When adult filmmaker Doris Wishman got together with bazooka-boobed Polish stripper Chesty Morgan in the mid-70s, the result was two of the most head-scratchingly cockeyed and totally off-the-wall nudesploitation flicks ever made. "Deadly Weapons" and "Double Agent 73" are now together on the same Blu-Ray disc along with an unofficial non-Chesty follow-up, "The Immoral Three", to form the Something Weird Video collection CHESTY MORGAN'S BOSOM BUDDIES.
It was a match made in junk-film heaven--Wishman, a filmmaker with an abundance of energy and enthusiasm but little actual skill, and Chesty, a stunning human visual effect who nevertheless displays absolutely no natural talent whatsoever in front of the camera. In fact, her absolute lack of any discernible acting skill makes everyone and everything else around her seem better by default. And yet, with those mind-bogglingly huge all-natural hooters and preternaturally unaffected (some might say "spaced-out") expression, she somehow demands our disbelieving attention every second she's on the screen.
"Deadly Weapons" (1974) features Chesty (here billed as "Zsa Zsa") as the faithful wife of a mob wiseguy named Larry who gets whacked after he steals an incriminating address book and tries to blackmail his boss with it. The grief-stricken Chesty vows revenge. Overhearing one of her hubby's killers referring to his addiction to "burlesque", Chesty knows what she must do--get a job as a stripper and wait for him to show up at the club.
Naturally, she has no trouble doing so after the bug-eyed manager gets a load of her blouse-bursting knockers, which gives Wishman a chance to include scenes from Chesty's burlesque "act" as part of the plot. When the killer shows up, she gets him alone long enough to wield the only weapons at her disposal, smothering him to death with her enormous cleavage in a scene that has to be gaped at to be believed.
Later, porn star Harry Reems (DEEP THROAT) meets the same fate despite sporting what must be one of the most formidable moustaches in film history. But screenwriter Judy J. Kushner (Doris' niece) saves the most shocking twist for the final minutes of the film, which should leave viewers shaking their heads in dismay.
With "Double Agent 73", Chesty portrays secret agent Jane Tennay, who, in service of a plot that doesn't really bear keeping track of, has a camera surgically implanted into her left boob. That way, whenever she kills an enemy agent she can snap a photo via her Nipple Cam for use back at headquarters in identifying the big cheese, "Mr. T." (no, not THAT "Mr. T.").
This gives the robotic Chesty an excuse to doff a variety of hideously unflattering outfits throughout the story, beat up bad guys with her wrecking-ball boobs, and snap their pictures. But first, we meet her while inexplicably sunbathing in a black bra, hot pants, and pantyhose while watching that old nudie-flick standby, naked coed volleyball.
Later, there's a weird slow-motion sequence with her beating up an attacker with her boobs while taking pictures of him, leading to a hilarous speeded-up car chase that's like a cross between "Bullitt" and "The Road Runner." In another highlight, Chesty's pretty blonde houseguest is mistaken for her by an assassin, giving director Wishman a chance to duplicate the shower scene from "Psycho" but with a decidedly different approach than Hitchcock. To her credit, Wishman does manage a couple of semi-cool action scenes in which Chesty is manipulated into looking like she's actually doing something, a feat even Hitch probably couldn't have pulled off.
Wishman's directorial style is primitive, but it's always watchable. She even shows a little imagination here and there, particularly during scenes of people getting beaten up, and there are flashes of rudimentary style. But the main fun here (aside from the inescapably nightmarish 70s decor and fashions) is in watching Wishman try to coax a performance out of Chesty Morgan the way nature photographers attempt to manipulate animals into "acting" for the camera.
While listening to breathless dramatic dialogue being dubbed over Chesty's expressionless closeups, to hilarious effect (Doris and her husband dubbed ALL the voices themselves), it finally occurred to me that these films reminded me of the 1970 TV series "Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp", in which footage of chimpanzees dressed as human characters was coupled with voiceover dialogue to create modest little spy spoofs. Even the look of the film, sets, and costumes is similar, and it wasn't hard to imagine Chesty fitting right in as Lancelot Link's female sidekick Mata Hairy ("Oh, Lancie!"), albeit with less acting ability than the original ape actress.
Since there were only two Doris Wishman epics produced with Chesty Morgan as the star, the third film in this collection, "The Immoral Three", aka "Hotter Than Hell" (1975), is more of a generic offering. That is, the three women who star in it have more generic physical endowments, although star Cindy Boudreau as "Genny" is still pretty conventionally stacked.
This time, agent Jane Tennay (also Boudreau) is murdered by a mysterious assailant. We discover that she had three daughters who were the result of "carelessness" during missions involving sexual relations with the enemy. The half-sisters Genny, Sandy (Sandra Kay), and Nancy (Michele Marie), strangers to one another until now, must find out who killed their mother and avenge her in order to inherit her $3,000,000 estate.
What follows is some dull softcore sex stuff such as a bikini-clad Sandy fellating a banana to entice the pool man and a drunken Genny doing a seductive dance in bra and panties (the elevator scene is actually kind of funny), mixed with scenes of abrupt, bloody violence as the girls' search for their mother's killer draws some desperate characters out of the woodwork. The final minutes are rather intense in their own haphazard way, with a surprise ending from right out of left field.
