...back in this reviewer's good ol' early Navy days...that is, before the onset and convenience of home video, and those occasional late-night 'gathering of the buds', at one of the 'buds' conveniently located homes...those smokey & darkened back rooms, and the flickering chatter of an overheated film projector...the murmuring and the snickers and the 'woo-wooing' and the clinking of beer cans...this reviewer's fondest memories of having been 'formally' introduced to the steamy and provocative arena of sexploitation cinema, were the late-night trips we all made, to the local, albeit tucked-away-back-in-the-fields drive-in theaters, in the early eighties. Passion pits, found while stationed in Orlando, Florida...Groton, Connecticut...Great Lakes, Michigan...Norfolk, Virgina. Breaking away from our arduous pre-weekend Naval school studies, or the dust and grit of a Friday workday in the shipyard, once the sun hit the level of dusk, a dozen of us...all young, dumb and full of (...what?? Did I just hear a high pitched 'cuckoo'?? Never mind...) would pour ourselves into a couple of rickety, run-down vehicles, and do some wayward, random bar-hopping. A couple of us would occasionally 'get lucky', and that'd be the last we'd see of them, that night...a couple others, green behind the gills, being unable to hold their 'Milwaukee's Best' (...and that's after the first 12 or 15 of them; hey, you just can't beat a case of beer, for a mere three bucks and change, right??), would pass out, and a readily available taxi would pigeon the wimps back to base...
...the rest of us, beaten down by rejection, but still enjoying a respectable buzz...still, with another case or two of the ol' 'MB' to polish off, and nothing else to do...would roll on over, sometimes on mere gas fumes, to the local, though quite out in the sticks, late-night drive-in theater, which...once the midnight hour rendered a subtle cymbal strike...would covertly screen some of the best, albeit some of the most wildly outrageous softcore film classics...most of which were dated back to the golden age of '70's 'blue' movies. Edgy sex scenes, but not too explicit...wacky fantasy scenarios, which could never possibly happen in real life, save for what might be imaginatively written in 'Forum' magazine...comical interludes, to break up the monotony of the steam sex moments (...oh yeah right...they were so-o-o-o bo-o-o-oring, too...again, yeah right)...shoddy production values, and ridiculously looking cardboard sets...and some of the most ludicrous, over-the-top performances, both in character interaction, as well as during the sex scenes...and all this for the stuffed carload price of five bits...
...OK, without a doubt, this
was cheap, low-brow entertainment, to be sure...nonetheless, considering the late hour and our somewhat inebriated condition, beggars can't be choosers, right?? But heck, it kept us out of trouble...and man, did we have a ball. And the theaters didn't mind the rowdy shenanigans, as the theater was always packed, and as long as we kept our cool, as well as picked up our 'dead soldiers' when we left, who were they to mind?? And those movies...as scratchy, chopped up, ages-old worn and decrepit as they were on the screen...damn, they were fun...dumber than a bag of hammers, but fun, nonetheless. Often edited from the hardcore 'X' rated stuff...though occasionally, an 'X' would slip in there, from time to time (...I mean, who the heck's gonna complain, right??). Erotically playful and comical, covering a wide range of genres, usually with a threadbare storyline, to carry the proceedings...as well as the steamy sexual antics...along. Oh, how this viewer remembers those terrifically titillating titles...etched on the flickering marquee and relished on the big screen, long before one could salivatingly scrutinize them in the privacy of one's home...titles, like "Vampire Hookers", "Long Jeane Silver", "Fairy Tales", "A Saint, a Woman and a Devil", "The Sinful Dwarf", "SexWorld", "Flesh Gordon" and "Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls", just to name a scant few...as well as
this low-brow, albeit high-flying, cross-town look at a few sexually adventurous folk...
...and before we proceed...eh, ya' want story?? HA!! You want story...go get a book. No siree, Bob!! No story to be seen, here...just a motley bunch of 'connected' characters, engaged in heated vignettes...characters, like:
...well, like the bored, albeit sexually virile bank teller, moonlighting as a freelance taxi driver, who despite swearing an unswerving loyalty to his wife, Patricia, cannot help himself in...well, in doing those oh-so special 'favors' for wayward actresses, having difficulty paying their apartment rent...or willing stewardesses, who quite 'conveniently', just doesn't have the taxi fare from the airport, due our intrepid driver. Though, one way or another, he
will get his just due...and then some...
...or how about the nymphomaniac wife, living next door with her ear to the walls...driven into a frantic sexual frenzy by what she hears, and yet, is afforded no outlet, despite her begging, pleading...and disrobing efforts, directed at her husband...a grunting, snorting and flatulent neanderthal, wearing a construction worker's hat & tool belt, and seemingly more interested in watching a guns-a'blazin' shoot-em-up western on TV, chomp-smacking a whole roast chicken, and glugging down a six-pack, than servicing his sexually 'starved', annoyingly desperate, though rather attractive wife...
...we got Barbara, excitedly gossip-chatting with Sylvia about the weaselly Frenchman filmmaker, whom she'd made acquaintance with, and who has promised her a most provocatively juicy role in his next picture. And when he shows up at Barbara's apartment, with a bottle of strained & capped vino under one arm, and a rather phallic-looking miniature of the Eiffel Tower under the other arm...well, let's just say that he's come prepared to give Barbara the kind of audition, the likes of which she was hardly expecting...
...in the meantime, a rather eager Sylvia has been tasked with getting it on and teaching a few things to the local butcher's shy and introvert son; you see, it seems that the father is fearfully concerned that his son is on the cusp of 'batting for the other side', so to speak, and has asked Sylvia to set him 'straight'...a task which proves more effective than intended, when Sylvia's friend, Betty, stops over, engages in a little 'she-on-she' triste, and then the both of them longingly beckons the lad to join them...hey, who's this lad, to argue with
that, right??
