johnny are watching 16 mm films, projected onto a screen, and conversing. Gloria points that the increasingly unstable Dirk is both aroused and triggered to kill by viewing pornography. Johnny claims that he can still keep the killer under control. Meanwhile, Dirk has returned to the park. He is flirting with a woman and the two kiss. But then his lust turns to murderous rage. He strips off her clothes and then stabs her to death.
In the police station, Carson and Stone start discussing the fates of the women victimized by pornography. 'Mary Smiths' from 'Everywhere, USA' who graduate at the top of their class, were once great in a school play, and come into Hollywood seeking stardom. The scene shifts to following the path of one 'Mary Smith' (Jeanne Willardson). The inexperienced actress is rejected by film studios and talent agents, before offered work by Johnny Ryde, who introduces himself as a director, without explaining the kind of films he directs. With childlike naivete, Mary agrees to work hard for him. She receives money for her expenses long before filming starts. She first becomes economically dependent on her employers, then she resigns into posing for revealing pictures.
The scene shifts from the fate of 'Mary Smith' to the exterior of Gloria's house, where Dirk is seen lurking. He breaks into the house and gets his hands into more smutty pictures. By this point, he is clearly addicted to both porn and killing. Later he returns to the park and finds another victim, a young woman who was feeding the ducks. This time the murder has repercussions for him. He leaves behind photos which he had touched with his bare hands. Through his fingerprints, the police discover the identity of the killer. The identity of the killer is leaked to the press, making the headline of the Hollywood Chronicle. Gloria's own overlords in "the Syndicate" then order her to remove Dirk permanently, as he is an unruly employee who is drawing negative attention for their organization.
Gloria and Johnny next argue over the best way to accomplish this. Johnny suggests an indirect way of killing Dirk, by sending on an errand in an old car with faulty brakes. In other words, arranging a fatal "accident" for him. As if aroused by the idea, the two partners then share a passionate embrace. Dirk survives his "accident" by leaping out of the car, then comes to Gloria's house seeking vengeance. He finds it empty and them manages to ambush an arriving Johnny. Johnny temporarily manages to convince his assailant that they could work together to topple Gloria off her leadership position. Dirk then murders Johnny, before being shot in the dark by Gloria, who assumed that she was shooting Johnny. The film ends with Gloria's disbelief that she shot the wrong man as the police arrest her.

Review: The stuff of which legends are made.In 1995 in beautiful downtown Toronto, when Tim Burton's mighty biopic ED WOOD went into second-run, one of our rep cinemas had a never-to-be-forgotten quadruple bill of films by everyone's favourite cross-dressing auteur.
JAIL BAIT, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS preceded this, the final programme of the evening, and perhaps Ed Wood's final masterpiece (well, for his "legit" non-porn movies anyway).
From the expected pimply nerdy geeks to one dignified old gentleman who said that they SHOULD have given Mr. Wood a star in front of Grauman's, this, the least seen of all of Wood's pictures from his "classical" period, was a real crowd pleaser.THE SINISTER URGE is a must for anyone with even a passing interest in the films of this precious Gonzo genius, or, like myself, who have a strange attraction to works made by people who eke out an existence way way way in the back alleys of Tinseltown.
My favourite bits include: 1) the long scene where the two hardworking cops out to bust the porn ring must explain to an anonymous taxpayer who comes to the station, and tell him exactly why they are spending his hard-earned tax dollars on such a seemingly trivial matter; this scene wouldn't even pass the green light in a pre-production meeting for an educational film, however with typically Woodian panache, the taxpayer leaves afterwards shaking his head in amazement over the great public service these man are performing.
The ever-critical writer-director is simultaneously praising and damning these intrepid cops for a seemingly superfluous service-- remember, only two years later the US government spent a huge wad of the taxpayers' money to decipher the lyrics to "Louie Louie" because the song was considered to be corrupting the minds of impressionable youngsters.2) the director's cameo appearance; since one of the main subplots concerns some knife-wielding loony who attacks women in the park (apparently looking at semi-clad girls in magazines drove him to his social deviance), the two cops talk about sending an undercover male officer in drag to the park and foil the psychotic pervert (right here, the audience knowingly began to applaud), and in the next scene, there is Mr. Wood in a dress and mop wig trying to ferret out the guy in the park.
