Darling (1965, UK)

Director John Schlesinger's film was shocking and cutting edge in its day with scenes involving loose sexuality, betrayal, bisexuality/transvestism, serial bed-hopping and infidelity, age difference, pregnancy and abortion.

It told the life story, in flashback and voice-over (in an article being prepared for a women's magazine), of jet-setting Italian princess Diana Scott (Best Actress Oscar-winning Julie Christie) living at an Italian villa after marrying a prince. She had an upper middle-class upbringing, and grew up spoiled because she was always considered a beautiful "darling."

A carefree, hedonistic London Swinging 60s amoral fashion model and playgirl after being discovered on the street by a reporter, the cool, emancipated beauty was married to immature Tony Bridges (Trevor Rowen) - it was a failed marriage (he sought an official divorce in the midst of the many affairs she was having) - during which time she met and fell in love with married, cultured, hard-working television journalist Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde). They had a secretive affair and first slept together in a hotel room, when he told her: "It's the first time I've felt real for a long time." He left his wife Estelle (Pauline Yates) and children and moved into a London apartment with her.

During this time, she also experienced a flirtatious fling with dissolute horror movie executive Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey), who gave her a bit part in his movie Jacqueline. Soon after, however, she became pregnant with Robert's child - and then aborted ("I realized it was going to be the ruination of my career, messing up people's lives: you know, mine, Robert's, everybodys") - and told Robert: "I don't want anything to do with sex again as long as I live." She separated from him briefly while recuperating in the country with relatives, and then returned to him, but found herself bored and unfulfilled.

Diana had sex with playboyish Miles in his plush apartment (although appeared to take discomfort in oral sex), and then accompanied him as a jet-setter to Paris for one of his wild decadent parties with his transvestite cross-dressing friends (the participants played a "truth game" - dancing in a circle in the light of a projector, while disrobing). When she returned to London, possessively-jealous Robert was angered by her lying and infidelity, and told her in the film's most famous line:

Your idea of fidelity is not having more than one man in the bed at the same time. You're a whore, baby, that's all. Just a whore.

After Robert broke up with her and moved out, calling her "trivial and shallow," she platonically partnered with homosexual photographer Malcolm (Roland Curram), becoming the "Happiness Girl," and soon was in Italy filming candy company commercials at the villa of refined Italian widower Prince Cesare Della Romita (José-Luis de Vilallonga), a rich yacht owner with seven children. During her stay in Italy, she went on a holiday to Capri with Malcolm, and cautioned him: "We are not complicating our holiday with any disgusting sexcapades" (although they both had separate one-night flings with a male waiter). Later, she confided in Malcolm: "I could do without sex. Don't really like it that much."

The Prince vainly proposed marriage to her, but after her return to London, she broke her sleazy association with Miles and decided to accept the Prince's marriage proposal. She found her loveless married life in the villa affluent, but utterly boring and frustrating - she walked through the many rooms to her bedroom, stripping as she went (viewed nude from the backside), and unhappily threw herself on her bed. [It was the first Oscar-winning performance with a nude scene for an actress.]

During her husband's business trip (?) to Rome, she contacted Robert and returned to London one last time to sleep with the "easily seduced" love of her life. She fancifully told him:

"This is a miracle. We're still a couple...Thank God it's never too late. Two people really belong to each other. Doesn't matter what happens...We both learned our lesson and won't make any more mistakes. I know we can be so happy."

But he dashed her dreams of reuniting: "We're not going back to anything, you know. This was just for old times' sake." He rejected her profession of love and request for "one more chance." As he drove her back to the airport, she half-heartedly threatened to commit suicide by throwing herself from the moving car: "If I can't be with you, I don't want to be alive," but resumed her princess-duties upon arrival.

The film ironically ended with her life story on the cover of IDEAL WOMAN magazine, on sale at corner news-stands in London.

The Defilers (1965)

Director-cinematographer R. Lee Frost's disturbing, low-budget, definitive grindhouse "roughie" film (by producer David F. Friedman, now split from Herschell Gordon Lewis) was deliberately made to counter the "nudie-cutie" films of the time - with some nudity, but mostly added violence and griminess.

It was reportedly based on a true story - about two wealthy, immoral, spoiled, and hedonistic men, Carl Walker, Jr. (Byron Mabe) and Jameison Marsh (Jerome Eden). In the opening credits sequence while cruising in their convertible, they picked up four sex partners/dates and spent the day at the beach. While lying on a towel, the misogynistic Walker asserted to Jim:

"When are you gonna learn that females have but one function in life, to give men pleasure? They give it...you take it! There's only one thing in this whole crummy, square-infested life that counts. Kicks! Kicks, Jim. Kicks. Dig me?!"

When the sun went down, Marsh began to make out with well-built blonde date Ellen (Carol Dark), and untied the straps on both parts of her bikini:

"Hey, you wanna bare my secrets to the world?"
"It's all in the interest of science. Tell me something? Are you a real blonde?"
"Maybe I'm prematurely bald."
"I've never known a bald girl before."
"By the same token, you must be a boy."

While Walker was with a second date, the two others who were left alone went topless for skinny-dipping.

Known for being creepy and cruel at times, on another occasion, Walker led brunette Kathy (Linda Cochran) down into a dark basement of an abandoned warehouse (a "secret dungeon"). In the back of his convertible parked outside, Marsh made out with busty blonde Ellen again. After removing her bra, he asked: "Wanna feel my muscle? Start the countdown" - before they stretched out and had sex in the back seat.

Meanwhile in the basement, Walker joked with Kathy that he kept "love prisoners" in the dungeon, and downplayed the less than romantic, dingy accommodations. He boasted:

"It ain't the setting, chick, it's the lead actor's performance that gets all the rave reviews."

The First Defiled Victim in the Basement - Kathy (Linda Cochran)

He slapped and assaulted her when she talked back to him and asserted that he should "lay off the rough stuff." Although she valiantly fought him off, he ripped off her clothes, telling her she needed "old-fashioned discipline" (a vicious spanking of her bare bottom that left welts after he pulled down her black panties). And then surprisingly, she surrendered: "Don't stop," and kissed him as the camera panned upwards before they had sex. In only a few moments, she had become his loving girlfriend, and afterwards, they continued to get together for sex.

