History of Sex in Cinema:
The Greatest and Most Influential
Sexual Films and Scenes

(Illustrated)

1973



The History of Sex in Cinema
Title Screens
Movie Title/Year and Film/Scene Description
Screenshots
 
Another Film With Christina Lindberg
 

Anita: Swedish Nymphet (1973, Swe.) (aka Anita, or The Shocking Account of a Young Nymphomaniac)

See also other entries for Christina Lindberg:

  • Diary of a Rape (1971, Swed.) (aka Exponerad, or Exposed)
  • Maid in Sweden (1971, Swed.) (aka The Milkmaid)
  • Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973, Swed.)

Breezy (1973)

This R-rated, May-December romance story was directed by Clint Eastwood - it was his third directed film, and the first one that he also didn't star in. Besides being a story of an intergenerational, age-disparity love, it also contrasted the establishment with the counter-culture of the time. The film's tagline hinted:

"A free spirit can awaken even the loneliest heart."

Troubled hippie and liberal, guitar-strumming free spirit Edith Alice "Breezy" Breezerman (Kay Lenz) became involved in an intergenerational affair with Frank Harmon (William Holden), a cynical, insecure middle-aged, divorced businessman - and a conservative real-estate broker in the LA area. At first, he had found the dark-haired brunette sleeping on his front porch. When she found herself in trouble with the law, she claimed that Frank was her uncle, and moved into his home when he gave his permission. As she changed her clothes, they talked in their characteristic fashion:

Breezy: "You know, this is like a page out of House Beautiful. You're a fake, you know it? You try very hard to be mean, but you're actually very nice."
Frank: "What makes you think I'm doing you a favor? I'm probably doing a service for the Board of Health."
Breezy: "Now, there you go again."

During their time together, their friendship of opposite types became a sexual love affair when he unexpectedly fell in love with the big-hearted Breezy. There were only a few instances of polite and acceptable nudity in the film, when they undressed in the dark before sex. And the next morning, he explained what he felt for her: "Concern for another human being, awareness of life, fantastic excitement when I touch you, an interest, a genuine interest in someone other than myself." He admitted he hadn't mentioned the word 'love' but she felt he loved her without saying it.

By the film's conclusion, he was bound by convention and his own insecurities after he and Breezy attended a cinema showing High Plains Drifter. Confronted by two couples that he knew in the lobby, he soon after broke off the relationship fearing that he was a laughing-stock and that he might hurt her. In a tense scene upon his return the next evening, he refused to stay for a home-cooked dinner that she had especially prepared for him. She was confused by his sudden reticence about the two of them, before she tearfully left:

Breezy: "Why are you throwing us away?"
Frank: "Breezy, there's no us. There never could be. Did you really think we could happen into something?"
Breezy: "I thought we already had happened."
Frank: "All we add up to is a dirty joke. You're the zing in my life, and I'm the best score you probably ever made. That's all."
Breezy: (astonished) "You don't believe that!?"
Frank: "OK, I can't cope with it. Let it go at that. I cannot cope with any of it."

Appearing regretful about his decision after being alone for awhile, and realizing how precious life was, he was able to reconcile with Breezy and walk off with her in a park in the finale:

Frank: "Hello, my love."
Breezy: "Hello, my life."
Frank: "I don't know, if we're lucky, we might last a year."
Breezy: "A year!? Just-just think of it, Frank, a whole year!"




Breezy (Kay Lenz)


Breezy with Frank

Coffy (1973)

After the success of the blaxploitation action film Shaft (1971), films targeted at inner-city black male audiences began to multiply on movie screens. This blaxploitation classic from writer/director Jack Hill was a soft-core, violent, female follow-up version of the earlier film. It was more palatable than Melvin Van Peebles' breakout film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971).

The violent and sadistic film beat two competing films to the screen:

  • Cleopatra Jones (1973) with Tamara Dobson as a female super-agent James Bond figure, directed by Jack Starrett
  • Death Wish (1974), the first Charles Bronson vigilante film

Pam Grier (in her first lead role and establishing herself as an African-American iconic figure) starred as free-spirited Nurse "Coffy" Coffin, one of the first female action stars in this gritty yet formulaic film. [Note: Because of this film's enormous success, Grier's next film from AIP Foxy Brown (1974) was fast-tracked.]

