Rent-a-Girl (1965) Online

Rent-a-Girl is a short (77 min) sexploitation flick with all the elements you would expect: topless girls (who often aren't that good looking), a little kinkiness, extremely bad music, poor acting, poorer editing, and unintentionally hilarious dialog.

The heroine in this case is fairly pretty, but we don't actually see a lot of her; other "rented" girls go thru their set pieces more graphically. The plot revolves around our heroine's distress about falling in with a cheesecake modeling agency that turns out to be a call-girl ring--except that the girls apparently don't actually have sex with clients; they just disrobe and play around a little.

A bit of decent acting here and there stands out, and the plot moves along in workmanlike fashion, but there are no real surprises. Yet, as with sexploitation in general, there's something weirdly erotic (to some of us, anyway) about seeing vintage skin, tame as it is--it's the alternating brazenness and shame the characters exhibit, contrasted with the strict innocence of mainstream films of the era. This is a decent effort, but not a classic.

I know the times and the people's attitude towards controversy have changed severely between the mid 1960's and present day, but still I can't imagine a tame and inexplicit movie like this held the power to shock or provoke anyone even forty years ago. The brief plot summary sounds salacious enough and the DVD-cover proudly claims the film temporarily got taken out of distribution because it was too offensive, but "Rent-a-Girl" honestly is a very well behaving piece of cheap 60's sexploitation. The underlying messages are a bit raunchy (pretty girls are dumb) and one particular sequences (involving a woman's body and a whip) is perhaps mildly unsettling, but mainly the film just suggests perversion and only displays modest female nudity. It's the touching story of the beautiful but naive Karen Anderson who unwarily enrolls into a network of nude photography and sexual escort work after a disappointing night out with her boyfriend. She needs the money and, since she always dreamed of becoming a model, Karen blindly accepts a job offered by her sleazy peculiar neighbors. The work is quite harmless at first, but Karen quickly gets send to kinky parties thrown by wealthy people with odd fetishes. Even the kinkiest stuff in "Rent-a-Girl" is relatively tame. One client enjoys body painting, another one gets his sexual kicks from attacking his girl with a garden hose and the most wicked one of them all – a woman – likes whipping girls between the age of 19 and 22. Suffice to say this film is mediocre at best, but actually just dull and poorly made. Half of the footage is pure padding, with amateurish acting performances and horrible music. The music plays non-stop and it is similar to those tunes they play in warehouses. I suspect it's just there to prevent the inept actors from talking more than strictly necessary. The ladies are surprisingly good-looking 60's babes with ravishing bodies (except for one who's at least 50 years old already). Overall a lousy film that isn't worth either your time or money, but it does feature one downright brilliant gimmick! During one of the sex parties, a group of girls of strip-pool. It's exactly the same as strip poker but more accessible and involving. I definitely have to keep this idea mind and suggest it for our next office party.

This does have some eye popping moments but the astonishing credit sequence says it all.

During these fabulous opening credits we get to see flashes of all the key scenes - the branding, the whipping, the body painting and more.

Unfortunately the general pace and editing of the main film is so slack that we would just prefer to watch the credits again.

Nevertheless this certainly has it's moments and is of the same time as the Olga and Smell of Honey roughies if not quite in the same class.

That's if the word 'class' is OK to use in the context of these grindhouse beauties!

RENT-A-GIRL is another low budget exploitation film, shot in black and white on the streets of New York. Something Weird originally unearthed this from the vaults, but it's more recently seen the light of day again on Amazon Prime, albeit in a truncated form shorn of all the nudity. Hey, Amazon Prime, how about a Something Weird channel with full-length versions of their back catalogue? In any case, this one tells a familiar story about a modelling agency being a front for an escort business. It's the usual tale of corruption and innocent, perversion and ruined morals, poorly-acted but featuring numerous scenes of attractive young women parading around in their underwear or less. Films like this do have a very niche market, so chances are if you're already on this page you'll be interested in watching it anyway.

Naïve young lass Karen Anderson (a solid and appealing performance by the fetching Barbara Wood) applies for a job at a modeling agency that turns out to be a front for a prostitution ring which caters to rich perverts. Writer/director William Rose maintains an appropriately seamy tone throughout, keeps the entertainingly trashy story moving along at a reasonable pace, offers a sordidly fascinating exploration of a seedy criminal underworld, presents an amusing variety of kinky sexual practices that run the gamut from whippings to body painting, and, naturally, delivers a generous sprinkling of tasty bare distaff skin. Moreover, it certainly helps that such East Coast exploitation regulars as Darlene Bennett, Gigi Darlene, and June Roberts pop up in small parts. In addition, the colorful array of no-count scumbag characters are a slimy wonder to behold, with a depraved brother and sister duo rating as the definite skeevy stand-outs. Worth a watch for fans of low-grade soft-core fare.

Karen Anderson, nudie mainstay Darlene Bennet, recounts to the local authority the details that led her from saddened girl to hopeful model to violated by being whipped. After her boyfriend & her have a fight she's overjoyed to get a modeling job from the Marshells, a brother/sister team that live in the same apartment complex. Little does she realize their real agenda. This film is rather short and with many silent scenes, the fast forward button will help trim it down to under an hour, but it's still pretty boring stuff.

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: Something Weird Triple-feature with this, "Aroused" & "Female Wanted"; Trailer for "Aroused"; short 'Lesson of the Strap'; and posters gallery

Not a very good sleaze film, but still worth a watch if you're interested in 60s sexploitation. Slight echoes of ROSEMARY'S BABY abound as a naive young woman looking for fun stumbles upon strange neighbors living in the same apartment building which she resides in. They start her off with a career in nude modeling, but in actuality turn out to be a ruthless brother and sister team who spearhead a kinky "girl renting" business for eccentric rich folk who get their jollies out of bondage and "whipping little girls 18 to 22". A couple of nice looking brunettes in this one, though of course one's mileage may vary. ** out of ****