The two were introduced to young, naive yet sexy blonde Los Angeles newcomer (from Minnesota) and aspiring actress/model Jane Collins (Swedish actress Mai Jansson) by their creepy apartment manager Mrs. Olson (Mimi Marlowe). To satiate their cravings for kicks during a "scouting trip," the two first spied on Jane as she undressed and took a bubble bath in her apartment.

Peeping Toms on Jane's (Mai Jansson) Bubble-Bath

Almost immediately, they kidnapped her (they told her they were going to a "real Hollywood-style party") and held her prisoner in the basement where they made the defenseless woman their sex slave. They psychologically and physically abused her, and talked about her as enslaved: "You belong to us now, dig? We own you body and soul, to do with as we like, when we like. And you're gonna be here for a long, long time, maybe forever. So you might as well start getting comfortable."

Trapped, she was stripped of her dress to reveal her underwear, and then viciously slapped to comply. Degraded and abused over a period of time, Jane was imprisoned in the basement, where she was raped, almost starved and beaten. At one point, when Jim was put off by his girlfriend, he visited Jane for sex - and she was forced to submit to him (off-screen).

With pressure from an increasingly-squeamish Jim, however, Walker agreed to "spring our little jailbird." In the basement, Jim promised Jane freedom, and a new dress and dinner, to forgive them for their mistreatment (he called her imprisonment "a game...it's sort of like acting out a movie").

Carl had a different idea - he tied up Jane, and thrashed her with his belt, while Jim pleaded and stood up to Carl's brutality: "Stop, you'll kill her...It's not fun anymore. Look, she's bleeding...Carl, you're sick." The two engaged in a no-holds-barred fist-fight, falling at one point onto the bed where Jane laid motionless. The struggle ended when Carl was accidentally pushed into a projecting sharp nail in the wall, and it went straight into his forehead. Jim promised an unconscious Jane he would go get help, as he raced from the basement - and the downer film abruptly ended.

Doctor Zhivago (1965, US/UK)

Director David Lean's magnificent epic featured one potent, twisted scene in which the womanizing, brutal lawyer Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger) commanded beautiful 17 year-old Lara (Julie Christie) to turn around so he could admire her shapely form in a striking red dress he had bought for her to wear ("You've grown up a lot, haven't you?"). He wished to seduce her to enter into an illicit affair with him as his mistress.

Later, a brutal scene occurred after Victor had met Lara's fiancee - idealistic revolutionary Pasha Antipova (Tom Courtenay) - Victor slapped her and told her: "You are a slut" and violently forced himself on her to dissuade her from marrying Pasha. Victor snidely commented after he had assaulted her:

"And don't delude yourself this was rape. That would flatter us both."

Soon afterwards, the guilt-ridden Lara tracked Victor down, and shot and wounded him at a Christmas Eve party.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Russ Meyer's best and most popular work was an overly dramatic, trashy, semi-fantastical, and violent (but without nudity) sexploitation film that originally failed at the box office. Although a flop and initially reviled by feminists as "juvenile sexism", this cult film has been reassessed as a pro-feminist "female empowerment" epic.

It starred three buxom go-go dancers by night who went on a murderous desert rampage by day in their hot-rod cars:

• Billie (Lori Williams), a vivacious, bi-sexual blonde with a bare midriff
• Rosie (Haji), masochistic and lesbian-leaning
• Varla (burlesque dancer Tura Satana), a villainous, tough, and masculine dominatrix with karate-chop skills, who wore black leather, exhibited black bangs and cat-eye makeup, and offered significant breast-cleavage exposure

The female characters were cunning, powerful, supercharged, aggressive and sexually predatory, while the males were either weak, decrepit, sexually impotent or mindless brutes.

In an early scene, a timid, naive bikini-clad woman named Linda (Susan Bernard, Playboy's December 1966 Playmate) was drugged, kidnapped and taken hostage-captive after witnessing the karate-chopping (to the neck), back-crunching, spine-cracking murder of her cleancut racer boyfriend Tommy (Ray Barlow) by Varla after he raced against her (and the others) at the salt flats race track and challenged her to a fight after she cheated.

At a gas station, a dumb attendant (Mickey Foxx) (while cleaning Varla's windshield) said he wanted to 'see' America while looking down at Varla's bounteous chest: "Just passing through, huh? Boy, that motor's sure hot! You gals really must have been moving on these little machines. Yes, sir, the thrill of the open road. New places, new people, and new sights of interest. Now that's what I believe in, seeing America first!"; Varla memorably growled back: "You won't find it down there, Columbus!"

The finale included Varla throwing Rosie's switch-blade knife into Billie's back to murder her, the vengeful stabbing death of Rosie, and Linda's running Varla over with a jeep-truck and killing her.

Juliet of the Spirits (1965, It./W.Germ/Fr.) (aka Giulietta Degli Spiriti)

Italian director Federico Fellini's first color film was a surrealistic, garish marriage drama that starred his own wife Giulietta Masina as the title character of Juliet.

Juliet learned that her husband of 15 years, Giorgio (Mario Pisu), was committing adultery with a fashion model mistress. As a result, she suffered the terrorizing torment of voices and images from the spirit world and of her past.

Juliet was offered sexual passion and temptation, provided by her hedonistic, buxom party-girl neighbor Susy (Sandra Milo) in a bordello-styled mirrored bedroom (with a chute-slide to a nearby heated pool) with her studly nephew. The wronged Juliet denied herself the pleasures of the flesh after experiencing a frightening, fiery vision of a martyr.

Through self-discovery and an examination of her own emptiness by film's end, she found emancipation and independence (or loneliness) as she walked off toward the nearby woods.

Orgy of the Dead (1965)

This was an prime example of schlocky scriptwriter Ed Wood's notoriously bad, low-budget nudie horror films. The sexploitation film was advertised as being shown "In Gorgeous Astravision" and in "Shocking Sexicolor" and featuring NAKED Spirits and TOPLESS Dancers.

Director Wood's buddy Criswell appeared in the prologue as The Emperor of the Dead, the rambling leader of the 'twilight people.' He was accompanied by his undead consort, Vampira/Elvira clone Ghoulita (Fawn Silver), the Black Ghoul with a black beehive hairdo. The Emperor served as the emcee and provided absurdist and odd commentary, such as: "Torture! Torture! It pleasures me!", "To love the cat is to be the cat!", and "A kitten was born to be whipped."

