Sweet Trash

Sweet Trash (1970)

** (out of 4)

Michael (Duncan McLeod) is a longshoreman who enjoys drinking and gambling and being broken. Those three things aren't a good combination and soon the top guys come for their money and when Michael doesn't have it he goes on the run with the gangster's hot on his trail.

I'm going to guess the only reason people would be watching SWEET TRASH is that they're interested in the filmography of its director, John Hayes. Hayes is best remembered for his film GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE and he had a chapter in Stephen Thrower's NIGHTMARE USA, which is where I learned more about him and this film. On its own, this film would pretty much be forgotten by anyone except, as I said, those like me looking into the director's films.

For the most part this here is a mildly entertaining drama but it certainly falls well short of being what you'd consider a good film. There are several problems with the movie but the biggest is the fact that there's really just not a lot of suspense or tension. The movie is meant to play out as a thriller as our good guy is constantly avoiding the bad guys but the director just never builds up any suspense and for the most part you're just going along for the ride instead of really being invested in the story.

There were some good stuff though including the performance of McLeod (working under the name Patrick Shea). I thought he was actually pretty good in the movie I liked the character that he played up. You can at least be interested in the lead character and that helps get you through the running time. The highlight of the film comes towards the end when the character is trapped inside a house and pretty much has to take on the bad guys one by one. This was a very fun sequence with some mild blood thrown in. We also get some beautiful women along the way and the type of nudity that you'd suspect.