The triple-feature Blu-Ray from Something Weird Video is in 1080p high-definition widescreen 1.78:1 with mono sound. Bonus features are a gallery of Doris Wishman exploitation art and a sizable collection of entertaining trailers from her many films.
In recognition of one of his major influences, John Waters has the teenage son in "Serial Mom" breathlessly watching Doris Wishman's Chesty Morgan flicks on home video in the privacy of his bedroom. I, too, rented these movies back in the early 80s and found them, while not exactly "sexy", to be delightfully odd artifacts from a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration of cinematic forces. With CHESTY MORGAN'S BOSOM BUDDIES, we can revel once again in the bizarre.
With the third entry in their "Joseph W. Sarno Retrospective Series", Film Movement Classics brings us another highly enjoyable sampling of the celebrated director's earlier work.
This time it's the triple-header CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE/SIN IN THE SUBURBS/WARM NIGHTS HOT PLEASURES, the first two titles complete with commentary tracks by both film historian Tim Lucas and the director himself. (CONFESSIONS also comes with deleted scenes.)
Even more than the previous entries, this Sarno collection is an intoxicating indulgence for fans of his unique visual and storytelling style, capturing the tawdry essence of the nudie cuties and "roughies" and fashioning it into something of a roughhewn art form that culminates here with his colorful, seriocomic 1974 work, CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE.
CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE (1974)
[This is an altered version of my original review of an earlier release.]
After seeing trailers for some of Joe Sarno's 70s sexploitation flicks, along with a brief retrospective of his work, I was eager to see one of them for myself. I got my wish when CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE (1974) fell into my hot little hands, and I wasn't disappointed.
It's a prime example of good filmmaking on a low budget, displaying a certain class and style that transcends the cheap sleaze this genre is often known for while still generously indulging our more prurient interests.
The simple storyline involves a pretty young housewife named named Carole (Rebecca Brooke) and her husband Eddie (David Hausman), who have a wide-open sexual relationship that includes their ultra-horny neighbors Anna (Chris Jordan) and her hubby Pete (Eric Edwards).
When Carole's straight-laced, widowed mother Jennifer comes to visit, the young swingers are immediately fascinated by the gorgeous blonde mature babe whose repressed sexuality is just waiting to explode.
As the initially-shocked Jennifer lets down her inhibitions and begins to take part in her daughter's free-love lifestyle, each participant is so deeply affected by her that their relationships with each other are threatened. Not only that, but Carole herself is dangerously close to giving in to long dormant incestual feelings and going ga-ga for her own mom.
Complicating things even more is the fact that Jennifer is forming her own relationship outside the group with a handsome young grocery delivery guy who is yearning for love after being abandoned by his wife.
They may not be great thespians, but the actors are appealing and play their characters well. Rebecca Brooke is a fresh young presence as Carole, while David Hausman plays her husband Eddie as a grown-up version of Greg Brady. As Anna, cutie Chris Jordan (Eric Edwards' real-life wife at the time) keeps things light with her comedic performance; aside from her sexual voracity, Anna is constantly stuffing herself with food without gaining an ounce and swooning over Jennifer's baked goods. Eric Edwards, of course, is a familiar face to 70s porn fans, one of those rare examples of the X-rated actor who can really act.
The main attraction here, though, is the stunningly gorgeous Jennifer Wells. Not only a skilled actress, she's also a first-class knockout, and it's easy to understand how the others could be so helplessly attracted to her. Voluptuous and natural (no plastic, no tattoos, no shaved pubes), her transition from apron-wearing mom baking pies in the kitchen to hot-blooded sexual animal is pretty exciting.
This is how you do softcore without making it boring. The sex scenes are hot and the actors are convincingly passionate and enthusiastic. Chris Jordan in particular seems to be literally having orgasms out the wazoo in some scenes. Sarno directs the sex sequences as logical extensions of the dramatic scenes instead of just letting the camera roll while actors boff each other.
This looks like one of the better hardcore films of the 70s (without the more graphic shots, of course) when directors like Gerard Damiano were still trying to make actual movies instead of just extended sex scenes linked by minimal dialogue.
The fact that these sequences don't go on forever with endless, numbing closeups of ping-ponging genitalia sustains our interest and arousal levels while maintaining our awareness that a story is taking place. As film gave way to video in the 80s and porn became more of an assembly-line product churned out by increasingly lesser talents, such concerns were either minimalized or abandoned altogether, as shown in Paul Thomas Anderson's BOOGIE NIGHTS.
Joe Sarno's script keeps the melodrama moving along while delighting us with some occasionally kooky dialogue. After their initial meeting with Jennifer, Eddie remarks to Pete, "You know, her tits intrigue me...she never wears a bra" and Pete responds "Yeah, we were sitting there and her old tits were crying for my mouth." Later, while coming on to Jennifer for the first time, Pete gushes, "Your tits drive me outta my bird!"
Sarno makes the most of his $25,000 budget, giving the film a distinctive look with its soft-hued, color-saturated cinematography and artistic lighting. The print used here is fairly good, though there are quite a few patches that have that choppy, scratchy look commonly associated nowadays with "grindhouse" films. (I grew up watching battered film prints in theaters and on TV, so I hardly notice such things myself--in fact, it gives me a nice nostalgic feeling.)
