Category Archives: 70’s Movies

Ginger in the Morning (1974)

Posted on February 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

ginger in the morning

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Older man/younger woman.

Joe is a middle-aged, recently divorced man trying to stumble his way back into the single scene. He passes by Ginger (Sissy Spacek) who is hitchhiking alongside a roadway and decides to pick her up. He is attracted to her youthful carefreeness and hopes to take advantage of her ‘free-love’ hippie attitude by bringing her back to his place for some quick easy sex. However, Ginger is secretly pregnant and looks at Joe’s maturity as a good father-figure for her child, which Joe is not ready for. Charlie (Mark Miller) is Joe’s best friend who along with his wife Sugar (Susan Oliver) barrages in and disrupts everything.

The story starts out okay with the budding relationship between the two leads and their attempts to try to get beyond the generation gap I found to be appealing. The film though shifts gears in jarring fashion by allowing Charlie and Sugar to enter into it and then gets even further away from the main theme by having the third act dealing with the male bonding between Charlie and Joe. It is only at the very end that it gets back to the romantic concept, but the whole thing ends up coming off like three movies crammed into one. All three story threads are weak and better suited for an episode of ‘Love American Style’ than a feature film.

Screenwriter Miller casts himself as Charlie who is obnoxious and dumb and given too much screen-time. Blonde actress Oliver wears a black wig that looks hideous and their incessant bickering is contrived and the cutesy way they magically make-up at the end is strained.

Markham who has been acting consistently since 1966 and remains busy even today, but has never achieved stardom is okay in a rare leading film role. His character of a middle-aged man trying to ‘connect’ with the much younger Ginger by making broad assumptions about her generation is quite relatable. Spacek though comes off best out of all of them. Her character seems like a real person while the rest are caricatures and her twangy Texas accent fits the part. She even sings the film’s theme song, which isn’t bad.

Character actor David Doyle can be seen at the beginning as a yapping man who gives Joe the ‘finer points’ of picking up women and one-night-stands. Slim Pickens is essentially wasted as the town’s sheriff, but he manages to make the most of the few scenes that he is in.

The use of a hard spotlight gives the production a cheap, low budget look and some soft lighting would have created a better mood and artistic design. There is also a boom mike that can be seen for several minutes in one scene. Yet despite the film’s amateurish look I still liked its unpretentious quality as well as the cute climatic sequence that takes place on a bus, which propelled me to give this thing a rather generous 5 rating.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: July 17, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Gordon Wiles

Studio: Kyma-Circle

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy/Drama, Low Budget, Romance

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Nasty Habits (1977)

Posted on February 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

nasty habits 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Watergate in a convent.

It’s the Watergate scenario all over again only this time inside a convent with nuns. It’s a unique idea for sure that unfortunately doesn’t work because the screenplay by Robert Enders, which is based on the novel by Muriel Sparks keys in on only one angle and then plays it out until it’s boring. It’s a one-joke movie with nothing standing out as funny. There is also no action to speak of and the dialogue is too dry to elicit even a chuckle.

The once in a lifetime cast is wasted. Dame Edith Evans, in her last film appearance, gets hit the worst as she is given the typical old lady treatment and shown for only a few minutes looking feeble and then promptly dying. Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Rip Torn, and Eli Wallach are on so briefly that their appearances seem almost non-existent.

Glenda Jackson comes off best as she manages to give her character an added dimension. The forcefulness of her personality comes through quite clearly for the viewer. However her adversary, which is played by Sue Penhaligon, doesn’t have that same type of strong presence and therefore there is no chemistry or confrontation between the two.

Even the always reliable Sandy Dennis becomes a problem. They have her playing a sort of extended version of her tipsy persona from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but her off- key voice and overall kooky behavior gets overplayed and eventually becomes annoying.

The electronic music score by John Cameron is obtrusive. The pacing is terrible and the lack of momentum will have people turning this off long before it is over, which is good since the climactic sequence falls horribly flat.