The story really began when horror book writer Bob (William Bates) and his buxom red-haired girlfriend Shirley (Pat Barringer or Pat Barrington) suffered a car wreck in the fog - fortuitously, they crashed next to a cemetery. They were forced to spend the night there, helping to serve Bob's writings as inspiration on the topics of necrophilia and ghost stories ("It's on a night like this when the best ideas come to mind"). They were tied to gravestone posts and watched as a bevy of topless and naked zombie-like, graveyard 'creatures of the night' (hired LA strippers) performed ten interminable stripteases (with uncoordinated shimmying) in the fog.

The actress portraying Shirley also doubled as the buxom Gold Girl (with a platinum blonde wig), seen in the credits, as her red-headed alter-ego watched.

Some of The Graveyard Dancers
Gold Girl (Pat Barrington)
Streetwalker Dance (Coleen O'Brien)	Bride Ghoul in Skeleton Dance (Barbara Nordin)
Mexican Dancer (Stephanie Jones)	Hawaiian Dancer (Mickey Jines)
Fluff Dancer (Rene De Beau)	Zombie Dancer (Dene Starnes)

The Raw Ones (1965)

Producer/director John Lamb's nudist film (with a narrator who extolled the virtues of a naturist lifestyle) was the first to openly show genitalia -- now allowed after a 1957 legal decision in the Supreme Court that ruled such displays of private parts were not in and of themselves obscene.

"With greater knowledge, more education, and communication, the idea is rapidly gaining ground that nudity is not the unwholesome thing that it has been thought to be in the past."

Its first screen announced:

"Dedicated to the principles of American Nudism - and to the courage of the mind that seeks truth and strives for enlightenment."

This was an essential linkpin between the non-genital 'nudie-cutie' films of the late 50s, and the hard-core porn films of the 70s. Unlike most nudist camps, most of the participants at a Florida nudist facility were shapely male and female models.

The film was the first major nudist film to show extensive full male and female nudity, although all of the settings were non-sexual:

• sunbathing on a blanket on a grassy lawn
• skipping rope, playing table tennis, jumping on a trampoline, and engaging in a game of shuffleboard
• weightlifting and tennis outdoors, also nude archery
• sliding and diving into a swimming pool and chicken fights
• going to the beach (and enjoying a watermelon), with nude yachting and fishing
• dune-buggying in the sand
• attending a barbecue

The film, narrated by preachy Ron Gans, described the attitude of the nudist participants:

"They're different. They're not afraid to look. They're not shocked by what they see. Also, they don't mind revealing their own bodies. It is done in a spirit of openness and frankness instead of in the very different atmosphere of a peep show or nightclub. If they seem strange to their contemporaries, they know themselves well enough not to mind in the slightest. Their custom or way of life, as some like to call it, has proved so enjoyable, has increased their physical and mental health so much, that they are convinced of its rightness and of its ultimate acceptance by the general public."

The narrator emphasized:

"It is a psychological fact that an interest out of all proportions becomes attached to any part of the body that is perpetually concealed and we react to this with furious curiosity. Concealing the body invariably stimulates the curiosity and gives it life. Attitudes on nudity in American range from one extreme to the other, and even within the same community conflicting standards exist...Nudists point out that there is nothing immodest or indecent about the human body. There are only people who think immodest or indecent thoughts."

Repulsion (1965, UK)

Roman Polanski's first English language film starred Catherine Deneuve as Carol Ledoux - a virginal, fragile and repressed young Belgian beautician working in a beauty salon/spa in London, who was left alone in her claustrophobic apartment for two weeks.

She began to have psychosexual hallucinations, while assailed by nerve-wracking sounds (the loud ticking of an alarm clock on the soundtrack, for example). She eventually brutally lashed out at threatening males while suffering severe delusions:

• two rapes (one hallucinatory and one real)
• two murders, of her insistent British suitor Colin (John Fraser), and of her lascivious rent-collecting landlord (Patrick Wymark)
• grasping phantom hands groping her from the wall of her hallway

Reportedly, the film was the first to feature an orgasm heard on-screen (in a scene in which Carol overheard her sister Helen's (Yvonne Furneaux) love-making to married lover Michael (Ian Hendry) through her thin bedroom wall).

The sequence lasted over a minute, at around the 17 minute mark in the film, as she became more and more frustrated and aggravated - tossing and turning in bed as she listened to the increasingly-excited, pleasurable moans of the lovers nearby as they climaxed.

The 10th Victim (1965, It.) (aka La Decima Vittima)

Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress (famous for her appearance as the first "Bond girl" in Dr. No (1962)) were paired in this futuristic satire and science fiction cult film from director Elio Petri.

The buxom star played the role of Caroline Meredith who was noted for her double-barrelled brassiere. It concealed twin guns which she fired during a striptease act in a masochist's club, on her way to racking up her 10th victim to achieve a perfect score in a sanctioned and organized murder hunt-game called "The Big Hunt." The idea was to engage in 10 hunts (5 as hunted, and 5 as the hunter), and the grand prize was winning ten hunts was $1 million.

[Note: The bra-weapon was an inspiration for Mike Myers' Fembots in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997).]

Agony of Love (1966) (aka From Lady to Tramp)

Director/writer William Rotsler's B-movie - a grim, soap-opera-ish sexploitation film that pre-dated Luis Bunuel's Belle De Jour (1967, Fr/It.) starring Catherine Deneuve, had a similar tawdry plot. It was advertised as

"An Adult Venture Into a Woman's Inner Most Being..."

A poster also described its plot:

From Penthouse to Playgirl. She Was A Lady But Wanted to Be Treated Like a Tramp.

This 'nudie-roughie,' told in flashback, opened with a film-noirish sequence - a frightened, stylishly-dressed and high-heeled woman (called out by name as Barbara) was seen running down Hollywood Boulevard, along a stretch of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A narrator intoned:

This is a true story. It happened in a big city. But it could happen anywhere, anytime to anyone. It might happen to someone you know.
(The lady paused and asked herself, in voice-over: "How did this happen to me? Why? I had everything. Why me? What's wrong with me?")

