Dirty O’Neil (1974)

Filled with equal measures of sleazy sexual content and unpleasant violence, Dirty O’Neil offers the equivalent of two atrocious movies for the price of one. Exploring the lurid life of a small-town beat cop named Jimmy O’Neil (Morgan Paull), the picture devotes much of its energy to depicting the way Jimmy uses his badge to get laid. He exchanges protection for sex with the waitress who lives next door, cajoles suspects into carnal situations while he’s on duty, nabs quickies from compliant prostitutes, and nails his boss’ voluptuous wife while he’s supposed to be on patrol. Yet the other half of the movie features straight-up police action, complete with gore and nastiness—a victim gets shot in the face, a thug gets taken down by a fork jabbed into his crotch, and so on. The tonal shifts between the sex scenes and the violent scenes are enough to induce whiplash, especially when a horrific rape is intercut with a jokey bedroom romp. Writer and co-director Leon Capetanos, who subsequently helped write such credible comedy movies as Greased Lightning (1977) and Moscow on the Hudson (1984), clearly wasn’t at his best while making this project, and one can only presume that B-movie stalwart Lewis Teague got a co-directing credit because he was brought in to juice the material Capetonis had acquired. Leading man Paull, perhaps best known as the robot hunter who gets killed at the beginning of Blade Runner (1982), is completely miscast for the role of a swinging stud, thanks to his everyman face and stately bearing. In fact, it’s embarrassing to hear him intone idiotic voiceover lines like this one: “A cop is usually underpaid, overworked, and misunderstood, but he should never be horny.” (Dirty O’Neil features the kind of unfunny sex humor one usually encounters in porno flicks.) Aside from the morbid fascination of watching a movie that runs off the rails right from the beginning, about the only appeal that Dirty O’Neil possesses is an amazing amount of female nudity. The women in Jimmy’s life have terrific bodies, and they’re not shy about displaying their physical gifts. However, it’s difficult to recommend Dirty O’Neil simply for its eye-candy quotient because the movie’s sexploitation elements are juxtaposed with so much mean-spirited ugliness.

Dirty O’Neil: LAME