There are a few surprise cameos. One is by the late newscaster Jessica Savitch another by former talk show host Mike Douglas, but nothing that helps make this entertaining or memorable.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: March 18, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated PG

Studio: Brut Productions

Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg

Studio: Brut Productions

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Satire

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Stunts (1977)

Posted on February 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

stunts

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who’s killing the stuntmen?

Glen (Robert Forster) decides to join a movie production working as a stuntman when his brother mysteriously dies while doing a routine stunt. Soon more stuntmen meet similar fates. Will Glen be able to find out who’s behind these deaths before he becomes the next victim?

Director Mark L. Lester has done a lot of these standard low budget flicks and has achieved moderate success with them. The story itself is pretty basic and really doesn’t offer all that much tension or interest, but the pace is brisk and some of the stunt work entertaining. On a low-grade level it is okay.

I love Forster’s blunt, blue collar, say-it-like-it-is attitude and his presence elevates the story immensely. Bruce Glover who is the father of Crispin Glover plays one of the fellow stuntmen. Like his son he usually plays weird and eccentric characters, but here plays a normal one who you are even sympathetic to, which was a surprise turn.

The women characters aren’t locked into any dainty stereotype and are as tough and gruff as the men and I liked it. Fiona Lewis plays a journalist looking to write an article and what makes up the personality of stunt people and why they do it. She curses as much as Forster if not more and although the two eventually get into a relationship after a rocky start they continue to spar, which is fun. The beautiful Joanna Cassidy seems like just one of the guys and does all the same dangerous stunts they do and even knocks two guys flat on the their asses during a barroom brawl.

Candice Rialson doesn’t fare quite as well. Her best assets are with her clothes off and trying to turn her a dramatic actress clunks. She doesn’t even have a single nude scene here, which seemed almost like a waste. However, the segment where she keeps flubbing up her lines and they have to do continual reshoots to the consternation of the director (Malachi Thorne) is amusing.

The DVD issue from Synergy Entertainment, which is the same version you get if you buy or rent it from Amazon Instant is atrocious and looks like it was transferred straight off of a faded VHS tape. To some extent I was willing to forgive it as the graininess help reflect the low budget drive-in feel, but this version also edits out any time a character says the F-word, which got annoying. The picture is so blurry I couldn’t even read the credits to find out who did the catchy title tune ‘Daredevil is Gonna Make an Angel Out of You’, but whoever did it did well as it has a nice gritty beat and fun lyrics.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 12, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Drama, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Low Budget, Mystery

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Cracking Up (1977)

Posted on February 13, 2014 | 2 comments

cracking up

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: It’s the big one.

It’s finally happened the earthquake that destroys California and leaves the entire state in total chaos. News reporters cover the destruction in a parody style and features young comic performers like Michael McKean, David L. Lander, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer and Edie McClurg at the start of their careers and doing their own material.

This film works a bit like Roger Corman’s Gas-Or-It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save it in that it has an animated opening and tries to somehow correlate mass destruction while only filming a small set piece inside a studio back-lot. Corman’s film at least had some edgy humor and a cinematic style, but this has neither. It is almost like a low budget comedy variety show with skits that have nothing to do with the main theme. The film has no pace or momentum and slogs along until it becomes utterly boring.

It takes till the final half-hour before any of the otherwise lame humor becomes even passably funny. Of the stuff that I found moderately amusing was the comedian at a roadside diner who beats up an audience member when he doesn’t laugh enough at his stupid jokes there is also a mailman who delivers a dead corpse to a couple who try to come up with different ways to make it useful. The segment where Fred Willard tries to sell a customer a mattress even though the customer thinks he is talking about his penis is okay and the commercial showing a trucker advertising the use of adult diapers and even getting out of his cab wearing one deserves some credit.

