Jim (Mory Schoolhouse) is going steady with his best gal Judy (Charlotte Stewart). They even have plans to marry, that is if the new girl in town Kathy (Dolores Faith from such Mystery Science Theater fare as The Phantom Planet and The Human Duplicators) can stop making passes at Jim. Naturally, Judy is a “nice” girl, which can be frustrating for a guy like Jim. When Jim and his pals go to the sleazy part of town, he unknowingly picks up a case of syphilis from a prostitute. Once Judy learns about his trip, she promptly dumps him, and Jim naturally hooks up with Kathy. Jim eventually finds a sore on his pecker and goes to the doctor, who shows him a filmstrip about V.D.
Damaged Goods exists somewhere in the middle ground between the roadshow sex scare films of the ‘30s and the After School Specials of the ‘80s. Unfortunately, for a movie about the perils of V.D., it’s much too chaste and straightlaced to be any fun. (The scene at the strip club has promise, but it cuts away from the dancer just as she’s about to take off her top.) At least the old scare propaganda was good for an unintentional laugh or two. This is about as square and corny as you can get.
The V.D. filmstrip even comes up a bit short. Other than the unfortunate sight of a syphilis-ridden infant, there isn’t much here that would scare anyone straight. The most memorable part is the awesome instrumental surf rock theme song by none other than The Ventures!?! I don’t know how they got involved with this mess, but at least their involvement takes some of the sting out of the otherwise boring dialogue scenes. (Maybe they were just doing their part to warn their audience about the dangers of syphilis.)
Jim’s doctor gets the best line of the movie when he proclaims, “We’re not here to pass moral judgment… we’re here to stamp out V.D.!”
AKA: V.D. AKA: The Secret.
No comments:
Post a Comment