Mondo Keyhole
directed by Jack Hill
starring Nick Moriarty, Cathy Crowfoot
VCI Entertainment
The success of the Italian 1962 exploitation film Mondo Cane kicked off a string of pseudo-documentaries focused on weird and salacious practices from around the world. The veracity of these films varied wildly, yet they were a hit with audiences. Hoping to cash in on the fad, producer John Lamb and director Jack Hill (Switchblade Sisters, 1975) took their black-and-white “roughie” sex film, originally titled The Worst Crime of All, slapped the title “Mondo Keyhole” on it, and hoped for the best. While it isn’t a true mondo film, it is often a surreal experience, interlacing art house sensibilities into the standard sexploitation template. This makes for a mesmerizing watch that extends well beyond the now-tame sight of monochrome nudity.
Howard Thorne (played by Nick Moriarity) is an impotent mail-order pornographer who can’t perform for his voluptuous wife, Vicki. Instead, he prowls the streets of Los Angeles, looking for women to rape in order to satisfy his carnal desires. His double life is unraveling his marriage, while his fractured psyche erodes his sanity. When Howard attacks a woman who is best friends with a Native American karate black belt dominatrix (Cathy Crowfoot), his predatory days are numbered. Both Moriarity and Crowfoot deliver captivating performances. Moriarity, a non-actor who actually ran a mail-order pornography operation in real life, brings authenticity to the role, especially as the film showcases some of his company’s own films, magazines, and record albums. Crowfoot, the then-girlfriend of producer John Lamb, is surprisingly the best actor in the film, emerging as a prototype for the tough, sexy, and resourceful woman that often anchors Jack Hill’s best work.
There are few genres of exploitation filmmaking that director Jack Hill didn’t tackle and elevate, all while still delivering what producers and audiences wanted. Hill captures striking time capsules, including behind-the-scenes glimpses of the porn operation’s mail room and an extended sequence shot at an actual Hollywood Artists and Models Ball Christmas masquerade party — complete with mid-’60s body paint and go-go music. The last third of the movie feels like Hill was freed from the restraints of the production, getting delightfully weird to pad out the running time for very little money. The mix of documentary footage with the film’s artifice adds immeasurably to the surreal, dreamlike nature of the final act. This culminates in a climactic orgy that recalls Dante’s Inferno: Vicki is led through various levels of depravity by a man dressed as Dracula performing a Bela Lugosi impression, while across town, Howard gets his just rewards.
VCI has chosen Mondo Keyhole as the second film in the label’s Psychotronica Collection, presenting it in all its uncut glory, restored from the original camera negative. As expected for a film made on a shoestring budget and shot handheld with mostly available light, the image is soft and grainy, but given its origins, surprisingly well preserved. All of the previously censored nudity has been restored; earlier releases degraded the film by inexplicably blurring out these scenes. The two-disc set (DVD and Blu-ray) also features a new audio commentary by film historian Rob Kelly, along with a 2015 track from Jack Hill moderated by Elijah Drenner.
