Ordeal of Daniel Hewitt Review

Distributor: Vinegar Syndrome Edition Details: Standard Streaming Movie Specs: Genres: Classic, Short Film, Drama Also known as: Ordeal of Daniel Hewitt, Ordeal of Daniel H Run Time: 21 minutes Rated: X Release Year: 1970 Director: Judy Sloane Written by: uncredited Cast: Randy, Sam, Cinthia Release Specs: Audio: English Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: Streaming Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): N/A Number of discs: N/A

The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt is a melancholy experimental adult short film by one-time director Judy Sloane. It is likely that Judy Sloane was a film student from San Francisco State University since Leo Productions was known to use their students as directors for their films.

It is likely that The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt premiered at Lowell Pickett and Arlene Elster's Sutter Cinema's First International Erotic Film Festival — which due to attendance had to be moved from Sutter Cinema to the Presidio Theatre and also ended up being the only International Erotic Film Festival put on by Sutter Cinema. While the festival was one that accepted entries and awarded prize money, The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt was produced by Pickett's own Leo Productions.

The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt takes an interesting approach to making an adult film. The intent behind the film doesn't seem to be to titillate the viewer. Instead, Judy Sloane played with what could be done within the adult medium. The film doesn't have any dialog in it. Instead, the film relies on the emotions that the cast members emote during the film and the color of the film.

The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt uses different colored film; black and white, color, and red tinted film. Each color in the movie tells the viewer exactly what state of Donald Hewitt's mind is being seen at the current time of the film. The cast and shooting locations are well chosen for the mood of the film. The sex in the movie is ugly, and not at all arousing. However, this appears to be the intent by Judy Sloane and not just poorly shot sex.

The story for The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt is that Donald (Randy), a lonely alcoholic, picks up a prostitute. While he is being serviced by her, he dreams of his ex.

The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt has its issues as a film. However, the film makes for an interesting watch seeing how Judy Sloane played with the adult format and used the adult medium to tell a story that is not at all erotic.

The edition of The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt screened is the streaming-only edition available on Exploitation.TV. Vinegar Syndrome has done a nice job with their streaming-only edition of The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt. The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt was shot on film, and it looks like Vinegar Syndrome has used a film print for this release. The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt is presented in the Academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 pillarboxed to the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The image quality for The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt is good, the print used contains print damage, grain, artifacts, and jumps. Dark scenes can be murky and muddy. The colors in the film are decent, which is good since the film uses a combination of color, black and white, and reddish footage.

There is an English monaural audio track for The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt. The audio presentation is good with some damage and jumps. There isn't any dialog in the film.

Vinegar Syndrome hasn't included any extras for their streaming-only edition of The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt.

The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt is an interesting conceptual hardcore short film. The director Judy Sloane played around quite a bit, and the resulting final film is interesting to watch; however, viewers won't find the film erotic. The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt in fun to watch in a historical aspect to see when new directors were playing around with what could be done in the hardcore format. Vinegar Syndrome has done a nice job with their streaming-only edition of The Ordeal of Donald Hewitt on Exploitation.TV with good video and audio quality.

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