If you're into this kind of stuff, then chances are you'll enjoy CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE as much as I did. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Joe Sarno's films. [End of original review.]
Film Movement Classics' Blu-ray release of CONFESSIONS is, like the other two films on this disc, a new 2K restoration that probably looks as good as it gets. Which in this case is a vividly colorful and clear picture with the inevitable imperfections that sometimes come with the best available print. For me, the old-school grindhouse feel that this gives the film is a nostalgic plus.
SIN IN THE SUBURBS (1964)
SIN IN THE SUBURBS (1964) is writer-director Joe Sarno continuing to come into his own as a filmmaker who takes the genre of naughty, softcore sex potboilers and invests it with an unusual dramatic heft and interesting characters who trade dialogue that's sharp and fun to listen to.
Not to say that the obligatory sleaze and tawdriness of such films are missing here--it's the sort of world Sarno's characters exist in, whether they be conniving lowlifes using sex for gain or well-to-do hypocrites posing as model citizens while indulging forbidden sexual perversions behind closed doors.
The term "when the cat's away" really fits this normal-looking 60s suburb in which lonely, sex-hungry wives, feeling neglected by their working husbands, have it off with various neighbors, workmen, or, in the case of Mrs. Lewis (Audrey Campbell, THE SEXPERTS), her teen daughter Kathy's high school friend.
Meanwhile, we see local sex-bomb Yvette lounging around the house in lingerie and paying the furniture bill by seducing the collector. Yvette lives with her supposed "brother" Louis (W.B. Parker), and together they're hatching a scheme to start an illicit sex club which they hope will have frustrated neighbors shelling out hundreds of bucks for.
What starts out a bit like a sex comedy (the bill collector guy is funny) soon veers toward the dramatic as the sexual vortex so many of the characters seem caught in starts to spin out of control. Lisa, left alone while husband Henry is at work, starts guzzling booze and luring abusive workmen into her home. Mrs. Lewis has daytime swingers' parties with friends in her own house, one of which is walked in upon by a her shocked daughter Kathy.
Kathy, it seems, has the wildest life of them all when she's molested by her would-be boyfriend and then seduced into a hot lesbian affair with Yvette. Judy Young plays her with just the right balance between still just a kid and becoming a troubled, sexually-confused young woman.
It's almost the stuff soap operas are made of, but it's all so edgy (for its time) and starkly compelling that we're constantly transfixed by what's going on and eager to see what happens next. Sarno's evolving as a director with an instinctive talent for staging interesting shots and bringing out the best in his cast.
The story content is strictly adults-only for 1964, with elements such as adultery, attempted rape, lesbianism, and other sensitive subjects that were still taboo. It feels like we're watching something on the shady side, getting a voyeuristic glimpse at these desperate sinful lives.
Sarno's screenplay goes beyond simple sexploitation and builds to an emotionally jarring ending after one of Yvette and Louis' illicit sex parties, which is staged remarkably and with lasting effect.
Sarno's black-and-white photography is crisp, noirish, and constantly interesting to look at. The print used for Film Movement's Blu-ray edition is very good, even with the occasional scratches, specks, etc. which, for me, give it a nostalgic feel that recalls the well-worn prints we used to see at the local theater or on late-night TV.
Having just watched the original Star Trek episode "I, Mudd" the night before, I was surprised to see the actor who played the android "Norman", Richard Tatro, as the dangerous guy Lisa foolishly opens her front door to.
Yvette is played by none other than Dyanne Thorne (billed here as Lahna Monroe) of "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S." fame, looking almost unrecognizable with her jet-black bouiffant hairdo. The film's one bit of actual nudity is a fleeting glimpse of her bare breasts.
SIN IN THE SUBURBS ends with a shadowy, poignant shot that looks like it might be straight out of early David Lynch. And with it continues my fondness for Joe Sarno's exquisite black-and-white early films, which are unlike anything else I've seen.
WARM NIGHTS HOT PLEASURES
Another of Joe Sarno's delectable early black-and-white melodramas, 1964's WARM NIGHTS HOT PLEASURES is the torrid tale of three smalltown girls who drop out of college and head to the Big Apple with fervent (but slim) hopes of making it in showbiz.
Of course, the road to success is littered with just this kind of roadkill. But singleminded Cathy (Marla Ellis) is too determined and blinded by ambition to be deterred even when every lead she follows turns out to be just one more horny, sleazy con man telling her to "show me what you got" before leading her to the casting couch.
Meanwhile, prim Vivian (Sheila Barnett) hooks up with Paul, a seemingly decent man who claims to have connections and assures her there are no strings attached. (Paul is played by SIN IN THE SUBURBS's Richard Tatro, whom original-series Star Trek fans will recognize as the android Norman in the episode "I, Mudd.")
Paul's frustrated wife Ronnie (Carla Desmond) befriends simple, down-home girl Marsha (the cute-as-a-button Eve Harris) and offers to teach her some of the tricks to becoming a showgirl. Ronnie will also develop a tragically one-sided infatuation with Marsha that adds to the story's substantial emotional gravitas.
