Yes, this is another collection of Porn reviews and you ask why. Let me clarify that I believe that porn is the most intimate film genre. It is the only corner in the history of film in which performers allow their fellow performers to penetrate them literally and if this is not performance art I don’t know what is. The performers exchange bodily fluids, and they encourage the viewer to touch himself and even orgasm. If that’s not audience participation or engagement with the subject material, I don’t know what is.
I was originally planning for this sixth installment of Secondhand Smut to review the entire Debbie Does Dallas film series, but I
failed to track down the myriad of films associated with it so this plan went
down the drain. I then wanted to review the Loose
Ends films series, and although I could get my hands to copies of all those
films, I did not as I could not find as much information about them as I
wanted. You see, I know that they were the first adult feature-length films to
include BSDM and I always get charmed by firsts, but in order to write an
article I had to find out more background stories than I did. So, finally, what
was I left with? I compiled this May 2015 - October 2015 Secondhand Smut issue with reviews that for some reason or another
were left out from my more regular column, namely Interracial Sex Havoc. I hope you enjoy as much reading the piece
as I did writing it.
Most of the time the mainstream directors that had a past in porn, had a
past which was decent. For example Wes Craven had made The Fireworks Woman (1975) which is highly regarded by both
scholars of classic smut, but also the director’s fans who like digging a bit
further. Even Lloyd Kaufman’s Sweet &
Sour (1974) is a very good effort. Well, in the case of Abel Ferrara this
is not the case.
Abel Ferrara went on to make many favorite films of mine, including the
early masterpieces The Driller Killer
(1979) and Ms .45 (1981), but 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (1976) which was
his first feature-length project is an utter failure. Sure the girl-girl
interracial sex scene is interesting (and I should have included it in my Interracial Sex Havoc column back when I
was still researching the ‘70s) but this film makes a very boring viewing
experience with its lack of a real story (it was written by Nicholas John who
went on to pen several screenplays for later mainstream Ferrara fare).
Debby [Lisa Baker from The Winds
of Autumn (1976)] is out on a date with her
red-haired boyfriend who’s
pushing for sex but she does not comply because she’s waiting for them to get
married. Anyway she goes back home and she sees her mom in the middle of a
threesome. Being the white blonde virginal innocent that Debby is she is
shocked and runs away.
Debby is soon approached by a bunch of black dudes in a car (they make
all sorts of sexual comments about her which sound very retro and funny today).
In a few moments they hunt her and kidnap her. Just when they have grabbed her
and confined her to the ground, a white middle-aged man is witnessing her
struggle but prefers to go back into his home and ignore the situation. This
scene is in my opinion the most important social comment the film makes in regards
to how elders regarded the youth in the ‘70s.
Debby gets forced to drink alcohol and is raped by the black guys in
their car. But her ordeal has just begun. They lock her in their hideout and
force her to become their cook and maid. They belt her, they tie her up, they slap
her, and they rape her vaginally, orally, and anally. She becomes their sexual
slave. The guys also mumble about ‘Black Power’ and how much white pussy
they’ll be getting once they take over.
I wanted to include this film in my Interracial
Sex Havoc column as it is one of the Ethnic Pornography classics, but I
didn’t get my copy in time, so here it is; better late than never! It is a well
known fact that Quentin Tarantino has gone on record to say that this is the
best porn film ever made, and honestly I could not disagree with that
statement. This film is a product of its time, and it seems so offensive and
alien now that we should be thankful that writer/director Gail Palmer [Erotic Adventures of Candy (1978)] essentially
filmed this document of an era long gone.
It has its shortcomings; for example the acting is terrible (especially
by the film’s sole black actress, namely Black Orchid) and so amateur that many
times you see the performers expressing with their faces and bodies something
entirely different from what was required by the story. But what is important
is Debby, and although Lisa Baker could not act by any stretch of the word,
everything lies on her body. And I don’t mean her body language. I just mean
her body. She is short and skinny and when she is in a middle of say a
threesome she seems so powerless that the whole thing becomes somehow
convincing.
The soundtrack is featuring many classics from the era (I recognized The
Lovin' Spoonful’s Summer in the City,
The Doors’ Light My Fire, and The
Shangri-Las’s Leader of the Pack) and
I suspect that producer Harry Mohney [Devil’s
Ecstasy (1977)] didn’t ask for permission to use these tracks, which was
the norm for porn, because to be honest I don’t think the filmmakers even
remotely suspected that these gems would be studied four decades later.
If someone had
cut the hardcore shots, added a few scenes to pad-out the running time this
would be today heralded as an exploitation classic. However it will remain
overlooked by most, just because it is porn.
Femmes
de Sade
(1976)
This is another classic
title I meant to include in my Interracial
Sex Havoc column, but I could not track down a copy in time, so here it is
now; again, better late than never. The present review contains several
spoilers so proceed at your own risk.
