The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  Red Heat is mostly a movie about making porn movies, which was a popular topic for adult films of the time. We spend a lot of time with Sutters and her crew as they cast and shoot their film, and these scenes actually reveal quite a bit about the humdrum mechanics of making a porn film on the cheap. For example, when Red disappears, Sutters replaces her with a masseuse named Sherry. They go to shoot around a lake with Sherry in a bikini and some people playing around in a speedboat to give the film extra “production value,” which helps attract distributors. All the sex scenes in this portion of the film are accompanied by a lot of direction from “Sutters” and her cameraman Herb, probably giving viewers a pretty good idea of what being on set might have been like. The other segments of the film following Red and the robber are narrated by “Sutters” and feint at the idea of being a psychological thriller, but nothing much becomes of them. Red Heat is mostly worth a look for its surprisingly candid look at how things work behind the cameras of an ultra-cheap feature.

  The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire (1971) was made under the name Sven Christian. In this virtually plotless horror/comedy, Dracula’s wife Elaina (Carolyn Brandt) tells the story of “Hunchback” waking Count Dracula (Jim Parker, looking an awful lot like Joe Flaherty’s Dracula from SCTV) from his long sleep. Dracula in turn wakes his three vampire brides, watches as they have an orgy with Hunchback, and then sends them out into the night to bring him back some blood. Meanwhile, Van Helsing meets up with an old friend to talk about the mysterious disappearance of his friend’s sister, who was killed in a car accident but whose body never made it to her own funeral. Running barely over 50 minutes, it takes nearly as long to say this film’s title as it does to watch the entire movie. Dracula mugs relentlessly at the camera and says weird stuff (to kick off the orgy, he commands: “Do what is known as ‘your thing!’”) while Elaina provides commentary like “Dracula is groovy!” The sequence where the vampire brides go out to seduce men for their blood takes up a full half of the film’s running time, and you could be forgiven for forgetting they’re supposed to be vampires by the time they finally take bites for blood (from somewhere a bit more private than the neck).

  Rounding out the triple feature is another Sven Christian film, Peeping Tom (1973). This film opens with an introduction to our hero, a “weirdo” who enjoys watching people having sex. We then follow him from house to house as he peeps in the windows on a variety of different people doing (to borrow a phrase from Dracula) what is known as “their thing.” That’s the entire plot of the film, which feels very much like a series of short vignettes shot separately and threaded together with footage of Peeping Tom running around Las Vegas at night, often in slow motion for dramatic effect. Steckler reuses a couple of the sets from Hot Vampire, suggesting that those scenes were perhaps shot at the same time as that feature and saved for later use here. The ending suggests more adventures of Peeping Tom may be on the way, but it seems unlikely that ever happened.

  Vinegar Syndrome presents all three films scanned in 2K from archival 16mm prints, and it shows. As opposed to the slick 35mm camera negative scans of many of their Peekarama and standalone releases, all three films here have quite a bit of visual noise. They’re still entirely watchable, though, and all the evidence that the films were sourced from well-worn honest-to-god “grindhouse” prints only adds to their lo-fi charm. This release will be a must-have for Steckler fans, and fans of 70s adult films looking for less polished fare than the comparatively big-budget fare of Bob Chinn and Carlos Tobalina will find a lot to like here.

  The Ribald Tales of Canterbury (1985) and Hyapatia Lee’s Tasty (1985)

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 13 February 2015

  It’s easy to forget in 2015 that there used to be an entire adult film industry in America that ran more or less the same as the mainstream: studios shot films and distributed prints to porn theaters located in cities across the country, and anyone who wanted to catch one of these films went to the theater (possibly even an adults-only drive-in!) just like they would if they wanted to catch Jaws or Stripes. In the 1980s, porn made the switch from shooting on film to comparatively cheaper video, and the home video boom helped contribute to the steep decline of the adult film theater. One of the last adult films of the 1980s to be shot and distributed on 35mm film was Hyapatia Lee’s The Ribald Tales of Canterbury (1985), a lavish production that stands as a high-water mark in ’80s adult film. Vinegar Syndrome has released a new DVD of the film, along with a bonus feature, Hyapatia Lee’s Tasty (1985).