The idea of a trio of naive girls striking out on their own into a world of fast sex and deceptive strangers seems a comfortably familiar one, and Sarno's lean, colorful screenplay, in addition to his endlessly inventive direction and expert handling of actors, allows us to settle back and enjoy the ride from one dramatic turn to the next.
Things get sleazy right away when Cathy's first surrender to a repugnant talent agent's sweaty sexual come-on leads only to one two-bit producer after another as she struggles to make her way up the food chain. She ends up dancing and hustling drinks in a bar run by Dick (played by familiar character actor Joe Santos in his film debut under the name "Joe Russell") who drags her sense of self-worth even further into the mud by also demanding dirty sex from her.
Welcome comedy touches enter the picture when the girls rent a room from a sassy, sultry nudie model who's constantly posing for fetish photos down the hall, in the apartment of a young Irving Klaw-like photographer. While the big lug's constantly trying to get Marsha to pose nude for him, he's all business and becomes a valuable ally.
Fans of familiar vintage nudie model Alice Denham will be delighted to see her in the flesh (so to speak) as the landlady, who's equally adept at single-girl glamour pics or the kinkier bondage and S&M stuff.
As usual, the black-and-white photography is exquisite as the camerawork and staging consistently bring out the best in Sarno's typically expressive cast. The musical score is a cacophony of hepcat jazz, like one of Fred Katz's scores for Roger Corman, and I recognized at least one cue from the same library music used earlier in THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE.
Sarno admirers should scarf up this concoction of illicit sex, brief nudity, drama, tragedy, despair, debasement, disillusionment, and betrayal, with occasional bits of lighthearted fun to keep things from getting too heavy. At least one of our our heroines will find a glimmer of hope that may lead to success, while the other girls' luck goes bad in ways that play heavily on our sympathy without ever getting maudlin.
The print used by Film Movement Classics has the usual wear and tear of these early Sarno films which we're lucky to have in any condition (this one has been lost since 1964) despite being cleaned up as much as possible for this Blu-ray release.
I think it looks great, and any imperfections only give it that unique grindhouse feel which, as I've stressed on numerous occasions, only adds to my nostalgic enjoyment of older films. (I like a print that looks like it's been around the block a few times.) No extras this time, but the film itself is its own reward.
WARM NIGHTS HOT PLEASURES finds the director continuing to wield his keen story sense and artist's eye to give us a nudie sex flick that feels as substantial and worthwhile as many Hollywood potboilers, but a lot more naughty, taboo-twisting fun.
BONUS FEATURES
Sin in the Suburbs -- Commentary by Tim Lucas, Commentary by Joe and Peggy Sarno, Michael Vraney and Frank Henenlotter
Confessions of a Young American Housewife -- Commentary by Tim Lucas, Mini-commentary by Joe Sarno, Deleted scenes
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Type: Blu-ray/DVD
Running Time: 234 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Audio: Stereo
Captions: None
Street Date: October 2, 2018
BD/DVD SRP: $39.95/$29.95
Like many horror fans, my first look at the "Chlorophyll Man" was in Dennis Gifford's celebrated book, "Pictorial History of Horror Movies." Now, with Severin Films' Blu-ray release of BEAST OF BLOOD (1970), we get to see the movie behind that picture in all its gruesome, exploitative glory.
The finale of the "Blood Island Trilogy", which includes "Brides of Blood" and "Mad Doctor of Blood Island" (along with the 1959 prequel, "Terror Is a Man"), this lurid shocker is pure grindhouse goodness for horror lovers who enjoy wandering the dark territory of the grotesque and bizarre.
The story picks up right where "Mad Doctor of Blood Island" left off, with Dr. Bill Foster (the great John Ashley) leaving Blood Island on a boat which, unbeknownst to him, contains a stowaway--none other than the dreaded Chlorophyll Man himself. When this creature attacks in a frantically-staged scene, the ship ends up sinking and Foster is the only survivor.
He returns to the island some time later to investigate brand new sightings of the "green men" created by evil Dr. Lorca, and discovers that the doctor has also survived the previous film albeit with some severe facial burns and a renewed interest in creating green-blooded chlorophyll monsters using the local island inhabitants as his guinea pigs.
Foster and a hardy crew of local men set off through the jungle to Dr. Lorca's remote subterranean lair, accompanied by plucky lady reporter Myra Russell (Celeste Yarnall, LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE, "Star Trek: The Apple") and even pluckier island girl Laida (Liza Belmonte) who is as handy with a machete as she is beautiful.
Much of the first half of the film covers their trek through the jungle, which tends to drag a bit until finally we rejoin Dr. Lorca in all his mad-doctor glory. "Beast of Blood" kicks into fun-gear at this point, thanks mainly to the fact that Chlorophyll Man's decapitated head is being kept alive while his headless body is strapped to a lab table, also alive.
Lorca's laboratory set and its surrounding cave tunnels look like something out of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and give the movie a pleasantly low-rent science fiction vibe. But it's the horror of that really hideous animated head leering back at Lorca and baring its fangs, biding its time for a chance to get revenge, that gives these scenes a satisfying shudder.
As usual, Lorca keeps a fresh stock of native captives caged for his ghastly experiments, with the goriest scenes consisting of some actual animal entrails being sliced and diced by the mad doctor's scalpel under the camera's loving gaze.