The film returned to an earlier time - the life of lonely and frustrated affluent, black-wigged suburban housewife Barbara Thomas (Pat Barrington). She was bored, neglected and desperate for sex and affection from her handsome, workaholic businessman husband Barton (Sam Taylor).

She secretly rented a private city apartment and turned to prostitution (calling herself "Brandy"), threesomes, and S&M ("Do it, do it, hurt me... dirty me!"). One of her male clients was credited as "The Eater" (Jay Edwards) who stuffed his face with food as he non-chalantly watched her undress. She vainly tried to get the glutton's attention, but to no avail. When he was completely exhausted after satiating himself, he told her: "Thank you! Very enjoyable dinner" - and left.

A threesome for a party was composed of Barbara ("Brandy"), the Beatchick (Joy Lowe) and another callgirl (Sherry Shannon), who were hired out by two rowdy conventioneers.

Barbara Thomas as Prostitute "Brandy" (Pat Barrington)

As a callgirl, the self-loathing female indulged in her cravings for sex, money (in an erotic fantasy nightmare-dream sequence in which she wrapped herself with a string of bills, later copied by other filmmakers), and loving attention.

In the conclusion, her husband was revealed to be one of her escort service clients for an orgy. She was shocked by his appearance. He grabbed her as she attempted to flee and asked: "Why? What's the matter with you" because he knew that she didn't really need the money. She replied: " I like it...because I'm no good.... I'm not worth anything, except in bed. Because, that's why!" - and then ran off.

The film had an unexpected tragic ending when he began pursuing her in a nighttime chase through Hollywood - the film's opening sequence. As she ran into the street, she was hit and killed by a car. Her discarded purse was overflowing with bills fluttering in the wind. Her husband grabbed her body in his arms, and piteously proclaimed: "I love you."

Alfie (1966, UK)

This was the original Alfie film - Lewis Gilbert's sex-comedy/drama about a hedonistic, misogynistic, Cockney ladies' man title character (Michael Caine in his first major lead role, an Oscar-nominated one).

[Note: The film was remade as Alfie (2004), starring Jude Law as the title character.]

He portrayed smug, working class anti-hero playboy/Casanova Alfie Elkins, a "free agent" who bedhopped, loved (and left) many women (or "birds"), including:

• Siddie (Millicent Martin), young and married (Alfie's sex partner in parked cars)
• Gilda (Julia Foster), his mistress, with whom he had a child, but then she married bus conductor Humphrey (Graham Stark)
• Carla (Shirley Anne Field), a pretty sanitarium nurse when Alfie was being treated for TB
• Lily Clamacraft (Vivien Merchant), the middle-aged wife of another sanitarium patient (Alfie's roommate), who also became pregnant after a one-night stand, and was aborted
• Ruby (Shelley Winters), older, rich and widowed American, voluptuous and promiscuous like Alfie
• Annie (Jane Asher, Beatle Paul McCartney's girlfriend), naive hitchhiker, homemaker

It was considered daring and shocking in its time, with an examination of taboo subjects and the consequences of the sexual revolution in the swinging 1960s. Some of Alfie's setbacks included his bout with tuberculosis, the abortion (and sight of his stillborn child's fetus), and the revelation that Ruby had taken another younger lover.

It was also unusual that Alfie often addressed the audience directly (breaking the so-called 'fourth wall'). In the final scene, Alfie spoke these last words, asking the viewer at the end of his reflections: "What's it all about?" when he began to seriously consider the consequences of his artificial existence - and decided to befriend a stray dog next to him:

You know what? When I look back on my little life and the birds I've known, and think of all the things they've done for me and the little I've done for them, you'd think I've had the best of it all along the line. But what have I got out of it? I've got a bob or two, some decent clothes, a car, I've got me health back and I ain't attached. But I ain't got me peace of mind, and if you ain't got that, you ain't got nothing. I don't know. It seems to me if they ain't got you one way, they've got you another. So what's the answer? That's what I keep asking meself - what's it all about? Know what I mean?

His monologue was followed by the title song performed by Cher (Cilla Black in the UK release) during the end credits (without a title), beginning with the catchphrase words: "What's it all about, Alfie?"

Aroused (1966)

Director Anton Holden's horror/thriller was a black and white 'roughie' (with superb cinematography by Gideon Zumbach, and a jazzy soundtrack) that told of a misogynistic psycho-serial killer on the loose in Manhattan. The rationale for his violent and murderous impulses: an abusive domineering prostitute mother.

The noirish film was well-written and photographed, with taut set-pieces, close-ups, freeze-frames, and a twist ending, although it was tedious and drawn-out in places. The grindhouse feature obviously inspired the later exploitation classic by William Lustig, Maniac (1980).

In the film's opening scene, short-haired blonde professional prostitute Pat Wilson (Marlene Stevens) was servicing a client in a bed with satin sheets. She did not know that she was being spied upon from a fire-escape outside the apartment's bedroom window. She was seen both topless in bed and also in front of her mirror. She was killed after being attacked in the shower. Pat was grabbed and wrapped in the shower curtain, deposited on the bathroom floor, and then asphyxiated. It was a Psycho-like scene, accompanied by a freeze-frame and an audio flashback of the killer's mother (as a prostitute with her bothersome young son in the room). Then the killer kissed the dead corpse and made necrophiliac love to her.

The First Psycho-Killer Victim - Prostitute Pat Wilson (Marlene Stevens)

Pat's lesbian lover ("buddy") Ginny Smith (Janine Lenon, or Djanine Lenon), a blonde free-lance model, later came upon the scene and almost knifed a man (thought to be the killer) hovering over Pat's body - instead, she realized it was a cop investigating the case. Sharp-jawed and reckless handsome rookie detective Johnny (Steve Hollister), married to young wife Ann (Joanna Mills), was assigned to the case to bring in the killer who was believed to be targeting hookers, call-girls, and streetwalkers.

The Second Victim - Streetwalker Angela (Fleurette Carter)

Streetwalker Angela (Fleurette Carter) was used as bait (without adequate protection by Johnny), and she was eventually stalked and also met her demise by strangulation in an elevator - shown topless and bloodied.