However, the majority of the stuff is so mind numbing unfunny that is becomes almost hard to believe. I started to think that the premise of the film was to make it a joke on the audience like with Andy Kaufman reading a long boring novel or the 60’s film from the Netherlands where a man gets in front of the camera and hurls insults and profanities for ninety minutes simply to see how much an audience can take before they would leave. If that was the case then this film almost succeeds and the best advice would be to skip it and not be the intended victim.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: July 4, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 15Minutes

Rated R

Director: Chuck Staley

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Crude Comedy, Disaster Flicks, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Parody

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Candleshoe (1977)

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 1 comment

candleshoe

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Treasure hidden on estate.

            Jodie Foster stars as Casey a teen living on the tough streets of New York and reselling stolen items for a living. Her abilities come to the attention of small-time crook Harry Bundage (Leo McKern) who gets her to pretend that she is the long lost granddaughter of a rich matriarch by the name of Lady St. Edmund (Helen Hayes).  Bundage has become aware through a former servant that worked there that there is a trove of treasure hidden somewhere on the premises and it is up to Casey to follow the clues and find it.

I saw this movie when it was released in 1977 and the only thing I could remember from it was the little boy who would slide across the polished floors of the mansion. It’s a surprisingly elaborate plot for a children’s movie, but one that is engrossing and interesting. The characters are believable and diverse and it is fun seeing them evolve and learn to get along. Parents should find this as enjoyable as the kids. I was impressed with the way the filmmakers never talk down to their young audience and trust that they will be sophisticated enough to pick up on the little nuances and subtitles, which the film does have.  I found myself longing for this type of family entertainment again. It seems like the family films of today either have kids spewing out a lot of crude nasty things, or they are so sugary sweet and benign that they make you want to throw up, but this film nicely straddles the middle and it really works.

Jodie is great in the lead and the movie wouldn’t have worked as well with another actress in the role. The part nicely takes advantage of Foster’s confident, smart, streetwise persona and almost had me believing that the part was written specifically for her. Later I read how the original director for the film, David Swift, dropped out of the project because he felt Foster was ‘all wrong’ for the role even though I felt she was perfect and other viewers should feel the same.

Helen Hayes is okay in her role, however the character isn’t all that interesting, nor has that much to do. It seems like once she won the Academy Award for Airport in 1970, which helped revive her career, these were the typical ‘sweet old lady’ roles she was perpetually offered afterwards. However, when it comes to the caricature of an old lady Hayes is absolutely perfect almost to the point that it is hard to imagine her ever being young.

David Niven, who plays the butler named Priory, is engaging, but was starting to look frail and elderly. He gets a chance to play several different roles including that of the gardener and chauffeur. The Irish accent that he uses for the gardener part sounded very authentic and I was impressed. His best moment comes at the end when he takes on the McKern character in an imaginative and drawn out duel segment and watching his scared and nervous facial expressions during this is amusing.

I liked the other children who play the orphans that Lady St. Edmond adopts. They are cute in a nice genuine way without it being forced especially the young blonde haired boy named Bobby who speaks in a thick cockney accent. Veronica Quilligan plays Cluny one of the older children who are initially an adversary to Casey. She showed the most disciplined and realistic facial reactions to the action around her while the other kids had lost or vapid looks on their faces. Although she appeared to be about 13 or 14, the same age of the character that she played, I was shocked to find that she was actually 21 when the movie was made.

I was surprised that there wasn’t a car chase scene as every Disney movie from the 70’s seemed to have one. The action for what it is worth is sparse, but enjoyable without ever getting too cartoonish. The ending where the kids take on the band of adult crooks is good and the scene where their car is stopped on the tracks and the train comes just inches from Priory, who is shielding the vehicle, before stopping is a near classic.