The film's sex quotient is filled early on when Foster and Myra have a steamy sex scene containing quite a bit of nudity. Soon after, Myra is kidnapped by Lorca's men and serves mainly as a damsel in distress, giving Foster and crew added incentive to descend on Lorca's compound bearing spears and guns in the film's delightfully action-packed battle royale.
The machete-wielding Laida is especially fine during this sequence, and even Myra gets a chance to impale a bad guy or two. John Ashley fans will enjoy seeing him in James Bond/Indiana Jones mode as well. But the best part is when Chlorophyll Man takes telepathic control of his headless body (in a finale reminiscent of "The Brain That Wouldn't Die") and goes after Dr. Lorca while the laboratory crumbles around them.
Visually, this Severin Films Blu-ray (available only as part of the "Blood Island Collection") is less refined and restored than the rest of the trilogy, but it's a look that I find deeply appealing in a nostalgic way. Extras consist of the following:
Audio Commentary with Hemisphere Marketing Consultant Samuel M. Sherman Celeste and the Beast: An Interview with Celeste Yarnall Dr. Lorca’s Blood Devils: Interview with Actor Eddie Garcia Super 8 Digest Version (approx. 15 minutes) Trailer Poster & Still Gallery
With no arthouse pretensions whatsoever, BEAST OF BLOOD simply wants to shock, appall, and exploit our basest entertainment needs, which it does in shameless earnest. It's prime, joyfully perverse drive-in fodder, and I'd rather watch it than whatever they threw Academy Awards at this year.
ECCO (1963)
It may not have the word "Mondo" in the title, but ECCO, aka "Il mondo di notte numero 3" (Severin Films, 1963), is an offshoot of the infamous, wildly successful shock-u-mentary "Mondo Cane" just as sure as its goal is to shock, titillate, and even disgust everyone who shells out the price of a ticket to see it.
"Ecco" is an Italian word meaning "look here", and as soon as American producer Bob Cresse (MONDO FREUDO, MONDO BIZARRO) took a look at this Italian production, he knew he had to purchase the rights and release an Americanized version of it himself. Which, one assumes, cleaned up at the box office.
He hired venerable actor George Sanders to intone the pithy narration, keeping the excellent musical soundtrack which includes both rock'n'roll and crooner-type ballads in addition to some stirring orchestral music like something out of a spaghetti western.
But the real attraction is the non-stop travelogue of exotic, outlandish, and often highly strange sights and sounds from around the world, some filmed as they occurred and others staged for the camera but, unlike many "Mondo" films, based (mostly) on actual events.
Some of this stuff is relatively mundane enough to show up in a TV travelogue, such as a look at Rio de Janiero's famed Mardi Gras celebration and a brief example of rough-and-tumble women's roller derby.
One mountain village in Europe is visited by a family of daredevil circus performers, and elsewhere we see some amazing Grecian monasteries built high atop mountain peaks (as seen in the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only"). Portuguese fishermen go whaling in nothing but simple rowboats, a dangerous task which, if they survive, will benefit their entire village in many ways.
But before long, the more extreme exploitation aim of this eye-popping cinematic grab bag makes itself known in a variety of ways, beginning with some young German men who get together for a night of drinking and then bloody jousting with swords.
A satanic ritual ends with a naked woman drenched in chicken blood, while Swedish delinquents roam the streets getting into trouble, attacking citizens, and then having wild sex in front of a group of straight-laced oldies. A visit to what is purported to be the final performance in the famous Grand Guignol theater finds the actors involved in a typically gruesome scene.
In one of the film's most amazing sequences, hundreds of young, half-naked Japanese men form a roiling, squirming, tightly-packed mass of humanity during a weird annual "game" in which at least a dozen of them are expected to be crushed or trampled to death just for funsies.
Sex really comes to the fore (finally!) in the film's latter half--matronly Vegas women drool over oiled, posing muscle men, a popular European stripper has a whole hall of lecherous guys in a state of giddy arousal, and a forbidden all-lesbian club engages in same-sex nudie frolics for the camera's benefit.
But just as I was beginning to write off ECCO as a fairly standard "Mondo" flick, then came a guy named Ivan--one of those "mind over body" zealots--who started driving long, sharp needles through his skinny body in a segment that may be staged but definitely isn't faked.
"Cringe" doesn't go far enough to describe watching this guy slowly penetrate his neck with a needle while describing how he's studiously avoiding the carotid artery, the jugular vein, and, of course, the esophagus. Eventually we witness the needle's point emerge from the other side, whereupon he invites a member of the audience to pull it out. Yikes.
I figured they couldn't top this, but the next segment goes right into a reindeer roundup in Lapland where an amazing wave of thousands of reindeer swarm tsunami-like into an enclosed area where they scuttle around in a huge circle while the natives lasso them.
Some are slaughtered, while others are castrated to become steers. How is this done? Why, the ladies do the honors with their teeth, of course. And thus, my mind is blown.
Other things happen which I can't recall at the moment, all very beautifully narrated by silken-toned George Sanders (who even throws in a little Shakespeare), but this should suffice to give an overview of ECCO'S mindbending menu. I expected the usual weird sex practices and bizarre rituals, but some of this stuff really had me in full "SMH" mode and then left me benumbed, bewildered, and thoroughly be-cringed.
