Watch the Birdie
1965
Watch the Birdie is the weirdly fascinating story of four beautiful young girls who find themselves caught in a strange and perverted 'dirty picture' set up.
Ursula is a German girl, intrigued at first, by the money-making lure of 'a little cheesecake modelling'. Joanna is a gorgeous jet-setter whose tragic flaw is a simple case of severe nymphomania. Sandy is a 'Lolita', fresh from the country and ripe for anything that hints of glamour and fame. Marion, the fourth girl, is the only one who is set on a career and committed to getting some place.
Cullen Lauterbach, played by Richard B. Shull, is the operator of the racket, the virtual slave master of the girls. He makes a good deal of money from his little set up but money is secondary to Cully. Most important are 'kicks', the wilder, the better!
Slowly, the girls are guided deeper and deeper into Cullen's world of perversion and pornography. It starts with a little cheesecake and progresses to where the kids are posing
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with whips, paddles, chains and all the other accoutrements of demented sex. Individual shots are replaced by a mass studio session where a dozen girls attired only in their underclothing are put through a round of bizarre 'action' poses for Cully's camera: 'Bondage', 'Flagellation', 'Fetishism', they are all there for Cully's special clients. The girls are tied up, chained, spanked and tormented while the camera clicks away.
The final touch is Cully's party, a social evening of deviation, to which attendance is mandatory.
There is a frenetic strip tease, blue movies are shown, and Cullen, himself is seen in an unexpected act of perversity. Ursula, the frightened German girl is forced to crawl on the floor before she is given her paycheck. Then, the poor girl is set upon by Cullen's assistant, Miss Killin who frightens her into a Lesbian relationship. Sandy collapses in a drunken stupor and is raped by Cullen's writer who goes mad with his own necrophiliac passions. Joanna tries to break from Cully and these degrading activities but she makes the mistake of threatening him. In a rage, beyond any comprehension of reason, Cullen drowns her in the toilet! As the evening's 'topper', Cullen, screaming and laughing out of his skull, shoots his rapist writer while the party continues all about him.
Only Marion escapes unharmed from this insane vice trap. She gets away and she does achieve the success as an actress that has driven her all along. The city has taken its toll. Of the four girls, only one finds what she wants. Sordid tragedy is the lot of all the others.
The 'shock' effect of Watch the Birdie is astounding for these things do, in fact exist. They are weird people, sick people, Cullen and his friends, but they exist. And, in Watch the Birdie, the camera careens through their twisted minds, catches their fantasies in real-live action and tells the story of what happens to the pretty victims who are naively caught up with them. It is all there in its stark, demented reality in Watch the Birdie.
RUNNING TIME: 74 MINUTES
Watch the Birdie
Starring
WENDY WOOD LINDA BAXTER SUSAN WINTERS PAMELA SEARS
Story and Screenplay William L. Rose
THE BIRD IS THE WORD
By Doug Fowlkes and Rocky Roberts
Sung by Rocky Roberts and the Airedales
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