In another sequence, Johnny sent his wife Ann home with the local area's bartender (the killer, Louis (Tony Palladino)) while he was having sex with bi-sexual Ginny - but the knife-wielding killer was scared off after Ann was partially stabbed. The psycho maniac retreated to his run-down, city apartment filled with mannequin body parts and photographs of prostitutes, and a stuffed teddy-bear on a massage table.

In the end, a group of "whores" led by Ginny confronted Louis in his apartment. With a knife to his throat, Ginny first threatened: "We're going to have a party...You're the guest of honor." They vengefully held him down and castrated him to transform him into "a boy soprano." As blood spurted from his groin area, Louis screamed out: "Mama, Mama."

The Bible...In the Beginning (1966, US/It.)

John Huston's epic Old Testament film didn't cover the entire Bible - just the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, including the creation story (Adam and Eve) and the expulsion from Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark/the Flood, and the story of Abraham (wife Sarah, handmaiden Hagar, and son Isaac). The story of the Nimrod and the Tower of Babel and Sodom and Gomorrah were also featured.

It included a highly-anticipated, 20-minute opening sequence detailing the story of Creation of 'mankind' from reddish-brown dirt in the golden-lighted Garden of Eden with two fair-skinned humans:

• Adam (Michael Parks)
• Eve (Swedish Ulla Bergryd), with reddish-gold hair

Both characters were modestly and prudishly nude, one of the first instances in a mainstream US feature film in which there was full-frontal nudity from both sexes) - although they were discreetly and strategically photographed with long shots and out-of-focus buttocks. To avoid outright nudity, knees were often bent to cover the genitals, and Eve's hair always covered her breasts. They were positioned behind bushes or tropical leaves to shield their private parts.

After the pair ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (tricked by the serpent), they were banished - clothed and no longer innocent.

Blowup (1966, UK/It.)

Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language film Blow-Up (1966) was set in mod-Swinging 60s London. When Antonioni refused to cut the few glimpses of female nudity in the film, it was released without the MPAA's seal of approval, and engendered even greater popularity for the arthouse film. It received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

This breakthrough film was often noted for introverted fashion-glamour photographer Thomas' (David Hemmings) orgasmic, frenzied camera-shoot scene with various 'birds' including skinny, writhing model Veruschka as he straddled her on the floor and pointed his phallic camera at her ("On your back. Go on. Yes. Now really give it. Come on. Come on. Work, work, work! Great. Great. And again. Come on. Back. Back. Arms up. Arms up. Stretch yourself, little lady. Great. And again. Go on. Go. Go. That's great. That's it! Keep it up. Lovely. Yeah, make it come. Great. No, no, head up, head up. Now for me, love. For me. Now! Now! Yes! Yes! Yes!").

The film also featured Vanessa Redgrave as the Girl, persistently begging (and eventually offering sexual favors when she went topless - more revealing in some full-frame video versions) and bargaining for Thomas' roll of incriminating film that he had shot of her in a public park with an unidentified, middle-aged man. The enlarged photos eventually showed possible evidence of a murder.

The most notorious scene was Thomas' teasing sex with two naive, teenaged groupies or "dolly birds" (blonde Jane Birkin and brunette Gillian Hills) who stopped by his studio on their second visit. While trying on clothes, the skinny blonde was stripped of her clothes by Thomas, and then she wrestled her dark-haired friend and she was stripped too, claiming: "She's got a better figure than me." They ended up in a threesome orgy with him on a extended roll of purple backdrop paper. The scene featured the first fleeting views of pubic hair in a mainstream film for American audiences.

The Film's Most Controversial Sex Scene: Wrestling with Two Teens on Purple Photo Backdrop Paper

In another love-making scene, he watched as his unhappily-married next-door neighbor Patricia (Sarah Miles) was underneath her husband Bill (John Castle), Thomas' artist friend, who was on top making love to her. She wordlessly entreated Thomas in their flat to position himself and stay in view nearby so she could achieve orgasm - his presence aroused her passion. When he next saw her, he asked: "Do you ever think of leaving him?" and she responded: "No, I don't think so." Before leaving, she also inserted another request: "Will you help me? I don't know what to do," but the subject quickly changed.

Closely Watched Trains (1966, Czech) (aka Ostre Sledované Vlaky)

Jirí Menzel's war-related, coming-of-age romantic drama, a Czech New Wave film, was the 1968 winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1966 - with the intriguing tagline: "All it takes to make a man of a boy is a woman."

The main protagonist was Milos Hrma (Vaclav Neckar) - the naive, newly-hired local assistant train dispatcher at Kostomlaty station near Prague during WWII, who was to 'closely watch' the trains so they wouldn't crash. His main issue was a continuing over-sensitivity problem with premature ejaculation. A love-making attempt with seductive, nubile conductress Masa (Jilka Bendova) failed, although she was understanding. He followed up with a near-fatal suicide attempt (by slitting his wrists in a steamy hot hotel bath tub) due to his adolescent anxiety and angst.

During his recovery, Milos told Doctor Brabec (Jiri Menzel, the film's director): "So you see, doctor, I am not a real man, and I don't even want to be one. Everything is so difficult in life, for me. While for others it's all child's play. In other words, when I was to act, I flopped." The doctor recommended that he "choose an older, experienced woman to initiate love-making." He followed up with an awkward encounter with stationmaster Max's older wife (Libuse Havelková), whom he told about his raging hormonal problems with premature ejaculation and impotency:

"You see, I am a man but whenever I'm trying to prove that I'm a man I no longer am...Well, now for instance, I am a man."

As they talked and he hinted at having sex with her, she was stroking a goose's long neck that simulated the masturbatory, up-and-down phallic motion of male stimulation.

By film's end, Milos was sexually fulfilled by beautiful Resistance follower Viktoria Freie (Nada Urbánková), who had delivered a homemade bomb to the station, to be used to destroy a German Nazi ammunition train shipment. Before the plan was carried out the next day, when Milos was alone with her and told her of his sexual issues, she urged him as she undressed and caressed his face:

"Shut the light, will you please? So you've never had a girl before? Really and truly not?"

Sadly, Milos lost his life after he dropped the bomb from a train tower onto the loaded flat car of a freight train as it passed by below.