THE FORBIDDEN (1966)
Having roughly the form of a "Mondo" but with much less of a travelogue element and much more unmitigated sleaze, Bob Cresse & Lee Frost's THE FORBIDDEN (1966) is composed almost exclusively of softcore sex stuff--mostly strippers pretending to be performing in Paris or London but mainly in dark little soundstages with drapes over the walls to simulate nightclubs. It's probably the same set every time, just redressed a bit.
The film does veer occasionally into actual documentary territory as when we're shown genuine footage of a riot that occurred in Los Angeles when hundreds of teenagers refused to obey a ten o'clock curfew and clashed with the police, causing much chaos and property damage.
There's also a couple of detours into lurid fiction via re-enactments of "true" cases, one involving a woman's lethal jealousy toward her ex-husband and his lovers (this one ends DEATH PROOF-style) and another telling of a lonely woman's very unconventional method of getting the man she loves to come and visit her in Paris from his home in Mexico.
Mostly, however, we're treated to the kind of nudie-cutie segments that one often saw in 8mm film loops in the 60s, given hokey wraparound stories. One stripper is supposedly performing in East Berlin and pretending to be Hitler's girlfriend. Another, the gorgeous "Baby Bubbles" from Frost & Cresse's MONDO BIZARRO, plays a woman who teaches timid housewives how to strip for their husbands.
We get a good idea of what we're in for with the opening segment showing two women in varying states of undress while a creepy peeper peers at them through their window. He breaks in and attacks, during which we find that this is supposedly a commerical commissioned by the female owner of a karate school for women wanting to learn self-defense.
A secret initiation of two girls into a lesbian club is an excuse for us to--you guessed it--watch some naked lesbians for awhile. There's also a scene with a prostitute who drugs and rapes her female clients before robbing them. And with that, your evening's entertainment is pretty well rounded except for just one more stripper (and some fervid, near-incomprehensible narration) to send THE FORBIDDEN off in sleazy style.
Buy it from Severin Films Special Features: The Bandit: Producer David Goldstein Remembers Bob Cresse I Want More: Short Film Ecco Trailer English Subtitles The Stripper is scanned in 4K from the original internegative The Forbidden is newly-transferred from the only known 35m print in existence
I think it's fair to say that incredibly prolific cult filmmaker Jess Franco wrote and directed SHINING SEX (1977, Severin Films) as an excuse to closely examine the naked body of his lifelong love and artistic muse Lina Romay in what can only be described as loving detail.
Hence, the narrative consists of roughly 10% story and 90% naked Lina Romay, which is great if (a) you're really, really into Lina Romay, and (b) you enjoy just sitting back and watching compulsive film addict Franco getting his celluloid fix by thinking up different reasons to aim a camera at things.
Those things in this case would be parts of Lina Romay's body, which we get to know almost as intimately as her ob/gyn. In fact, this film goes a long way toward making up for the fact that I never had sex education classes in school. It's like an anatomical textbook in motion.
Of course, even Franco's simplest films usually have some kind of plot, and in this case it's the story of wildly popular nightclub dancer Cynthia (Romay), whose act consists of wearing next to nothing and rolling around on the floor in front of patrons like a kitty cat in heat, being taken to the luxurious home of an interested but strangely aloof couple.
Playfully seductive Cynthia strips off upon arrival and gets the woman, Alpha (Evelyne Scott), into bed for some girl-girl action while the man, Andros (Raymond Hardy) is supposedly off "putting the car away."
But whereas this is usually a prelude to naughty fun, we can see (even if Cynthia can't) that there's something very not right about Alpha's disaffected, almost robotic behavior.
Even her growing sexual arousal in response to Cynthia's efforts to engage her has an ominous feel to it, as the accompanying music itself sounds like something out of a Herk Harvey movie.
How much should I reveal about the rest of the plot? I like to watch movies like this without much foreknowledge, and in this case the mystery just made it that much more enjoyable. Suffice it to say that Franco takes a big left turn into sci-fi territory with elements of the mystical and the metaphysical.
All that, of course, is in service to the abundance of prolonged sex scenes, which get about as close to hardcore as I've seen in a Jess Franco movie. I'll even wager that this one would need extensive cuts to have been shown on Cinemax or the Playboy Channel back in the day.
The 2-disc Blu-ray from Severin contains a CD of music from this and other Franco films. The uncensored print has been scanned from the original negative. Soundtrack is English 2.0 mono with English subtitles. A slipcover features different artwork than the box itself.
Bonus features include "In the Land of Franco, Part 3" with Stephen Thrower, an interview with Thrower entitled "Shining Jess", "Never Met Franco" with filmmaker Gerald Kikoine, "Filmmaker Christopher Gans on France", Commentary with scholars Robert Monell and Rod Barnett, some very explicit outtakes, and a trailer.
While the sci-fi angle gets nuttier (and the sex kinkier) as it goes along, there's always the spectacle of Jess Franco's beloved Lina languishing in the nude and getting ravished by everyone in sight. If you're not a Francophile, this will probably mean very little to you. But for those to whom every aspect of the director's career evokes endless fascination, SHINING SEX will prove evocative indeed.