I think adults who were kids during this era can watch this film again and still find it entertaining. The kids of today should find enjoyable as well although the ideal age would be between 8 and 14 as I think it is too slow paced for anyone younger.  The film also has a good life lesson in regards to teamwork and how working together and taking advantage of each other’s special talents and abilities can help achieve a common goal.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 16, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 41Minutes

Rated G

Director: Norman Tokar

Studio: Buena Vista

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies for the Whole Family, Mystery

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Images (1972)

Posted on February 5, 2014 | 2 comments

images

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Demons of the mind.

This is the missing link for any Robert Altman fan or detractor as this is different from any of his other films and completely original from beginning to end. Not only was it way ahead of its time, but proves that he is deftly skilled at handling any directorial task or material.

The story involves a tormented and emotionally fragile woman named Cathryn (Susannah York) who starts to see strange visions. These visions seem so real that she can no longer tell if they are all just inside her head and decides the only way to get rid of them is to mentally ‘kill’ them, but this in turn only leads to further complications.

What really makes this a unique film is that you get inside this woman’s head and actually start to understand her logic and experience her torment. The film also makes terrific use of silence and uses it to accentuate the isolation that the character feels. The setting has a sort of surreal quality and the location of the house is impressively remote.

York has a knack for playing victimized and vulnerable women. In many ways her role here seems like an extension of her character from The Killing of Sister George. Although she makes you sympathetic to her predicament her screams are too screechy and fail to attain the shrillness that would create the startling effect that the filmmakers desired.

The real star may actually be Vilmos Zsigmond and his cinematography. His framing and composition is not only flawless, but breathtaking. He makes the wintertime Irish countryside look like a whole different world and the stillness of the lake that is shown seems almost unreal.

There are a few too many obvious and clichéd shots of mirrors and puzzles and it could also gone much further with its unusual premise. Still this is a unique and entertaining movie that should keep you guessing all the way to the end. The pace is slow, but deliberate with a payoff that is worth it.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 41Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Altman

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Mystery, Psychological, Surreal/Fantasy, Thrillers/Suspense

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Ash Wednesday (1973)

Posted on January 31, 2014 | 1 comment

ash wednesday 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Liz gets a facelift.

Barbara (Elizabeth Taylor) is not aging gracefully. Her husband Mark (Henry Fonda) is having an affair with a much younger woman, but Barbara is determined to win him back. She decides to get a facelift and then spends her time afterwards at a winter resort in Italy where a young man name Erich (Helmut Berger) becomes intoxicated by her sudden youthful beauty and the two go to bed together. When her husband arrives she still strives to save the marriage, but finds that to him the facelift makes no difference.

The film’s biggest claim-to-fame is the graphic and vivid look at an actual facelift surgery that sickened many viewers who watched the film when it was first released. The footage is explicit, but fascinating as well as I never quite understood how this procedure worked, so seeing it from a medical viewpoint is to a certain extent educational. I also liked that during Barbara’s stay at the hospital she meets a middle-aged man named David (Keith Baxter) who has had several of the some procedures himself and showing that this wasn’t exclusively a woman’s issue although I was confused why a man would spend so much money having facelifts, but then not bother to dye his hair.

The effects of the procedure is a bit misleading because Liz was only 40 at the time and was put into heavy makeup to make her appear much older at the beginning, so the results of the surgery are really just her as she normally looked. The idea that a facelift would have such a galvanizing effect on everyone around her is also not realistic. A recent study found that many people who had the procedure ultimately only looked 3 to 5 years younger instead of the 10-plus that they had hoped for. Sometimes a facelift can make a person look even worse, or in my opinion a sort of ‘duckface’ that this movie doesn’t even hit on, but should’ve.

I also thought that the idea that this woman would want to stay with a man who is openly cheating on her was unrealistic. If this woman was poor, lonely and homely and he was her only source of a social outlet then maybe, but this guy was loaded and I would think most women would simply hire a good divorce lawyer and take the cheating cad to the cleaners and then merrily move on especially when she had already proven to herself that she could attract other more attractive men on her own anyways.

