The Dicktator

Year releasted: 1974

by Noel Murray
February 8th, 2006

Plot: In a radical approach to population control, world leaders issue a pill rendering all males sterile for two years. But a quirk of chemical engineering makes the pill's effects permanent, so in order to propagate the species, an agent is sent to find the world's five remaining sexually potent men--a Jewish drag queen, a black hustler, a communist ideologue, a tubby Chinese man, and a South American shepherd--and supply them with women.

Key scenes: During the movie's opening sequence, Dell cuts together footage from actual hippie-era riots with shots of his American president sitting on the toilet, reading a monster comic. Later, after the movie resolves into a series of scenes where wildly stereotyped men have to be coaxed into sleeping with voluptuous naked women, the movie reaches a weird peak (or valley) when the shepherd can only get aroused if his woman pretends to be a sheep.

Can easily be distinguished by: The rambling, chaotic tone, which is like George Romero's The Crazies combined with improv exercises at a high-school drama club. Remember all that information above under "plot"? None of that is revealed until about half an hour into the movie, after a seemingly endless set of scenes where the president calls up world leaders one by one and catches them in flagrante.

Sign that it was made in 1974: Lots of references to recent political scandals, including Watergate and the British "Profumo affair." All part of The Dicktator's cutting satirical edge.

Timeless message: Watching an African tribal chief pig out on the fried chicken at an international summit, only one conclusion comes to mind: Lenny Bruce was wrong.

Memorable quotes: The Dicktator scatters jazzy dialogue throughout, including the president's comment, "The future of the world is in your pants." But the best line comes when a woman mistakenly jumps the bones of a door-to-door photographer whom she presumes is one of the remaining potent males. When she discovers her error, she snaps, "You're not the government fucker!"

Available on DVD from Something Weird, paired with Dell's equally nutzoid Deep Jaws.