  The opening credits sequence notes that the film was adapted from the novel by Geoffrey Chaucer by Hyapatia Lee herself, and the impressive costumes on display immediately set the film apart from other low-budget adult films of the era. During a rowdy night at an inn, the Hostess (Hyapatia Lee) proposes a contest to the people going with her the next day on a trip to Canterbury. Each of them will contribute money to a pot, and each member of the party will tell a story during the trip. The teller with the best story wins the pot when they reach Canterbury. The others enthusiastically agree and retire for the evening. The next morning, they begin their trip, and the titular ribald tales begin. Now, given that the time constraints of an adult film, obviously there are fewer contestants.

  This version includes the Knight (Mike Horner), the Lady of Bath (Colleen Brennan), the Miller (Dennis Duggan), the Carpenter (Jesse Eastern), and the Monk (Elmo Lavino). While the original work featured stories from all ages about a wide variety of subjects, this version keeps the stories contemporary to the era in which the characters exist, and all of the stories are about sex. Also, there’s a lesbian scene between the Hostess and the Lady of Bath. This is a lot to cover, and director Bud Lee (Hyapatia’s husband at the time) keeps the proceedings moving forward at a good clip. The production design is good enough that it’s never a distraction, and the cast is rounded out by some familiar faces including Marc Wallace, Peter North, and Buffy Davis. In addition to the great production value and cast, there are some clever lines and sly humor throughout The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, making it well worth checking out.

  The second film on this release, Hyapatia Lee’s Tasty, follows the last day on the air of radio station KNUT after owner Mr. Conners (Jesse Eastern) informs the staff that their biggest ad buyer is going to pull all their advertising unless they can get their ratings up. Figuring they have nothing to lose, the DJs decide to switch to an all-sex format, which includes taking calls of people having sex on the air, DJs having sex with listeners in the booth, playing “sexy” songs (such as “Back Door Annie” by Incest in the Cream Cheese), and providing live sex advice to listeners. No points for guessing whether or not the plan works. Tasty, might not be quite as impressively mounted as The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, but it’s still quite a bit of fun. This is largely due to the film’s charmingly dated pop culture references, which include a complete music video for Hyapatia Lee as Tasty performing “Hit Me With Your Wet Shot” (a naughty goof on Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”) and a girl who can’t stop saying “TOTALLY AWESOME” in what sounds like a space alien accent while having sex on the air.

  Vinegar Syndrome’s DVD restoration of the films, as per their usual standards, is excellent. In addition to the beautiful new transfer, the disc includes a full-length commentary track by Bud Lee on The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, interviewed by Vinegar Syndrome’s Joe Rubin. This is a great, informative, and entertaining commentary, and it’s complemented by a video interview with Bud Lee talking about the other film on this disc, Hyapatia Lee’s Tasty. The disc also features trailers for both films. This is another outstanding release from Vinegar Syndrome, one that provides an interesting look at the very end of 35mm film production in adult cinema.

  The Roommates (1973) and A Woman for All Men (1975)

  Originally published 24 March 2015

  The return of the Gorgon Video imprint with the release of the 30th anniversary edition of Faces of Death in 2008 was exciting
for fans of genre and cult cinema, although in the years since Gorgon has released only a handful of reissues of classic cult titles. That said, though, their releases have been worth the wait, including the excellent reissue of the 80s “classic” Death Spa last year. Now Gorgon Video returns with a pair of films by exploitation legend Arthur Marks (director of Bonnie’s Kids, Detroit 9000, and Friday Foster among others) that are making their debut on home video: The Roommates (1973) and A Woman for All Men (1975). Even better, both films look fantastic, making this an auspicious debut for them and marking the best release yet from the resurrected Gorgon Video.