She portrayed a sexy, anti-drug vigilante-heroine, vengeful against despicable Vegas drug-dealers who caused the addiction of her 11 year-old sister. Coffy used her oversized revolver or sawed-off shotgun to kill drug suppliers and dealers. Coffy's "wildcat" character, often exhibiting immoral behavior to defeat her enemies, was advertised with the tagline:

She's the "GODMOTHER" of them all ... The baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town!

This sleazy R-rated film included heavy doses of sex and nudity, low-cut clothing, and for some viewers a confirmation of the stereotyped societal perception that blacks were sexual animals. Coffy often used her sexuality, posing as a prostitute, to lure suspected mobsters and underworld figures, and she fought off various pimps, pushers and prostitutes who were also promoting and using illegal substances.

Other Nudity in Coffy Besides Pam Grier
Prostitute Jeri (Lisa Farringer)
(Marilyn Joi) - uncredited

Director Quentin Tarantino judged it to be one of the top 10 greatest films ever made, and brought back Grier to star in his tribute film Jackie Brown (1997).




Coffy
(Pam Grier)

Don't Look Now (1973, UK/It.)

Director Nicolas Roeg's intense mystery/drama told the story of a vacationing married couple Laura (Julie Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) who were in Venice after the tragic accidental drowning demise of their daughter in England.

The film was most known for an explicit, frank, and honest three-minute love scene for its time, with the couple in their Venice hotel room (bathroom and bedroom) expressing their intimate and honest love for each other and reconnecting emotionally.

The scene was creatively edited - intercut and juxtaposed with their showering-bathing-dressing and preparations for going out to dinner. As they relaxed languorously together, she stated: "You've got toothpaste all over your mouth" to which he replied: "Eat if off" - she responded with a kiss, but told him: "I can't get it off."

She also playfully stroked his naked backside as they both stretched out on a bed to make love. He opened up her nightgown, caressed her chest, and they began to have oral and actual intercourse.

Laura (Julie Christie) and John (Donald Sutherland) - Simulated or Real?

The scene was so explicit (and seemingly real) that it had to be edited before the film's US theatrical R-rated release.





Laura
(Julie Christie)

The Exorcist (1973)

Academy-Award winning director William Friedkin created a frightening, horror film masterpiece with The Exorcist (1973), about a young 12 year-old girl entering puberty and womanhood, who also became possessed.

In fact, one of the most objectionable and blasphemous scenes was the sight on the Georgetown University campus of a white marble statue of the Virgin Mary. It had been desecrated with red paint and other materials, and taken on the appearance of a harlot. The defiled statue had long red-tipped breasts, red color on both hands, and an elongated, erect yet sagging penis-shaped clay protuberance also daubed in red.

Besides its sensational, nauseating, horrendous special effects involving Satanic-possessed Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) and her 360 degree head-rotation, the projectile spewing of green puke, etc., it also included many sexually-grotesque scenes, such as:

  • Urinating in front of party guests on a carpet-covered floor (her feet were framed by the camera)
  • In a long, purposely drawn-out, excruciatingly-torturous sequence with markedly sexual overtones of a 'deflowering' (and a foreshadowing of the eventual exorcism), Regan was prepared by medical assistants for an invasive arteriogram
  • Flailing and thrashing around on her bed, afflicted and possessed by some fantastic force, as her mother and others watched in horror; she screamed: "Oh please, Mother, make it stop! It's hurting"; Regan's eyes rolled backwards and her throat enlarged; when one of the doctors approached, she slapped him back-handed across the face, knocking him into the door and onto the floor; her physically-repulsive voice warned: "Keep away! The sow is mine!"; she pulled up the front of her nightgown, masturbated by rubbing herself, and in a deep, strange voice, beckoned: "F--k me! F--k me!"; she was held down and injected with a sedative
  • Forceful grabbing of a psychiatrist's crotch while being hypnotized and questioned in her own living room

One of the film's most horrifying scenes was next one - the notorious crucifix-masturbation scene, symbolically simulating the loss of virginity for the young teenager. The camera registered the horror on the face of Regan's mother as she saw her daughter's sacrilegious self-abuse. In an obscene gesture simulating masturbation, a horribly-disfigured Regan repeatedly thrust her bloodied hand clutching the crucifix into her vagina under her blood-splattered nightgown, as she bellowed obscenities in the Devil's voice: "Let Jesus f--k you, let Jesus f--k you! Let him f--k you!" [Note: The demon's voice was enhanced with various animal noises and other grotesque sounds.]