The film's most memorable tryst, however, was between Milos' womanizing mentor/superior - the bespectacled, short, and balding Ladislav Hubicka (Josef Somr), and young station telegraphist Zdenka (Jitka Zelenohorská). During a comic sexual horseplay scene, Hubicka chased her around the station office at midnight (Hubicka: "I told you I'd spank you"). He stamped her bare thighs and bare buttocks (she voluntarily pulled her own panties down) with the State's official bureaucratic ink stamp seal, causing embarrassment to her mother and other officials who learned of the strange offense.

Georgy Girl (1966, UK)

Originally considered bold and ground-breaking (but now only self-conscious, tame, and dated), this Swinging 60s "free love" comedy film from the UK starred Best Actress-nominated Lynn Redgrave. It was notable as the first film to carry the label "suggested for mature audiences" - or M rating, only a month after the Production Code was revised.

Its bittersweet, adult-oriented tale told of the morally-ambiguous title character Georgina "Georgy" Parkin, a plump, homely and virginal misfit. Georgy found herself propositioned to be a mistress of rich and older benefactor, unhappily-married Mr. Leamington (James Mason) while she was involved in an affair with Jos Jones (Alan Bates). Jones was the randy Cockney husband of her pretty yet amoral and self-interested roommate Meredith Montgomery (Charlotte Rampling).

After two previous abortions, Meredith was bitchy about her current pregnancy: "I'll tell you what this little episode has taught me. It's taught me what it feels like to look like the back end of a bus, and sit around every night with nothing to do."

When Meredith gave birth - but wanted to put the child up for adoption, Georgy opted to care for and serve as the baby's mother with Jos. When their affair cooled and he moved out, Georgy brought conveniently-widowed Leamington to the rescue to marry her and help provide financial support.

Hawaii (1966)

Only part of James Michener's best-selling, epic 1959 novel Hawaii (both fictional and non-fictional) was the basis for the lengthy film adaptation, directed by George Roy Hill. Former blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo penned the script with Daniel Taradash. The movie basically concentrated on the settlement at Lahaina (Maui) in the early 1800s.

It began with a rousing and inspiring sermon by a native Hawaiian islander named Keoki Kanakoa (Manu Tupou) (in history: Henry Obookiah) at Yale University in New England. One of the missionaries who was compelled to journey to Hawaii around 1820 was Rev. Abner Hale (Max Von Sydow) with his new wife Jerusha Bromley (Julie Andrews) (in history: Reverend Hiram Bingham). Their efforts were to bring Christianity to the "heathen" natives - Malama, the Queen, the Alii Nui, (Jocelyne LaGarde) (in history: Queen Ka'ahumanu), and to end pagan idolatry worship of totem rocks (phallic symbols) at shrines (heiau).

One of the things immediately encountered when the stiffly-dressed New Englanders sailed into Lahaina port was that many of the islanders removed their sarongs or loin cloths, and swam out to the ship or rowed in outrigger canoes - waving sexily and happily greeting the repressed newcomers.

In the film, there was very discreetly-filmed (or darkened) topless female nudity, mostly from the wahine housemaid provided by Malama for the Hales - Iliki (Lokelani S. Chicarell). However, in terms of historical authenticity, in traditional Hawaiian culture at the time, female breasts were not covered, and there were no bathing suits for swimming.

The nude 'entertainment' provided by topless young girls during an evening's dancing and drinking with whalers who docked in Lahaina was particularly frowned upon by the well-intentioned, but viciously-intolerant Rev. Hale who sternly objected: "How can you do this to this innocent child? Have you no mothers at home, no sisters? May God in his mercy forgive you" - he vehemently chastised the men as he dragged Iliki away. He called her a "wicked creature" although she innocently objected: "I didn't do nothing bad." Hale was adamant about forbidding nudity, and open sexuality.

Later, the whalers, led by Captain Rafer Hoxworth (Richard Harris), Jerusha's ex-suitor, burned Abner's church in protest after they were prevented from sleeping with the young island women.

A Man and a Woman (1966, Fr.) (aka Un Homme et Une Femme)

French New Wave director Claude Lelouch's simple and pleasant romance was the Palme d'Or winner at Cannes and Oscar-winner of Best Foreign Language Film.

It was a beautifully-filmed, impressionistic story of the slow-building affair between two single parents who had both lost their spouses. They happened to meet when visiting their children at a Deauville boarding school:

• Jean-Louis Duroc (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a race-driver who had lost his wife to suicide
• Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimee), a film production assistant or "script girl" who was widowed when husband Pierre (Pierre Barouh) was killed on-the-set during a film-making stunt

Eventually by film's end, they consummated their love in a non-explicit, bitter-sweet scene that alternated between B/W and color images (including flashbacked, haunting guilt-ridden, melancholic memories of Anna's husband of her past). She could not fully give herself and thought that would be the end of their relationship when they silently parted.

But then, in the open-ended conclusion, they joyously met again at the train station in Paris when she arrived there.

Russ Meyer's pseudo-documentary (or mockumentary) was notable as the "nudie" sleaze king's first color film, advertised with the tagline:

"Too much for one man!"

Throughout, an off-screen narrator (John Furlong) would hilariously comment upon the titillating action of the "unrestrained female anatomy" and "the world's loveliest buxotics." The thrown-together film included screen-test footage of Lorna Maitland, the title character of Meyer's previous film Lorna (1964).

The sexploitation film began as a travelogue in San Francisco (where the phenomenon of gyrating toplessness first appeared, supposedly, before sweeping across the country), led by naked 44" stacked Babette Bardot driving around stark naked. Even Coit Tower was photographed to look like a phallic symbol.