2-Disc Blu-ray Featuring Limited Edition Slipcover Limited to 1500 copies
Spanish director Jess Franco burned his way through cinema like a fuse, voracious and volatile, leaving the ashes of his endeavor in his wake for us to sift through.
Much of it is of mere passing note to me, interesting only to see what such a prolific filmmaker produces when free to work fast and furious and pour out his id on film with little or no restraint.
But with this outpouring comes the occasional work that demands my attention and admiration (VAMPYROS LESBOS, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY, COUNT DRACULA), and one such example is his 1980 anti-romantic, anti-erotic sexual nightmare SINFONIA EROTICA (Severin Films), based upon the writings of the Marquis de Sade.
During her absence Armando has acquired and become addicted to a seductive, effeminate male lover named Flor (Mel Rodrigo), both of whom taunt and torture poor Martine with their flagrant contempt for both her emotional needs and urgent sexual desires.
Norma (Susan Hemingway), a timid young escapee from a nunnery, is found lying unconscious on the grounds during one of Armando and Flor's nature romps, and is taken in to become a part of their cruel sexual games.
She ends up falling in love with Flor, and the two of them plan to not only aid in Armando's plan to murder Martine but to then get rid of Armando himself, leaving them free to run away together. Martine's only allies during all this are a sympathetic maid and a psychiatrist who may or may not believe her story.
Needless to say, SINFONIA EROTICA belies its opulent Victorian romance novel setting--Franco shot it in Portugal using gorgeous mansion interiors and magnificent exterior locations--with fervid, disturbing images of mental and physical cruelty in the form of ugly, non-erotic sex.
When Franco makes a sex movie instead of a horror movie, the sex seems to replace the horror, or rather it becomes another kind of horror, of a deeper and more Freudian kind.
Here, he gives us a perversely erotic thriller that hates sex even as it's preoccupied with exploring Lina Romay's offbeat beauty and ample breasts as well as showing various joyless lovers rutting like animals in scenes that waver between softcore and hardcore action.
He lingers over his finely-rendered, sometimes impressionistic imagery as though following a deeply-pondered train of thought, and many of the shots are arranged with both a painter's sensibilities and a perceptive filmmaker's orchestration of character and movement.
Romay is at her best as Martine, looking strangely enticing at all times while also surrendering to the role with an intensity that evokes excitement and sympathy for her character.
As Armando, Borges plays the heartless cad to a tee, relishing his own sadistic impulses which will eventually include coldblooded murder, which Franco depicts in non-graphic yet chilling style.
But the lack of graphic violence is made up for by the horrific depiction of sex and sexual desire as a Freudian nightmare that leads to madness when infused with malevolence and perversion.
Severin's Blu-ray disc (also available in DVD) is a 4k restoration of an uncut 35mm print which is the only known copy of this cut to exist. There are some rough spots here and there, but, as I've often said, I prefer for a wizened exploitation print such as this to look like it's been around the block a few times. Otherwise, picture quality is fine. The soundtrack is in Spanish with English captions.
The visually rich fever dream that is SINFONIA EROTICA draws us into Martine's dark, corrupting psycho-sexual ordeal and has its way with us until somebody dies.
Special Features: Jess Franco On First Wife Nicole Guettard – Interview With Director Jess Franco Stephen Thrower On Sinfonia Erotica – Interview With The Author Of ‘Murderous Passions – The Delirious Cinema Of Jesus Franco’
By now, I've seen a fair amount of Spanish cult director Jess Franco's films, and, despite his popularity among countless ardent fans, I've always found his works to be a great big grab bag of good and bad all swirling around together like socks in a dryer--mostly mismatched and full of holes, but occasionally wearable.
With 1979's THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME, we see the result of Franco taking his earlier sex-and-horror film EXORCISM (already the result of much tinkering and consisting of various different cuts including a XXX-rated one), re-arranging and repurposing the existing footage, and adding several minutes of new footage to create what he himself considered the definitive version.
Franco stars as Mathis Vogel, who once studied for the priesthood at Notre Dame but ultimately failed the final audition, so to speak, due to the fact that he was a raving loon.
Now, after years in institutional exile, he returns crazier than ever as your stereotypical "religious fanatic" intent on punishing "sinful women" and becomes a dreaded Jack the Ripper-style serial killer.
Vogel's twisted mind is a maelstrom of conflicting impulses as he stalks and murders women he considers whores (promising that this will purify their souls) while being irresistibly aroused by them.
Franco succeeds in portraying him as a sick, pathetic troll of a man tormented by his own desires while even his former friend in the priesthood denies him the absolution for his crimes that he desperately craves.
He meets and is obsessed by pretty Anne (Franco's lifelong lover and muse Lina Romay) who works for a lurid sex magazine where he submits autobiographical sex stories, and, through her, stumbles upon a group of upper-class swingers who meet regularly in a castle for perverted S&M sex shows followed by intense orgies.
The rest of the film follows Vogel's stalking and killing of members of the group, usually after he has voyeuristically observed them having sex involving dominant-submissive roleplay. Romay's fans will enjoy seeing her romping about in various stages, although I found most of the other anonymous, undulating nudes somewhat less appealing.
Much of the violence is surprisingly non-graphic while still managing to be deeply disturbing, especially when juxtaposed with ample amounts of nudity and fevered Freudian sexuality.
