Babes in Toyland: Brasloff’s Kooky Kink Surfaces in Toys Are Not For Children | Blu-ray Review

If you’re in search for a forgotten psychosexual oddity, look no further than director Stanley H. Brasloff’s second (and unfortunately last) 1972 feature Toys Are Not for Children, a quirky mood piece which stumbled into theaters courtesy of Boxoffice International Pictures before routinely disappearing. Thankfully, Arrow Video has resurrected this neglected eccentric title, a forgotten example of fray indie American exploitation cinema which got shuffled into a genre pot inhabited by all the odds and ends avoided by mainstream culture.

Neither as tawdry as its over-the-top plot suggests nor as titillating, Brasloff concocts an interesting psychological portrait of childhood trauma and dysfunctional development in this portrait of a young woman whose daddy issues provide a springboard for tragedy. In short, a young woman who uses daddy’s gifts to masturbate, finds herself kicked out of the house and thrown into marriage with the handsome young man who works with her at the toy store. However, her inability to physically consummate the relationship ruins their platonic idyll and she absconds to New York to become a sex worker-in-training thanks to an older friend she makes while selling toys. Psychobabble metaphors drift in and out like ships passing in the night, and yet, Brasloff accomplished one of the best under-the-radar American horror indies of the early 1970s.

Besides the director, most of the other major components of Toys Are Not for Children never managed to involve themselves in future projects, including screenwriter Macs McAree, who seems to be taking the next logical perverted steps only ever hinted at in Lillian Hellman, and lead Marcia Forbes playing nymphette Jamie Godard (who when she’s good, she’s very very Debbie Reynolds a la Tammy and the Bachelor and when she’s bad she’s Liz Taylor circa Butterfield 8). Evelyn Kingsley as Pearl, the crusty prostitute past her sell-by date, is also surprisingly sincere in her serious turn as a hooker with a heart of gold. Harlan Carey Poe as Jamie’s groom would go on to play bit parts in seminal titles from Scorsese, Abel Ferrara and even Ridley Scott, while camp scene stealer Fran Warren, who plays Jamie’s distressed mother a la Tura Satana in butch lesbian mode, was formerly a known vocalist thanks to the hit “A Sunday Kind of Love.” Weird, oddly compelling and highly entertaining, Toys Are Not for Children is one of Arrow Video’s most notable bargain basement rediscoveries.

Film Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