Take One (Mar-Apr 1973)

“To me its pomographic when someone like Peckinpah gratuitously spills blood and guts all over the screen.” a ee ee ene ia See i ae ee ee effective film, since it was supposed to be a sexual horror story. And while | first thought that Devil would be the one to separate the true fuck film afficionado from the moderately interested observer, Variety reports that as of last November, Devil was the leading grosser of all porn films, having turned a neat $6,604,067 in less than half the time it took Deep Throat to struggle over the $5 million mark. Among other films, Eduardo Cemano’s The Healers, Fongaluli, and Madame Zenobia have a good reputation. Screw put out It Happened In Hollywood. Bob Sumner’s Mature Films in New York followed up Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig (starring Ms. Spelvin) with High Rise, which was budgeted at an astronomical $75,000. And then there’s Alfred Sole’s Deep Sleep, which won the audience award at the 2nd New York Erotic Film Festival. Deep Sleep stars Joe Rose as Harry, who comes home one night to find his Cousin Iris (Kim Pope) balling a stranger. He gets furious and shoots them both. After her funeral, when everyone else has left, he hops into the coffin and commits necrophilia. After that he can't get it up anymore, and is sent toa country camp run by the Maharishi Kumma Summa to deal with his problem. He finally succeeds (with an Iris lookalike) , and the film ends with him shooting his wad in bed, sound asleep. It was all a dream. Sole’s film is technically the equal of Resurrection of Eve, and the color is excellent, particularly the substantial outdoor footage. The sex scenes are among the most imaginative yet. Several of them are shot from beneath couples on a plastic table top, adding new dimensions to the “meat shots” (the ol’ inOut) and “tunnel shots” (up the Vagina). Even the humor comes off less forced than in most of these films. A jam-packed week’s worth of viewing brought to my attention several other stars, styles and characteristics. John C. Holmes (a.k.a. Johnny Wadd) is very big on the West Coast, having reportedly made more than 1500 films, including a porn detective series. His chief attribute is a dong that bears a disarming resemblance to a Louisville Slugger; he Claims it measures 13 inches erect. There’s Jason and Tina Russell, everybody’s favorite bisexual couple from Brooklyn Heights, and Calvin Culver, who has starred in several of the biggest gay flicks. Laird Sutton, who makes hard-core films for a sex education program funded by a Methodist church, says that after viewing 1100 films in the course of 16 Marilyn again. his work he can now tell, when he sees a new one, who made it. Regional differences also became evident to me in my own week of viewing. Los Angeles films tend to be technically superior, but unadventurous and formulaic, _ strictly assembly-line stuff. San Francisco films are both more ambitious and more amateurish, sacrificing technical virtues for funk, or art, or something. New York films have an extraordinary amount of butt-fucking, where most others have none. (Regional characteristics apparently apply overseas, too: the Japanese, for example, are real big on bondage, and the British can’t get enough spanking in their films.) While lesbianism is all right, even mandatory it seems, in films aimed at the heterosexual market, male homosexuality is emphatically not. The gay market is thriving, however; in terms of dollar earned for dollar spent, it’s more lucrative than the hetero market, though it's much smaller in terms of overall grosses. We are now back in Arlene Elster’s office. She is explaining how difficult it is to make a decent fuck film, and her defense of them is half-hearted at best. Some positions that photograph well are pretty difficult to execute. It is hard to find capable actors and actresses who will perform live sex for the camera. Most of them have no talent at all, she concedes, and few of them even enjoy the work. There is too much pressure put on the men to perform. If they can’t get it up and keep it up, on cue, it’s not gonna happen, and it’s time to send out for the Anderson’s potato soup, put some in the woman's mouth that she can drool out, and fake it. For the actresses, it’s even worse, the women are objectified even COURTESY MITCHELL BROTHERS more so than in_ other American society. Geez, Arlene, | interrupt, it sounds like you don't even like the films you show. She smiles, a tad nervously, and throws her hands up in the air. “Il guess | don't, but you have to consider what | have to choose from. And | really do like them on one certain level. | really like the idea of them; let’s get sex out in the open, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, if you think they’re bad now, you should have seen them a few years ago. They're getting better, so maybe the rest will follow. But for now, there’s plenty | don’t like about these films, it’s true, especially as a woman. There’s just not enough attention being paid to the woman's sexuality in these films.” Which brings us to Charlene Webb and Goldenrod, the film that was currently showing at the Sutter. Ms. Webb entered the hard-core field more from a film than a sex perspective, which automatically sets her off from most of the other people | interviewed. She was a script clerk on Nightmare in Blood and an Official apprentice on Steelyard Blues. She had worked free-lance in several Capacities on commercials, and wanted to direct a film with an all-woman crew. Given the limited financial backing available, they decided to make a hardcore sex film — but from a woman's point of view. Goldenrod is the story of Richard Long (Bram Roberts), publisher of a tits-andass magazine called Charisma, and he chases after anyone who has both tits and ass. One morning he wakes up with an erection that won't go away. His dizzy girlfriend Diane (Shayler Mercer) does everything she can think of to make him come, but it doesn’t work. Dickie panics. He can’t leave the house with this enormous hard-on because women accost him on the street. He gets obscene phone calls at home. He desperately explains his situation to a visiting friend named Laura (Mira Vane), who thinks it’s “far out” and she proceeds to fuck him on the sofa until she’s had all she wants. It's an amazing scene, the best single fuck scene | saw, in that they’re both really blissed out and obviously enjoying themselves. But he still doesn’t get off enough, and when Laura’s had her fill she just up and leaves him. As a last resort, he has sent over to his house Wanda Warmhole, the Snapping Pussy of the South (Joan Gordon). Wanda is a sideshow carnival freak and she likes the size of his erection and all but she can't help him either. She ends up calling over a few friends so they can get their kicks with him, and when he resists further sex he’s raped by them. He wakes up the next aspects of