The role itself seems to be an extension of Taylor’s own personality in that of a woman living in an insular world obsessed with shallow problems because she has too much time and money on her hands and unable to either understand or portray an average person in a regular lifestyle even if she wanted to. The wide variety of big puffy hats and scarfs that she wears becomes a bit of a distraction and almost like a character into itself.

Fonda is wasted in another one his typical latter career roles that gives him very little to do. He doesn’t even appear onscreen until the final fifteen minutes and only then long enough to tell her he wants a divorce before promptly leaving.

The opening sequence showing the two stars aging through the years during the credits is interesting and well-done especially seeing Fonda when he was young. The musical score by Maurice Jarre has a nice classic flair to it and lifts this dreary production to a more classy level than it deserves, but unfortunately doesn’t get played much after the beginning.

The film probably would’ve worked better had the surgical procedure not happened right away, but instead been done in the middle and had more of a backstory at the beginning. The facelift scenes are actually the film’s highpoint and it goes rapidly downhill afterwards until it becomes a mind numbing train wreck that isn’t worth watching for any reason.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: November 1, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated R

Director: Larry Peerce

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Obscure Movies

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Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)

Posted on January 29, 2014 | 1 comment

love and pain and the whole damn thing

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Introverts fall in love.

Walter (Timothy Bottoms) is a shy young man in his early 20’s riding through Spain as part of a cycling tour group. Impulsively he ditches this group and joins a bus touring one of which Lila (Maggie Smith) an equally shy woman in her 30’s is a part of. At first the two hardly speak, but eventually they get past their social quirks to form a tight, romantic bond.

The awkwardness and insecurities of the two characters is wonderfully captured and it is nice to see a film examine a romance between people that are not physically beautiful or affluent. The music score is subtle and Alan J. Pakula’s direction approaches the material in a nicely sensitive fashion along with the Spanish scenery that gives the production an exotic feel.

Smith is excellent as usual. Her performance and character is different from anything else that she has done making it a real treat to watch. The scene where she calls home to her family as well as the one where she gets locked inside a remote outhouse is quite amusing.

I would have liked to have seen a little more interaction with the other people on the bus as the supporting cast is almost non-existent and focuses too much on the two main characters making it seem like there are the only ones in the entire country of Spain, which gives the viewer a very isolated type of feeling. This may have been the intention and done as a way to show what it is like being introverted, but I didn’t care for it.

Although the two characters are offbeat the film follows too much of a romantic blueprint that eventually makes it formulaic despite a good start. Its biggest transgression is having one of the characters like in Love Story get afflicted with some mysterious illness that is never explained and put in to create cheap dramatic turmoil.

Overall though the film is okay and has a few touching moments. Those that enjoy romance may like it a bit better as well as fans of Maggie Smith.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 19, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Road Movies, Romance

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Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

Posted on January 24, 2014 | 5 comments

smokey and the bandit 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: On the road again.

Hal Needham is to bad movies like a cow is to milk and yet when compared to his later efforts this really isn’t too bad especially when you factor in that the main goal was to create light entertainment, which is what this amounts to.

The ‘story’ involves truck driver Cledus (Jerry Reed) bootlegging beer across state lines. Partner Bandit (Burt Reynolds) acts as a decoy by driving in front of the truck in a car with a souped up engine. Jackie Gleason plays the sheriff out to get them.

The set-up could have been played out more and would have been funnier if it had. Sally Field is a nice addition and has a rare turn of being portrayed as a sexy lady. Her initial banter with Reynolds is fun, but having their relationship immediately turn romantic bogs everything down. It would have worked better had things stayed slightly antagonistic and then turned lovey-dovey only at the very end.

Reynolds has always had great charm and it’s played to the hilt here. His laugh alone is infectious, but he seems a little bit too laid back and detached. He goes through all sorts of wild car chases, but neither he nor is car ever receive even a little scratch. The police are also too inept and it would have been nice if they had, even momentarily, apprehended Reynolds just too prove they were a viable threat and given this thing a little tension.