Occasionally, however, there are flashes of more graphic violence that increase the shock value, and, taken as a whole, this must've presented late 70s audiences with quite a heady concoction.
Meanwhile, there's a subplot (mostly from the original version, I think) involving some bickering police detectives on Vogel's trail. This is meant mainly to show us that the net is indeed tightening around our perverted protagonist as he goes about his murderous ways, although some of the conflict between the veteran French detective and a young hot-shot cop on loan from Switzerland is interesting.
Technically, THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME is the wildly-prolific Franco's standard rushed production--he often burned through several projects at once--filled with quick set-ups, lots of zooming and meandering camerawork, and the occasional evidence of a talented film visualist at work.
Often Franco simply allows his cinematic mind to wander, resulting in long stretches that may delight his fans while lulling others to sleep. The story itself is pretty threadbare and dependant upon its outlandish, grotesque imagery and themes for whatever impact it may have on individual viewers.
The new Blu-ray and DVD release by Severin Films is taken from the only known existing copy of the film, a 35mm print scanned in 4K after reportedly being discovered "in the crawlspace of a Montparnasse nunnery." The various resulting imperfections only add to its visual appeal for me since I find perfect, flawless clarity in a film to be off-putting. When it comes to old-style exploitation such as this, I like a print that looks like it has been around the block a few times.
I found THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME sporadically interesting but never particularly appealing for either its horrific or erotic qualities. Francophiles, I assume, will find it fascinating. And still others will doubtless agree with the Spanish film board's assessment of it--proudly touted in the film's publicity--as "an absolute abomination."
Special Features: The Gory Days Of Le Brady – Documentary Short On The Legendary Parisian Horror Cinema Stephen Thrower On Sadist Of Notre Dame – Interview With The Author Of ‘Murderous Passions – The Delirious Cinema Of Jesus Franco’ Selected Scenes Commentary With ‘I’m In A Jess Franco State Of Mind’ Webmaster Robert Monell Treblemakers: Interview With Alain Petit, Author Of ‘Jess Franco Ou Les Prosperites Des Bis’ Spanish language or English dubbed with subtitles
Is "Cinemax After Dark" still a thing? I remember in the 80s when HBO's sister channel Cinemax would show softcore sex comedies and thrillers during the late-night hours. Director Joe D'Amato's EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE, aka "Emanuelle's Revenge" and "Blood Revenge" (Severin Films, 1975), is a lot like what would happen if one of those softcore sex thrillers had a head-on collision with one of the director's celebrated blood 'n' guts gore epics.
Francoise (Patrizia Gori, WAR OF THE ROBOTS, DEADLY CHASE) is a cute, chipper fashion model whose life would be sunshine and lollipops if her live-in boyfriend Carlo (well-played by George Eastman of D'Amato's ABSURD and ANTROPOPHAGUS) weren't such a horrible cad.
Not only does he make her have sex with guys he owes money to, but when she walks in on him getting it on with another woman, his response is to stuff her clothes in a suitcase and toss her out on her ear. Poor heartbroken Francoise goes straight to the nearest train track and throws herself in front of the next speeding locomotive.
Enter Francoise's worldly older sister Emanuelle (Rosemarie Lindt, SALON KITTY, PORNO-EROTIC WESTERN), who, after reading Francoise's novella-length suicide note, vows revenge against Carlo.
She contrives to meet him and then leads him on until he ends up in her trap--a secret prison cell behind a sliding wall in her living room, with a two-way mirror through which chained-up Carlo must watch her indulge in the culinary and sexual delights he is now denied (with a much harsher final punishment reserved for the end).
There's a good deal of nudity and sexual activity, from Francoise's unfortunate encounters to Emanuelle herself cavorting with various male and female partners for Carlo to see. Rosemarie Lindt, not exactly the kind of woman I picture when I hear the name "Emanuelle", is a good actress with sort of an Honor Blackman quality.
Co-written by D'Amato and Bruno Mattei (SHOCKING DARK, ZOMBIE 3,ZOMBIE 4), the film resembles a giallo much of the time, but what really plunges it into horror territory is when Carlo, forced to watch as his captor and her guests gorge themselves on an elegant candlelight dinner, imagines them feasting on human body parts. Thus we see these sophisticated diners happily chomping away on severed hands, feet, and various other carnal delicacies rarely seen outside of a zombie flick.
A later scene (which may or may not be a hallucination) finds Carlo on the loose after escaping his secret room and attacking Emanuelle with a meat cleaver. This scene consists mainly of Lindt rolling around nude in a gallon or two of fake blood while a crazed Eastman swings the meat cleaver, which doesn't look very convincing but is certainly lively and fun to watch.
Things finally come to a head when Emanuelle decides it's time for Carlo to pay the ultimate price (I'll give you three guesses what that is), leading to an entertaining final sequence with a pleasing twist ending. It's more of a kick in the rear than a gut punch, but fans of both sexy thrillers and gruesome gorefests should find that EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE fits the bill on both counts.
Special Features: Three Women and a Mirror: Interview With Actress Maria Rosaria Riuzzi The Other Side of the Mirror: Interview With Actor George Eastman Deleted/Alternate scenes Trailer 2k Scan From Original Negative Reversible Cover