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.
Well this all adds up to a movie that seems like a 10 hour skin grafting session.Is it bad?
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).
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.
Not as the cop in drag with a tight womens wool sweater, which would have been more like it for Wood, but as a smut peddler having it out with his rival at a pizza joint that fronts for a porno distribution site.
Things get real bad for Gloria when the cops take into custody her top smut photographer Jaffe together with all the canisters of porno films, that he hid in his closet.
Dirk he goes bananas when he sees porno films and pictures that he's peddling supplied by Gloria's right-hand man in her business the former legit Hollywood film maker Johnny Ryde.
Director Ed Wood does the best he can to show the evils of pornography and how it effects naive and innocent young girls who come to Hollywood looking to make it big in the motion picture industry.
Only ending up getting talked into making porno films by the likes of Gloria and Johnny Ryde to just pay off their bills.
We see the tragic story of Mary Smith who ended up making smut films and photos for Gloria and finally fell victim to Dirks sinister urge.
We also see in the movie "The Sinister Urge" how difficult it is to arrest the likes of Gloria Henderson and make the charges of the crimes she committed stick.Admittedly a laughable venture, which of his movies aren't, of Wood's because of the cheap budget and in some cases non-actors in it.
The movie "The Sinister Urge"is still years ahead of it's time thanks to the foresight and vision of it's director Ed Wood Jr, in showing the evils and horrors of the then, in 1961, underground and illegal smut business in and out of Hollywood.
Some people believe that Ed Wood knew exactly what he was doing: that he *intended* to make "bad" movies in order to make people laugh.
There are plenty of good reasons not to buy into that theory, and THE SINISTER URGE is Exhibit A.PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, GLEN OR GLENDA, and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER are endearing in their goofy lunacy.
This one, though just as bad as the rest of Wood's oeuvre, is mostly just plodding and dull.Not that there isn't entertainment to be had here, at least for the bad movie connoisseur: my personal favorite is the obvious use of pre-existing (and completely unrelated) footage, shoehorned in on the waste-not want-not principle and "justified" through the use of atrocious dubbing and risible expository dialogue (which takes place *after* the inserted scene, making it even more ludicrous).
But that's not the sort of thing calculated to make a mainstream audience roar with laughter.I can imagine someone trying to make a movie like PLAN 9.
His legacy is now, well, being the ultimate in bad schlock kind of movie-making, where you can almost see the sets about the tear at the seams, the actors going through their lines like they know they won't get any pay for it, and camera-work (and perhaps editing too) that becomes jarring in the worst possible ways.
While the Sinister Urge, Wood's last 'real' film before diving deep into obscure porn directing (ironic considering the film's subject here), does not have a kind of classically bad way about it like Plan 9 From Outer Space.
The Sinister Urge in comparison doesn't have that impressive ambition to be something more than it can never be, as this film is nothing more than an under-cooked 'warning' film about porn movies, and the people who may kill to be apart of them.The Sinister Urge is 71 minutes long, which doesn't overstay its welcome (though one may try and define 'welcome' with an Ed Wood picture) as a film with many static camera angles and very few moments of ingenuity.
On top of the story not really being too coherent, anyway, the director's method of the 'cut, print, perfect' method can be seen quite often with some laughable mistakes abound.Now, does all of this make the Sinister Urge as astoundingly, amusingly bad as Plan 9?
Jean Fontaine in ridiculous clothing runs a "smut" photo and film industry, consisting of girls being photographed in bathingsuits (often one-piece!) or filmy dressing gowns.
You know that when Mr. Wood made a film he did put all of his heart and soul in each one of the films (ok the ones I saw and the 50's films that most people see) The problem being is that he was completely incompetent as a director.