This was produced,
written, and directed by Alex De Renzy [of the Pretty Peaches film series fame] and it is about Rocky De Sade [Ken
Turner; he looks like a genuine pervert] who just got out of prison and the
first thing he does is beating up a fellow ex-con [Joey Silvera from SexWorld (1978)] and then raping his
girlfriend [Abigail Clayton from Maniac
(1980)].
We also see the parallel
story of Johnny [John Leslie from Babyface
(1977)] who works in an adult bookstore in San Francisco’s red light district.
Basically what happens there is that Johnny is fantasising about all sorts of
things including playing the doctor, a gangbang full of oiled performers, and
even a threesome with two Asian girls.
In the meanwhile
Rocky is in the area and he is cruising like a good creep. He picks up a
prostitute, collars her, inserts a bottle in her vagina, and beats her to pulp.
He even gets to suck his own cock in one scene, but this irrelevant here. It
turns out that the aforementioned prostitute was Johnny’s friend, and in a
weird turn of events the two of them will meet in a private fetish costume
party.
This ball turns
out to be quite exciting (featuring many performers including some that indulge
into interracial sex) but Johnny has set-up revenge for Rocky, and once he and
his friends tie the rapist down and restrain him with chains, they force a
dildo up his ass, they piss on him, and they even take a dump on his chest.
I was really tired
when I decided to watch this and I was almost certain that I would fall asleep,
but it turned out to be such good sleaze that it got my full attention, and
needless to say, I loved every minute of it.
I am totally against
slut-shaming. But I’m not sure what my feelings towards star-shaming are,
because some of these people make more than $100.000 a day for just being there
and looking beautiful... However, I don’t think that celebrity fuck tapes
really should make them feel ashamed. In fact, I think that the Paris Hilton
video is quite hot. And that brings us to the present film starring Sylvester
Stallone. I like Stallone in films such as Death
Race 2000 (1975) and Cop Land
(1997) but I never caught up with his action hero career of franchises such as Rambo and Rocky.
Many years ago,
a friend told me he saw Stallone in some porn videotape, and I was like “You
mean, he actually had a hard-on and performed sex?” and he said “No, he wasn’t
hard; he probably can’t get it up”. The film he was referring to was the one
under review here, which is mostly known with its reissue title: Italian Stallion. And there is indeed no
erect cock to be seen, nor there any penetration in sight, because frankly this
not porn. You could call it soft-core because Rolph Laube’s cinematography makes
it look like one and because the terrible dubbing is preposterous, but that’s
about it.
This was
directed by Morton Lewis and it tries to be masturbation material with the
occasional close-up to select genitals, but overall it is a plain boring
affair. There is a scene in which Stallone is belting a female performer, but
it is so badly staged that confirms that films rarely can become so uninteresting.
There is also a black girl that has stimulated sex with several white
performers, and this was the sole reason for which I wanted to include this
film in my Interracial Sex Havoc
column, but I did not track down my copy in time so here it is now.
Dominatrix
without Mercy (1976)
Set in New York
this film is about Mara [Marlene Willoughby from The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976)] who gets in a taxi where she
finds an issue of the legendary Screw
magazine and reads an ad about a good paying job in a BDSM whorehouse. She
stops by a telephone booth and makes the call.
From then on the
film is all about spanking, nipple clippings, pissing, and people getting tied
up. It has to be said that in the first half of the film the abuse is towards
females while on the second half it is towards males. So, if this is your thing
then you should look no further.
This was
directed by Shaun Costello and it features Vanessa Del Rio who has a banana
shoved up her vagina in a scene that includes some knife-play too. Horror music
is used throughout the film and it is quite effective.
Since the late
‘60s a few pulp paperbacks (and quite possibly adult magazines too) used the term
“dominatrix” (and they could have coined it as well) but as far as I know this
is the first time the word is used in film, and if this is indeed the case then
we are talking about an important piece of entertainment history.
Ebony
Humpers III (1987)
I wanted to see
this film because the word “Interracial” was featured as a keyword in the Adult
Film Database’s listing (the film’s release date is listed as 1993, although it
came out in 1987, and it is also listed as part “3”, while it is clear on the credits that it is supposed to be “III”). Frank James was also listed as
the sole white performer among a cast of black performers, so I did my maths
and managed to track down a VHS-rip. The problem with this copy is that Frank
James is nowhere to be seen (so I got no interracial sex scenes) but this is
probably because said copy runs much shorter than any of the online listed
running times of the film. I suspect that somebody did some creative editing
after the fact here because once the film is supposed to end (story-wise and
all) I got a bonus scene featuring girl/girl action by two white actresses
which is completely unrelated with the rest of the feature.
Whichever is the
case you should catch up with this title if only for the very attractive
leading lady (Ebony Ayes). I only hope that you don’t mind seeing people
fucking with their white socks or black sunglasses on. In a hilarious moment a
behind-the-camera voice can be heard giving instructions, which I suspect is
the voice of the one and only Ron Jeremy, who directed this.
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