Living Doll

Shy adolescent Martin can't find nobody to love, least of all the attractive young woman (Orgill) who runs the flower concession at the hospital where he works. Until, that is, her nubile body turns up on the mortuary slab, whereupon Martin steals it and takes it home to his seedy bed-sit. Then, while Orgill's body decomposes on the sofa, he tries to woo her with gooey talk and silky underwear. Nosey landlady Eartha Kitt, meanwhile, keeps threatening to discover her lodger's rotten secret. There's the seed of an idea here, but this necrophiliac romance never germinates, let alone flowers. Sensitively handled, as in Dominique Deruddere's Crazy Love, it might have smelled quite sweet; instead, it gives off the sickening whiff of unimaginative exploitation.