The Mondo Topless Girl Dancers
Bouncy Dancer (Babette Bardot)
Delicious Dancer (Darla Paris)	Lucious Dancer (Sin Lenee)
Buxotic Dancer (Darlene Grey)	Yummy Dancer (Diane Young)
XCiting Dancer (Donna X or Trina Lamar)	Rambunctious Dancer (Pat Barrington/Barringer)

Ultra-buxotic females spoke about their lives as topless go-go girls/strippers, along with many topless dances amd swinging breasts, performed in various locales, and usually gyrating to the wild beat of a nearby radio or tape player:

• Rambunctious Dancer (Pat Barringer) - in the desert and at the base of a high-voltage electric tower
• Bouncy Dancer (Babette Bardot) - beside a roaring locomotive train
• Delicious Dancer (Darla Paris) - in a woodsy forest
• Lucious Dancer (Sin Linee) - in front of a water-basin and in an abandoned shack
• Yummy Dancer (small-breasted Diane Young) - on a beach
• Buxotic Dancer (Darlene Grey)
• XCiting Dancer (Donna X, or Trina Lamar)

The sights were also viewed in various strip-joints in Europe (footage from Meyer's long-unseen documentary Europe in the Raw (1963)), in Belgium, Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Paris, where strippers performed on indoor stages. Some of the dancers spoke about their views of men, about disrobing, bra sizes and about the difficulty of buying clothes for the big-busted woman, etc.

Europe in the Raw footage (below)
Denice Duval (Herself) - Paris	Gigi La Touche (Herself) - Paris
Veronique Gabriel (Herself)	Abundavita (Herself) - Berlin

One Million Years B.C. (1966, UK)

This British-made adventure sci-fi film (shot in the Canary Islands) by director Don Chaffey and Hammer Films was a remake of the earlier Hollywood film, One Million B.C. (1940), starring Victor Mature and Carole Landis, two love interests during caveman times (an anachronism since dinosaur creatures and humans never co-existed).

The film's realistic prehistoric creatures (created with stop-motion animation and enlarged live specimens) were the work of Ray Harryhausen: a giant lizard and spider, brontosaurus, an Archelon (giant turtle), an Allosaurus, a battle between a Ceratosaurus and Triceratops, and a flying Pteranodon.

Likewise, this one conjured up the iconic image of a shapely, white-skinned, Amazonian cavegirl and a caveman:

• Loana (Raquel Welch), with a two-piece fur-trimmed, animal-skin bikini outfit, a member of the Shell people
• Tumak (John Richardson), from the Rock tribe

At one point, Loana (who had only a few sparse lines of dialogue) had to fight off the advances of competing love-interest, Tumak's ex-lover Nupondi (Martine Beswick).

The reigning sex queen's 'primeval woman' poster was a major best-seller at the time, and adorned many college room walls.

Persona (1966, Swe.)

Ingmar Bergman's psychological, dramatic thriller, a film-within-a-film, was about illness, insanity, personal identity and death. It told about two women who became associated with each other:

• Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson), a young 25 year-old nurse
• Mrs. Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), a well-known stage actress who had been mute and semi-catatonic for three months, and became Alma's patient

In the course of treatment conducted at a seaside cottage or summer vacation home, it was revealed that both experienced life-changing events involving motherhood, abortion and childbirth.

During a vivid confessional monologue (one of the most explicit verbal descriptions of sex ever heard on screen), Alma (who was engaged to fiancee Karl-Henrik at the time) described a private and secret sexual experience to Elisabet that she had had at the beach with a friend named Katarina when they were sunbathing in the nude, completely naked. Two boys came up to them and Katrina encouraged one of the boys to have sex with her:

She took him by the hand and helped him off with his jeans and shirt. Then suddenly, he was on top of her. She guided him in with her hands on his behind.

Feeling left out, Alma also asked for sex too:

Suddenly, I turned over and said, 'Aren't you coming over to me, too?' And Katarina said, 'Go to her now.' He pulled out of her and fell on top of me, completely hard. He grabbed my breast. It hurt so bad. I was ready somehow, and came almost at once. Can you believe it? I was about to say, 'Careful you don't get me pregnant' - when he suddenly came. I felt it like never before in my life, the way he sprayed his seed into me. He gripped my shoulders and arched backwards. I came over and over. Katarina lay on her side and watched and held him from behind. After he came, she took him in her arms and used his hand to make herself come. When she came, she screamed like a banshee. Then all three of us started laughing.

A second boy named Peter was also invited to participate:

Katarina unbuttoned his pants and started to play with him. And when he came, she took him in her mouth. He bent down and kissed her back. She turned around, took his head in both hands and gave him her breast. The other boy got so excited, that he and I started all over again. It was just as good as before.

That evening, although she felt guilty, Alma had sex with Karl-Henrik after dinner ("Then we had sex. It's never been as good, before or since. Can you understand that?"). However, she became pregnant, was forced to abort the baby, and afterwards suffered a "guilty conscience."

A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine (1966)

Director B. Ron Elliott's dramatic, bad-tempered, gritty and sleazy exploitation "roughie" film (with a script by veteran road-showman and producer David Friedman) was taglined:

"There is an expression for girls like her - You see it scrawled on walls....!"
And
"A Story of a Female Every Man Has Known"

The main character in the low-budget black and white production was a temptress-female named Sharon Winters (Texas-born Stacey Walker, aka Barbara Jean Moore) who would purposely seduce men and then loudly protest rape. The decadent and trashy film offered lots of topless nudity without any actual scenes of sex (only foreplay).

In the opening sequence set in the front seat of a car, voluptuous blonde tease-bitch Sharon seduced two-month boyfriend Roy Bradley (Michael O'Kelly). On the verge of intercourse with him, she screamed rape to attract a police officer - and after a quick jury trial, Roy was imprisoned for two years for rape and assault.

In a conversation with her lesbian roommate Paula Mann (Sharon Carr) about six weeks later, Sharon was brazen about continuing to date other men:

Paula: Is there anything I can do for you tonight, before I go out?
Sharon: Why no, Paula. I'm going out tonight myself, but uh, thanks..
Paula: You, you mean you have a date?
Sharon: Oh, nothing special. Dick Owens, one of the fellows at the office, asked me out for dinner and a movie.
Paula: Sharon, baby, do you think you should go out with a man? I mean, so soon after your ordeal and all?
Sharon: So, I was raped. It happened six weeks ago. What do you expect me to do? Observe a year of mourning?
Paula: Baby, please, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to bug you or make you mad.
Sharon: Don't sweat it, Paula. Anyway, I don't have to worry about this square Dick. I don't think he's the raping type. It'll probably be a very dull evening.
Paula: All men have only one thing in mind.
Sharon: And that's what makes life so interesting.

