The Babysitter (Don Henderson, 1969)

She may look shy and innocent. But don't be fooled, this is one babysitter you don't want to mess with. An extremely perverted premise that is handled, and fondled slightly with the docile guardianship of a reluctant serial subway groper, the aptly named The Babysitter is a tender and surprisingly gritty tale about forbidden lust, marital stress, personal freedom, and biker-based blackmail. Pulling no punches when it came to portraying the generational divide that existed at the time between the taco-eating hippie youth and their more conservative, bridge-playing parents, the film directed by Don Henderson is an out of sight quick fix for those suffering from the mid-life crisis blues. Nagged to the point where his man-sack has gone on permanent vacation, fancy prosecuting lawyer George Maxwell (the workmanlike George E. Carey) is having marital trouble. His wife Edith (a wonderfully shrill Anne Bellamy) is always insisting they go out and socialize with her lame ass friends, while all he wants to do is stay home and repeatedly prod her sloppy vagina with his ten pound penis. On shaky ground to begin with, their estranged routine is forcibly turned upside down when the supple legs of their vivacious babysitter skip playfully through their front door.

Attached to these fleshy sex sticks is the rambunctious Candy Wilson (Patricia Wymer), a sweet morsel just waiting to be defiled. Actually, it's not as unseemly as it sounds. I mean, Candy isn't childlike at all. In fact, she's so full of gumption, that she invites a rock band (complete with naked go-go dancers) over to play the Maxwell's basement while there away for the evening. I know, talk about a groovy chick. Anyway, while it may seem like Candy and George are flirting with one another during the car ride home, it's actually the youthful dumpling in the mini-skirt who makes all the moves (George is literally putty in her hands). Her impromptu taco eating seminar, by the way, was an excellent metaphor for the bane of improperly executed cunnilingus during the post-war era.

Complicating matters is Julie Freeman (Kathy Williams), the "old lady" of a biker accused of murder. Luckily for her, Julie is friends with George's no-nonsense lesbian daughter, Joan (Sheri Jackson), and plans on taking photographs of Joan licking and caressing her alluring girlfriend (Ruth Noonan) pool side. You see, George is prosecuting Julie's biker beau and wants to blackmail him with the salacious photos. Of course, with the middle-aged lawyer now cavorting with the babysitter, compromising pictures of closeted lesbians won't be necessary (or possible - the blurry glass of the sauna door impeded her attempts to get any pictures of them together), as the scurrilous Kathy sets her sights on George and Candy.

Now, the whole babysitter being intimate with her much older employer is one of the most well-worn stories around (there wouldn't be modern pornography without it, so I've been told). However, whereas as most babysitter plots are more creepy than they are titillating, there's a real playfulness to The Babysitter. Boasting coltish montages that involve light petting and small-scale nudity, the film isn't about cheap erections and unearned provocation. It's just about two people who dig one another from different sides of the counterculture, and I can't be against that, no matter how hard I try.

Reminding me of Drew Barrymore circa Poison Ivy mixed with the wide-eyed innocence of Melanie Hutsell circa how the fuck should I know, Patricia Wymer (The Young Graduates) imbues her mischievous babysitter with enough moxie to destroy the synapses of a thousand deviants (I bet she could do this with just a single look). Extolling the virtues of personal freedom and demanding the most out of life, Candy is the expected voice of her time.

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