Pete (Paul Leder, who went on to direct A*P*E) is a womanizing asshole. Harvey (Leon Schrier) is a pushover who is always daydreaming about women. Pete also happens to be banging Harvey’s wife. One night, Pete meets Harvey in a bar and decides to take him out for a night on the town to show him how to pick up women.
I saw a trailer for this a while back on a trailer compilation called Twisted Sex Vol. 2 where it was advertised under its alternate title, The Peeping Phantom. Well, it’s not twisted and there’s very little sex in it. There is also no peeping or any phantoms either. It’s pretty much an overstuffed mess, but it’s the kind of overstuffed mess that makes for a great trailer since you can make it look like a classic by using brief clips of choice moments. When these scenes play out within the context of the movie though, they kind of get lost in the shuffle since the whole thing is so scattershot.
The movie is novel in that the “real” segments are in black and white while Harvey’s daydreams are in color. These daydreams are the only thing worth a damn in the entire movie. The first and best takes place in a mad scientist lab with Pete wearing masks of various Universal monsters. The others involve Harvey rescuing his busty secretary from a sultan’s harem, appearing as a cowboy in a Wild West cathouse, and as a United Nations ambassador. This scene isn’t bad as Harvey watches in delight as all the other ambassadors (all played by hot women) settle their differences with a big clothes-ripping catfight. However, the movie really needed more scenes of this caliber.
Even then, the fantasy sequences, while they feature a few scantily clad women, are all tease and no please. The Benny Hill-style fast-forward and rewind scenes of women running around aren’t very funny either. The “real” world scenes are a total drag though and are often painful to watch. It doesn’t help that a little of Leder’s loutish character goes a long way.
Yes, that’s future Golden Girl Rue McClanahan as Pete’s ex-girlfriend. She’s one of the few bright spots, even if she isn’t given anything to do. She does get a skinny-dipping scene, but we only see bits of her bare back and leg.
Screenwriter (and director of Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend) B.W.L. Norton later collaborated with Leder for the immortal I Dismember Mama.
AKA: The Peeping Phantom.
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