I’m amazed at how sophisticated the film is on a technical level. A lot of thought went into the editing, by juxtaposing past and present and starting scenes with a repetition of dialogue from the former scene. Actually, that kind of creative transitioning has to start in the scripting stage, so this was an earnest effort from the start. Direction is surprisingly assured. I suppose lighting could have been better, but arguably the harshness of it (often causing the actors to sweat) only adds to our discomfort and seems to suit the grim story well.

And the acting… hardly anyone in the cast went on to do another film, but they all give adequate-to-good performances. One might criticize the mother as being too shrill and over the top, but her hysteria helps push the film into nightmare territory.

I like how Jamie moves from one dysfunctional family (missing father; shrieking, verbally abusive mother) to another (a rape-happy pimp leaching off an aging prostitute) in a perpetuation of her inability to find a nest that isn’t corrupted. She thinks Pearl will be the loving mother she always wanted, but toward the end Pearl becomes just as hysterical and hateful as her natural mother in a fitting continuation of the nightmare.

The flashbacks to little Jamie and her father are incredibly tense for what we’re anticipating (the swarthy man copping a feel), but as Andy points out, there is no evidence that he ever attempted anything abnormal or lascivious. These scenes remind me of the equally off-beat and disturbing THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA, except in that one, the flashbacks (similarly photographed through a fog filter) reveal a very real and tangible abuse taking place.

Andy: Would you consider this film to be a roughie? When you mentioned how Jamie moves from one dysfunctional family to another, I was sort of reminded of BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL!

The only hang-up I really had with the film was how Jamie made the leap from the frightened bride, who was afraid to consummate her marriage, to the cheerfully willing prostitute. I suppose it works because she used prostitution to find her father?

Bill: If you recall, she role-played with her tricks, calling them “Daddy.” I think this was the only we she could come to terms with and enjoy sex, by imagining she was with her father. The film even opens with her moaning “Daddy” in the dark while rubbing against the toy soldier that has stood as her father’s surrogate since the day he left home. The other two sexual experiences she has — with Carlos and Charlie — are less than satisfying experiences because they aren’t fulfilling the “Daddy” role. With Carlos she’s just using him to get over the virginal hump; with Charlie she’s testing the waters of normality, only to find it isn’t to her taste.

Yes, it’s most definitely a roughie — but an unusual one for being in color.

I think color is well suited to the story, though. Jamie lives in a strange candy-colored world of child-like innocence that wouldn’t have had the same effect on us had it been captured in monochrome. The opening credits, with its parade of stop-motion-animated toys sets a strange tone not unlike a Rankin/Bass Holiday special — such a twisted contrast to the sick story about to unfold.

By the way, I’ve had this movie on the back burner for years because I had no idea how you guys would react to it. I’m glad I finally played it, though. TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN will forever be known as the movie that caused Stewart to drink a whole bottle of Riesling!

In the opening we find Jamie in the dark, in the middle of a sexual fantasy with her toys, dreaming of “Daddy.” Suddenly the light switches on, and her mother is standing there. Reality hits us hard, like a slap in the face.

In the end, after melting down from her father’s rejection and pushing him out a skyscraper window, she’s similarly in the dark — a discarded “doll” lying still in a corner… only now, with Daddy dead, her toy fantasy is no longer sexually tinged. Through a super-imposed image we see that Jamie is now trapped in her mind, a six-year-old playing innocently with her dolls — only there is no light switch this time, no waking from this dream.

The final image has some relation to the final image of PSYCHO, where we see a traumatized Norman Bates trapped as his alter-ego, and the image of “Mother” is superimposed over him.

Andy: I think we all agree this is a four-star flick!

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