...and finally, all things are brought full circle, as a lustful Patricia...Max's 'faithful' wife...sighingly reminisces over a drivingly heated affair which she claims to have engaged with her boss, Jack...and yet, in relating the episode to Jack, in progressive stages of undress and ever-increasing passion...well, not only does he appear disinterested in the torridly titillating tale, but also seems to not have the slightest idea of what the heck Patricia is talking about...
...for this viewer, it might well be assumed that when "The Flying Acquaintances"...or rather simply, "The Acquaintances", as the opening film titles suggest...was originally released, the film might well have been negated and disregarded, as one of the lowest-of-the-low, for it's time...which might largely explain how and why the film had long fallen into obscurity, and rarely seen since (...though, I think I
do remember seeing the film, via the aforementioned 'sleazy drive-in' venue)...that is, until the unswerving and intrepid film sleuths, over at Vinegar Syndrome, deftly 'stumbled' upon it; however, in engaging the film from the standpoint, some 40-plus years later...despite the overall cheeziness of the proceedings, as well as the offbeat performances...there is a good measure to appreciate here, as far as the film's sense of nostalgia, as well as the laughably hokey, albeit titillatingly 'charming' minuscule production values, the effect of which makes this marked little teaser, well beyond any criticism...
...it all starts with the opening credits, themselves...a capsule tour of the famed 42nd Street theater circuit, in the greater downtown New York area. A bygone, albeit celebrative mecca of the legendary and notorious grindhouse movie house arena, with countless exploitative and brightly lit marquees, and with glittery, high-profile films, bumping elbows with deliciously bottom-of-the-barrel cinematic sleaze. "The Godfather", right across the street from "The Sex Clinic"...Alfred Hitchcock's "Frenzy", caddy-corner from a theater, playing Dario Argento's "Cat 'o' Nine Tails"...a double feature run of "Come Back, Charleston Blue" and "The Legend of Nigger Charley"...all strung together, amidst the wayward liquor stores, sex shops and Orange Julius stands. Oh, those were the days...
...though not the stereotypically sounding 'chick'a-chick'a-bow-wow', the smooth, albeit generic canned music for "The Flying Acquaintances", on both the opening moments, and often repeated throughout the film's proceedings is ideally corny, on the level which one might expect for a softcore film of this ilk, but also, there's something to be said, as to how great this stuff would sound, when filtered through those damn tinny-sounding, five-pound speakers, which the drive in patrons would normally hanging on their windows. Surprisingly enough, the corny soundtrack cues of the film are not merely restricted to the music, but also to the dialogue, in the sense that in exterior and outside traveling shots, the character conversation sounds amusingly made up on the fly, and dubbed into the film, afterwards. In these scenes, you never see the characters talk to each other, but they
are talking to each other...almost as if these scenes, where the characters are not moving their lips when they talk, were either originally meant for another film, or the producers of "...Acquaintances" just couldn't afford the sound equipment in these scenes. And yet, this 'flaw' just seems to make things all the more amusing, on a comical level...
...and leave us not forget about those moments in the film...those wacky moments when several of the characters...especially during the clumsy-looking, albeit titillating sex scenes...just
have to reach over and pick up the rotary-dial telephone, when it rings. Or those incredibly bad wigs, which the actors are often caught 'nonchalantly' adjusting, here and there...wigs so bad, they make Lou Ferrigno's 'Hulk' rug, look natural. The slipshod set decoration, which looks like it was just thrown out there...especially in scenes requiring carpet...just roll it out there, don't tack it down, and watch it shimming and shake across the floor, when the actors roll around, naked...yes, just toss the ingredients out there, and add actors, as the instruction on the can might suggest. And that grainy, just stuck-in-there airline stock footage...oh, that footage...Sheesh!! As if the film's producers realized, in watching the film whole, that our able-bodied, sex-starved gals in the film seem vaguely attached to the airline profession..."...well, let's just throw in some random airline exterior-shot footage, and some grainy moments in an airliner cockpit or two...and that'll make things clear...Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!!"...
...as might be expected from the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome, the featured print of "The Flying Acquaintances" is rendered in a very grainy and choppy format...cleaned up, but not
too cleaned up, as to preserve the overall drive-in and/or grindhouse flavor...indeed, a condition probably not that far removed, as a result of the film's 'long lost' condition, as unearthed and dusted off by those at V/S, and that's a good thing, as the wear and tear on the print definitely exudes the overall sense of nostalgia, reflected by the film. Included on the DVD, some extended and alternate takes on some of the sex scenes...negligible and no more explicit than the film...but an interesting addition, nonetheless. The trailer of the film, also thrown in here, totes "The Flying Acquaintances" as 'the comedy hit of the year'...a complement probably more exploitative, than applicable...and sort of give the film an unabashed and shameless sense of self-pride...a kind of 'little film that could' feel...and
that further accents the comical amusement of this whole package...
...softcore films, more than often enough, tend to be moderately edgy and titillating, without being thoroughly satisfying, explicitly...kind of like watching a fight, where the fighters repeatedly pull their punches. However, with regards to "The Flying Acquaintances"...an early effort by future porn and exploitation film star, Jamie Gillis, of "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" and "Oriental Blue" fame, amongst others...that softcore film tendency to pull punches, sexually, is nicely offset by the fun, goofy & comical 'naughtiness' in the film's proceedings, as well as it's forgivable 'opps, your slip is showing' production flaws. Definitely deserving of being one of the minor best of the golden age of classic '70's porno...
...I say, damn good find, Vinegar Syndrome...
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