Tweet
Released by: Private Screening Collection (Severin Films)
Released on: 6/3/2009
Director: Vidal Raski
Cast: Anne Sparrow, Tony Eades, Clara Keller, Torben
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Call them little people, midgets, dwarfs or Lilliputians, many of us (well maybe not many, but I count as at least one person), for whatever reason, has long held an affinity for the tiny unsung heroes of exploitation cinema. Give me Weng Weng over James Bond any day. I'd rather watch The Terror Of Tiny Town than any other standard B-grade western you can name and I consider Louis De Jesus (who also rules in the XXX Ultra Flesh) the trump card that made Joel Reed's twisted Bloodsucking Freaks the trash cinema masterpiece that it is. The Sinful Dwarf, however, is just wrong. Don't misunderstand me, it's all kinds of awesome, but yeah, this movie is pretty fucked up.
This 1973 American-Danish co-production stars former Danish children's show host Torben Bille, who also pops up in the Agent 69 films, as the titular dwarf named Olaf who lives with his mother (Clara Keller), a former but still marginally inspired night club chanteuse, in a boarding home that she runs. When he's not hanging around the house getting into trouble or playing with his primitive children's toys acting generally creepy, he's abducting local hot chicks, drugging them with dirty looking needles, and keeping them captive.
Enter quaint newlywed couple Mary (gorgeous Anne Sparrow) and Peter (Tony Eades), a couple out to enjoy their new life together, but without a whole lot of money to spend. They're in town for a business trip and wind up at the boarding house where, of course, Olaf sets his sits on the curvy blonde Mary. When she wanders into the attic where Olaf stores his sex slaves, who he pimps out to local dirtbags and keeps doped up on heroin, he makes her his latest catch but thankfully for Mary, her husband soon notices she's missing and calls the local fuzz. Soon enough, the race is on to save Mary from a fate worse than death before it's too late!
From the opening scene where Olaf and his mechanical toy poodle accost a woman who is obviously in her twenties who is for some reason playing hopscotch by herself on the sidewalk, to the odd musical interlude where Olaf plays piano as his mother belts out an off key show tune, The Sinful Dwarf is… something else. While the odds of a crazed dwarf who can't even walk without the aid of a cane successfully holding a bevy of beautiful and obviously very healthy young women hostage are pretty slim, you probably knew from the title going in that this wasn't a film particularly concerned with logic. It's even less concerned with political correctness, and God bless Vidal Raski and William May, if those are in fact their real names, for unleashing this unapologetically nasty piece of trash on an unsuspecting public. Is this is nice film? A well made film? A scary film? No, not at all, but it's definitely a dirty one, a picture that'll have you trying to scrub off its foul stench for days to come once you see it.
As primitive as the picture is on a technical level, and as absurdly filthy as the whole ordeal may be, the movie isn't completely without some artistic merit. The opening credits have a childlike surrealism to them that instantly grabs your attention and the quirky score, that sounds like something a horribly untalented child musician might make if left alone to his own devices for too long definitely suits the material. The cinematography is about as good as your average seventies porno, meaning that it's competent enough that it's in focus, but not particularly impressive in any way shape or form. What the camera does manage to capture, however, is the seediness of the locations used for filming. Olaf's den of sin is a dirty place indeed, and the unwashed naked women held captive there don't appear to be any cleaner. There's an unsettlingly authentic atmosphere of depravity here that, while likely captured completely by accident, definitely sticks to you whether you want it to or not. And you probably don't.
As far as pacing goes, the movie doesn't move at a lightning quick pace and you could argue that Olaf deserved more screen time than he's given here, particularly when you consider that, well, he's the star of the show and all. That said, the film is unique in its ugliness, bouncing back and forth between scenes of unintentional hilarity and legitimate upset with no regard for rhyme, reason, tone or logic. You've got to admire that.
It should be noted that while the 'international version' (essentially the non-hardcore version of the picture distributed by Novak - thought the Box Office logo appears before the opening credits) was recently released by Severin Films, this XXX version appears here under the Private Screenings Collection label and is distributed by CAV. The differences between the two cuts are, as you cold probably guess, pretty much relegated to sexual content of the more explicit kind. The film was originally shot as a hardcore feature, and that version is what's on this disc. Any questions? Check the screenshots. They pretty much explain it all and if they don't, well, expect to see some penetration shots and a neat trick with a cane and a cooter. As to their effectiveness, well, they actually fit the movie quite well and add another layer of dementia to an already completely mind blowing piece of trash. Seeing as these are not inserts, they don't lose the tone or feel out of place at all as these types of variations often do.
Video/Audio/Extras:
This XXX version uses inserts for the XXX content and the uses Severin's nicely restored transfer for the less explicit bulk of the film. The differences stand out pretty noticeably (the hardcore footage is interlaced, the rest of the feature isn't) but this is all that there was to work with, and all things considered, it's really not that bad and even the rougher looking footage is more than watchable.
The actors all appear to have spoken English on set and the dialogue surprisingly matches the lip movements of everyone involved in this production. The Dolby Digital Mono sound mix on Severin's DVD presents the track in decent enough quality that, even if it won't blow you away, sounds good enough. There's a bit of background noise here and there but aside from that the levels are all fine and the dialogue is easy enough to understand throughout the film.
Sadly, this release is completely barebones save for a static menu and a chapter selection option.
The Final Word:
You wanted it, you got it. The Sinful Dwarf, in all its sleazy explicit glory, is finally available domestically on DVD. See it now.