Gleason is fun and his presence gives this film most of its points. Unlike Reynolds he isn’t so detached and he infuses his part with a lot of energy. His ad-libbed scatological lines at the beginning are great as is his coined “sumbitch” phrase. Seeing him stubbornly continue to drive his squad car even as it becomes increasingly smashed up is a good piece visually.

However, the film tends to water-down his character, which was a mistake. The biggest problem is the fact that he is initially portrayed as an intimidating figure. Then it proceeds to show him constantly out ranked and out managed by the other police forces in all the other counties he goes into while chasing Reynolds. Eventually it makes him seem too ineffectual and stupid. It would have worked better had the chase taken place solely in Gleason’s county, therefore having him stay funny, but still maintaining his menacing presence. It also would have been nice to have more direct confrontations between him and Reynolds although the one they do have is pretty good.

Needham was a former stunt man so the actual star of the picture is supposed to be the stunt work, but this area seems pretty derivative and features stuff that has been done hundreds of times before. The chases should’ve been extended and shot from more exciting angles. The climatic chase sequence is weak and can’t even hold a pinkie to the one used in The Blues Brothers.

Overall though it has enough good banter and star chemistry to be amiable.

smokey and the bandit 2

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: May 27, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Hal Needham

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, HDDVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

5 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies that take place in the South, Road Movies, Romance

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Sweet Movie (1974)

Posted on January 22, 2014 | 2 comments

sweet movie

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Every fetish is shown

Unfairly labeled as excessive and perverse, this film is really a fascinating and intricate study into the recesses of the sexual mind. It looks at sex in all its complexities and exposes it as a very primal need with a personality of its own.

The film starts off with an amusing satire on the media and how they have commercialized sex. It involves a game show were a rich millionaire must choose which female virgin he would like for a wife and even has a doctor on hand to examine them and make sure each one is genuine.

This becomes the ongoing theme, which is how society loves to ‘package’ sex and yet really can’t. Director Dusan Makavejev feels that the sexual instinct is too deep to be able to channel completely. The rest of the film goes off on wild tangents that may not make sense to some, but the intent is not to tap into the logical mind, but instead the sexual senses. In the process it tries to bring out the sexual side of the viewer by digging deeply into their own subconscious mind.

The final result is an almost non-stop barrage of unique, lasting visuals. Some are funny, stimulating and at times even grotesque. Yet sex has all these qualities so any movie realistically dealing with it should have it as well. Overall despite the controversial approach it becomes lyrical, compelling, and quite well-shot.

By not boxing sex into any type of ‘standard’ is what makes this different from just about any other erotic film out there. Most directors seem to feel that two sweating bodies between satin sheets are all you need to make a film ‘sexy’. Here you get something much more daring and expansive by showing sex in both its beauty and ugliness. Outside of bestiality and necrophilia just about every other fetish gets examined including interracial sex, sex with minors (never shown, but strongly implied), food sex, vomiting, scatology, water sports, and even violent sex. Sometimes it gets vulgar yet still remains provocative and fascinating to the more open-minded.

Star Carole Laure is incredibly beautiful and submits herself to her demanding role with a reckless abandon that is refreshing if not unprecedented and helps make the film impactful.

There’s some really amazing sequences including having Laure carted around in a suitcase with only her head sticking out. This is also one those rare films outside of Paul Morrissey’s Trash that features more shots of the male genitals than the females.

Obviously there will be those that will find the whole thing disgusting and offensive as it is very explicit even by today’s standards. This film could very well go beyond most people’s ‘comfort zones’ so I don’t want to suggest it to anyone unless they are fully prepared for what they are about to see, but for those who are game it could come off as a unique one-of-a-kind experience.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: June 12, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 38Mintues

Rated NC-17

Director: Dusan Makavejev

Studio: Maran Film

Available: DVD (The Criterion Collection)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Crude Comedy, Erotica, Exploitation, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies with Nudity, Sex

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