  The Roommates stars Marki Bey (Sugar Hill), Roberta Collins (Caged Heat), Pat Woodell (The Big Doll House), Christina Hart (The Bunny Caper) and Laurie Rose (The Woman Hunt) as the titular roommates, spending a summer at a big house on a lake where one of the ladies works as a nurse at a boys’ summer camp. The film has a similar style and tone to Jonathan Kaplan’s Night Call Nurses (1972), wherein the first act of the film is spent setting up the characters and following them around in comedic situations before they move to the cabin and a thriller subplot is introduced. Each of the roommates has their own story: Heather (Woodell) owns the house where they live and clashes with a hippie handyman (Kipp Whitman) with whom she clearly shares a strong attraction. Beth (Roberta Collins) hooks up with a newly-divorced businessman who may not be all he’s cracked up to be. Carla (Bey) works at the local library and starts dating the local sheriff. Brea (Rose) works at the boys’ camp and has to deal with the older boys peeping on her, which may or may not actually bother her that much. Paula (Hart) gets involved with the married owner of the local hotel and his son. Meanwhile, a killer is knocking off beautiful young girls. Could one of the roommates be next?

  With a tone that veers all over the place, The Roommates is never dull. It juggles a sizable cast of characters and manages to make most of them memorable, as well as giving bit parts and punch lines to a roster of great supporting players. The roommates have an easy chemistry with each other, especially Marki Bey and Roberta Collins, who are often very funny together and convincing as a pair of old friends. Unsurprisingly, there’s quite a bit of stuff here that might make modern audiences uncomfortable, but that’s par for the course for 70s exploitation cinema. Particularly weird is Brea’s relationship with a shy boy at the summer camp where she works, especially since it is never explicitly stated just how old either character is supposed to be. The big final twist will also be very obvious to anyone who has seen much 70s drive-in fare, and just like in Night Call Nurses the “killer on the loose” storyline feels completely out of place. Still, the cast is good and looks like they’re having a great time, and The Roommates is an interesting time capsule of the early 1970s, and well worth checking out.

  Judith Brown (The Big Doll House) stars in A Woman for All Men as Karen, a younger woman who has impulsively married construction magnate Walter McCoy (Keenan Wynn). His kids don’t take the news very well, as they suddenly find themselves in an uncertain position regarding Walter’s estate. As it turns out, they have reason to be worried. Karen is unpredictable and insatiable, and she may be hiding a sordid past. Steven (Andrew Robinson) finds himself drawn to Karen, while Walter’s daughter Cynthia (Patty Bodeen) finds herself completely ignored by her father and other son Paul (Peter Hooten) mostly doesn’t seem all that worried and just sort of disappears about two-thirds of the way through the movie. When an accident rocks the household, Lieutenant Biase (Alex Rocco) of missing persons is sent to investigate and is very curious as to why Karen would think he might be from the homicide department. What will become of Karen and the McCoy family?

  A Woman for All Men is very much in the tradition of soapy, overheated 70s exploitation dramas like Howard Avedis’s The Stepmother (1972) and Joseph Ruben’s The Sister-in-Law (1974). It almost feels like a made-for-TV movie of the era, except with slightly higher production values, swearing, and nudity. Brown is compelling in the lead as Karen, whose true character is slowly revealed as the film progresses. She makes Karen a sympathetic character even in some situations when she seems to be working against her own interests. Keenan Wynn as Walter does not come off as well, but Wynn probably had a great time playing such an awful character. It’s fun to see a very young Andrew Robinson and Alex Rocco, and while the film runs maybe a little too long, Marks keeps the action moving at a good pace.

  Both films have been given great 2K transfers from the original 35mm negatives, and they look fantastic. There is some occasional film noise (a flash of scratching at one point is the most noticeable blemish, and even that is just a blip) in The Roommates, but A Woman for All Men looks almost perfect given the original materials. Gorgon Video also loaded the disc with some solid extras, including a feature-length commentary track on The Roommates, featuring Arthur Marks. This is an excellent release, on par with the work of home-video imprint and film archivists Vinegar Syndrome. Drive-in fans have been clamoring for these films for years, and Gorgon Video’s release has been a long time coming, but it’s more than worth the wait. This is sure to be one of the best classic exploitation releases of the year.