As Paula was departing (and Sharon had finished a bath), they had another short and snippy exchange about their respective sexual orientations:

Sharon: Hey Paula, you are beginning to sound like my mother. I've been raped once this season. I'll try not to let it happen again.
Paula: OK, darling, to each his own. But I don't envy you fighting off men all night.
Sharon: Some of us, Paul-a, would rather fight than switch.

When Sharon's shy and nervous date, mama's boy and co-worker Dick Owens (Tom Hughes) arrived at the house, she flirted with him and offered him a drink. Upstairs while dressing to go out, she had an enticing idea - she invited Dick, with a beckoning finger, to climb up the spiral staircase to her bathroom. In front of a mirror with her robe exposing her breasts, she provocatively combed her hair - letting Dick have naked views of her when she removed her panties and entered the shower stall's bathtub for a second bath. Afterwards, she stood stark naked in her bedroom to non-chalantly dress in front of him. Then, she approached him to stroke and kiss his face.

A Temptress At Work: Flirty Sharon with Dick

He followed her into the bedroom and climbed on top of her, while she encouraged him to caress and kiss her. He removed her bra, and then began to unclip her garter and remove her panties when she began to protest:

"What do you think I am? Some two-dollar hustler?...You tried to rape me!...I'll call the police, you filthy rapist....They'll put you in jail where you belong. I'm a virgin!..You'll go to jail for rape! You'll lose your job! What do you think your mother will think of that? I'll fix you for this...RAPIST! RAPIST!"

Dick hastefully fled the room, and she chuckled when she heard the door slam. Shamed forever, Dick did not report for work the next day, and was soon replaced by Assistant Controller Lowell Carter (Neville Coward/Sam Melville), Sharon's next male target.

In her next conversation with Paula in their bedroom, seductress Sharon apologized for her rude bitchy behavior toward her:

Sharon: Paula, I'm sorry about the other night.
Paula: Forget it, honey. Sometimes I come on too strong.
Sharon: I can be such a bitch.
Paula: We all are. But that's just part of being female, I guess.

Paula offered to give Sharon a nude back massage to make her feel better. Paula went topless when she became overheated and then laid down next to Sharon while continuing to stroke her. Then, her lesbian overtures were suddenly and cruelly rejected by Sharon: "Cut, Paula, that's as far as we go....Get away from me, you, you pervert. Get out! Get out! Get out of this apartment before I call the police. You belong in an institution, you and all the rest of your kind...I only want never to see you again." Later, Sharon directly insulted her lesbian roommate: "Paula, I may be a bitch, but I'll never be a butch."

Paula's Nude Back Massage and Cuddling with Sharon
	Sharon: "I May Be A Bitch, But I'll Never Be A Butch"

Carter began dating and spending a lot of time with Sharon, but didn't pressure her for sex, although they often kissed and petted with her clothes off - without going all the way. He accepted the fact that they would have to wait. Hot and bothered, though, Carter's dreams were affected by his pent-up sexual energy - he erotically fantasized that she was tied half-naked at a stake, while he wielded a whip against her (drawing blood from her thighs). He also dreamed that he had become her sexual slave, and that she toplessly threatened him with a sharp knife.

When they finally decided to have sex, she strip-teased in front of him ("You like?"). They showered naked and then got in bed together after she led him on, but then she accused him of rape like all the others. He called her a "tease" - "I wouldn't touch you, you're worse than a disease." He left her for good as he threatened: "Get the hell out of here, tease! I'm gonna get a real woman tonight." She called after him: "Are you gonna rape her too?" He ran away from her and hurried down a dark street - haunted by erotic images of her sexy body.

Sharon's Ultimate Strip-Tease For Carter
Carter's Haunted Erotic Images of Sharon

Carter lustfully attacked another unidentified female as she entered her apartment. There, her screams came to the attention of her male partner (Larry Jones) in the next room, who reached for a gun and shot Carter to death.

The film ended with Sharon soon finding another victim, slick-haired band singer Tony (Bob Todd). While they were making out on a sofa, when she began to tease him and then abruptly claimed that they shouldn't go any further ("Not now...I'm a virgin!"), she also threatened rape and screamed.

Sharon With Tony

The chauvinistic male objected ("Are you putting me on, doll? I don't like it when chicks put me on"). When she further protested, he violently assaulted her - he slapped her, grabbed her head, beat it against a table, and then punched her face until she was bloodied:

OK, doll, you got the message? Now hear this, and hear me good, chick. Because if you don't, what you just got is only a sneak preview, dig? (He shook her) Starting now, like right now, what Tony says, little Sharon does! Dig? Like now, chick, dig? Clever girl. Now where was I? Oh yeah, I remember. (He forcefully kissed her - the camera pulled back and the screen turned black, as Tony presumably began to rape Sharon)

In the final image, Sharon stood on a street-corner as a hooker, with a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Mike Nichols' acclaimed debut film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) was an adaptation of Edward Albee's Broadway play, with a screenplay by writer/producer Ernest Lehman. It acquired an astounding 13 Oscar nominations and 5 wins - including its entire Oscar-nominated cast of four (also including George Segal and Sandy Dennis). In addition, it was a direct challenge to the anti-profanity clauses of the Hays Code.

The drama contained lots of things that the Production Code felt were violations:

• blasphemous, frank, raw profanity and curse words: such as "Up yours!," "goddamn," "for Christ's sake," "screw you," "bastard," "bugger," "plowing pertinent wives," "mount her like a goddamn dog," "Hump the Hostess," and "son of a bitch"
• sexual innuendo: the game "Hump the Hostess"

The MPAA ratings board gave the film a seal of approval after Warner Bros. appealed and made a few cuts of the most extreme profanity (such as "screw you"). It was the first film to be released with a "Suggested for Mature Audiences" warning, at a time when the new president of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, was implementing a new ratings system - to help handle sensitive and "mature" subjects.

It displayed brutal sexual tensions between its four characters in an all-night drinking fest, especially its sado-masochistic, loving-hating, vulgarities-spewing couple and their two dinner guests:

• Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), foul-mouthed, contemptuous, adulterous harridan, spewing gutteral sounds and a raging temper
• George (Richard Burton), the husband
• "Nick" (George Segal), a new professor
• "Honey" (Sandy Dennis), "Nick's" mousy wife