Why this film is not on DVD like the rest of the Ed Wood collection I don't know.
- 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!
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.
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....
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think this might be the worst movie Ed Wood ever made.
It seems like this was the one Ed Wood movie I hadn't heard of.
As expected from a B-movie, it moves very slowly and has had bad acting.
*. Forgotten Wood Film Predicts His Future Work.
Wood, Jr.'s hard-hitting look at the smut business has Lt. Carson (Kenne Duncan) and Sgt. Stone (Duke Moore) trying to solve a couple murders where the victims had just taken part in the pornography world.
THE SINISTER URGE is Wood's attempt to show how ugly and evil the porn business is so I guess it's kind of ironic that this would be his last directing job for ten years until he would start working in, you guessed it, the porn business.
As you'd expect, this here is a pretty poor film that like most of Wood's stuff has an interesting idea but the story is all over the place and in the end it just makes no sense.
"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...
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).
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.
Quite possibly Ed Wood's worst film.
The Sinister Urge did nothing for me though, and derails Night of the Ghouls as quite possibly Ed Wood's worst film.
Wood's films are not very well made, but The Sinister Urge manages to be one of his worst-looking and most amateurish films.
Don't get me wrong, porn is one of the last career moves I want to pursue, but I just wondered whether it really was as "evil" as The Sinister Urge painted it out to be.
2/10 Bethany Cox. Ed Wood's last attempt at 'serieus' movie making..
Especially also hilarious how Ed Wood tried to put in humor into this movie.
Ironicaly enough Wood himself would land into the world of soft-core porn movie making after this film as a director, writer and (unfortunatly also) actor.
So it's also really doubtful that Ed Wood actually did some research for his movie.Continuety is a big problem and the editing often doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Ed Wood always had a hard time finding financiers for his movies.
Wood Jr's last 'serious' film-making attempt is consistent with the movies he did prior to this movie.
So Mr. Wood ends in style with "The Sinister Urge".2/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/.
This Ed Wood film was not like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Glen and Glenda, this one is a bit less known.
The police are trying their best to not only solve the murders, but to destroy the adult film industry responsible for the crimes.
Pretty sure that would be just as effective using a camera.This made for a pretty funny episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as most of the Ed Wood films do.
All in all a rather good episode of the show, but Ed Wood films give the gang a lot to work with!
So this film pretty much tries to stress to the viewer that porn is bad and that it is responsible for all crime in the known universe.
Ed Wood and his films are a bad lot, but for my money, Coleman Francis is a lot worse!.
Not as bad as Some Say. A flunky for a porno movie ring starts murdering the smut films' lead actresses.This film has made it on the "turkey list", has been made fun of by MST3K, and has been called he worst film Ed Wood ever made (which is a rather scathing insult).
The sets are cheap and the editing needs work, but this is clearly a film that was not just another rehash.
Why are Ed Wood's movies considered so bad?.
Accordingly, the first feature length pictures, in the silent time, were divided in scenes and acts like in theater pieces.
Theater pieces too, although they simulate scenes of everyday life, are dominated by text which have be written first - like the scenarios of the movies.
Is this one a bad director who changes day and night in a short cemetery scene like Ed Wood did?
I would like to look forward to seeing soon Ed Wood's work edited in a dignified looking package of carefully crafted DVD-collections..
After years of hearing how awful Ed Wood films are this example of his work really didn't seem so bad.I expected epic continuity errors, little to no plot and extremely low budget filming.
its true, this film is one of the worst i have seen yet that Ed Wood did.
i am beginning to realise that once you've seen one Ed Wood film, you have as good as seen the rest.
Even by Ed Wood's standards, The Sinister Urge is a miserable movie.
Everything you would expect to find in an Ed Wood film is here  a ridiculous plot, bad acting, stilted dialogue, poor editing, and bad set design.
Ed Wood wasn't the most gifted filmmaker and he often worked in less than stellar conditions, but there's no denying his love of 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.
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.
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).