  Gorgon Video released The Roommates/A Woman for All Men in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on 24 March 2015. Special features include a commentary track on The Roommates, with Arthur Marks interviewed by Elijah Drenner (director of the documentary American Grindhouse), trailer and TV spots for A Woman for All Men, and interview featurettes for each film. The Roommates, features an interview with Arthur Marks and Roberta Collins, and A Woman for All Men features an interview with Arthur Marks and Judith Brown.

  Sadie (1980) and The Seductress (1981)

  Originally published 17 April 2014

  Vinegar Syndrome has been releasing some great stuff from the 1970s era of adult film, but most of their releases so far have covered smaller independent filmmakers. Their latest releases, however, cover two major names: Roberta Findlay and Bob Chinn. His collaboration with John Holmes on the “Johnny Wadd” series set a new standard for adult feature films, and were the inspiration for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (with “Dirk Diggler” standing in for John Holmes and “Jack Horner” for Bob Chinn). Chinn’s career as an adult filmmaker lasted into the 2000s, and spanned dozens of feature films. Vinegar Syndrome presents two of his features from the early 1980s on their latest Peekarama disc: Sadie and The Seductress.

  Sadie feels like a clear bid for respectability: based on the Somerset Maugham short story “Rain” (adapted for film a number of times), Sadie features only five sex scenes across its 71-minute running time, only one of which is entirely superfluous to the film’s action. Chinn updates the specifics for contemporary audiences: Sadie Thompson (Chris Cassidy) is a call girl brought to a small bar and inn in Borneo where she has unknowingly been sold by her pimp Harry (Larry Price) to the local Rajah (Rick Ardon, in some deeply unfortunate brownface). At the inn, she meets and falls in love with Jock (Jerome Deeds), a U.S. soldier on R&R. Also staying at the inn is Senator Daniels (Joseph Darling), ambassador to Borneo, and his severely repressed wife (Deborah Sullivan) and virginal stepdaughter Honoré (Diana Holt).

  Senator Daniels takes offense to Sadie’s loose morals and rock and roll music, and while Mrs. Daniels wants Sadie booted back to wherever she came from, the Senator is determined to save her soul. Harry runs into some trouble with the local authorities and has to skip town, while Daniels comes up with a plan to bring Sadie to Jesus. Meanwhile, Honoré gets an eyeful of her native roommate Bella (Lisa Loring, though not the former Addams Family actress) having sex with another soldier on R&R and shortly thereafter strikes up a relationship with Jock’s horny soldier friend Bear (Gary Eberhart). Jock is sent away as part of Daniels’s plan, and when he returns he finds Sadie has rejected her worldly ways after spending some time in the Rajah’s service. Will these two seemingly star-crossed lovers end up together?

  Sadie is much different from much of its contemporaries in its focus on character and storyline. It pu
ts its few simple sets to good use, and even features some simple but effective camera moves. The biggest problem with Sadie, unsurprisingly, is the acting. Jerome Deeds is pretty good as the male lead Jock, but Chris Cassidy as Sadie has to make some major character shifts and unfortunately doesn’t quite sell them. The rest of the cast is mostly fine in their undemanding parts, the standouts being the surprisingly convincing relationship between Honoré and Bear, and Deborah Sullivan as the miserable Mrs. Daniels. Sadie is an interesting look at a porno filmmaker trying for something with a little more depth than a simple sex picture, and worth a watch for that alone, even if it is not entirely successful.

  The Seductress, the other half of this disc’s double feature, is much less concerned with such things. Opening with a photo montage of couples having sex under the opening credits, The Seductress sets up what seems initially to be a simple storyline: George (Damon Christian), a photographer, hides behind a mirror and takes pictures of hooker Renee (Lee Carroll) having sex with various men for blackmail. George and Renee have posed as private investigators for Cindy Anderson (Lisa De Leeuw), who hired them to get pictures of her husband Richard (Richard Reynolds) cheating so she can get a divorce. This plan seems to go fine until Renee decides she wants out and blackmails Cindy into taking her place at the next hotel room sting.