Regan MacNeil's (Linda Blair)
Infamous Crucifix-Masturbation Scene
Head Rotation

There was a struggle to get the cross out of Regan's super-strong arm and her mother tussled with her for control of the offending object. Regan held her mother's head down into her crotch and repeated: "Lick me!" - covering her mother's face in blood. Regan then punched her mother with a violent blow, sending her backwards across the bedroom floor. As a bloody-faced Regan sat on her bed, she spun her head backwards 180 degrees, threatening in a deep malevolent voice as she imitated the British accent of a dead family friend to taunt Chris about his murder: "Do you know what she did? Your c--ting daughter?"

In the grossest scene of the film, as Father Karras (Jason Miller) approached closer for an answer, Regan lurched forward on the bed and spewed bilious, pea-green soup vomit from her mouth in a single projectile stream directly into his face. The thick green slime stuck to his face and clothing. Bits of vomit and bile acid also dribbled down onto Regan's nightgown.


Desecrated Virgin Mary Statue

Urination on Rug

Invasive Examination

Possessed Regan
(Linda Blair)


"The sow is mine"

Pulling Up Dress and Rubbing Herself


Green Puke into Father Karras' Face

The Grande Bouffe (1973, Fr/It.) (aka La Grande Bouffe, or "The Big Feast (or Blow-Out)")

Co-writer/director Marco Ferreri's outrageous and decadent black comedy-drama was about group sex and unbridled gastronomic and sexual indulgence (as a satirical critique of the destructive nature of western capitalism and affluence). The theme has since been played out in two British films:

  • Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983, UK), in the Mr. Creosote sketch sequence
  • The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989, UK/Fr.), by director Peter Greenaway

The notorious NC-17 rated film was the improbable tale of four middle-aged, over-privileged playboys in a secluded villa in the French countryside (in the outer suburbs of Paris) for a weekend - all used their real names:

  • Ugo (Ugo Tognazzi), the chef, the owner of The Biscuit Soup restaurant
  • Michel (Michel Piccoli), a divorced, effeminate TV anchorman/executive, most likely a homosexual
  • Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), a sex-hungry, yet recently-impotent Alitalia airline pilot
  • Philippe (Philippe Noiret), a judge-magistrate, a diabetic

At Philippe's residence, they decided to commit suicide by eating themselves to death (and overindulging in sex) during a bacchanalian feast (with extravagant gourmet food, flatulence and scatological implications from an exploding toilet that sprayed feces onto Marcello and everywhere else). Truckloads of meat and produce were delivered, and a severed cow's head was hoisted into the air by Michel.

They began the festivities with a slide-show of vintage erotic porn-photographs while feasting (in a fast-eating contest) on oysters.

The men also invited three prostitutes who briefly joined them, including Danielle (Solange Blondeau), a blonde who was stripped naked and pelted with pieces of cake, followed by a food fight. She also allowed herself to be stimulated in the crotch (with the aid of the car's manifold) by Marcello. One of them who was soon to leave (before the others joined her soon after), called the four men "imbeciles, idiots, mental deficients."

Three Prostitutes
Danielle (Solange Blondeau)

They were accompanied throughout by buxom Andrea (Andrea Ferreol), a red-haired, debauched, corpulent, liberal-minded, and sexually-voracious local schoolteacher, who enjoyed gorging herself on both sex and food, and remained with them until the end.

The first to die was Marcello who was in the upstairs toilet/bathroom when his bowels ruptured and sent feces spraying everywhere. He froze to death outside in a snow storm while desperately trying to escape the villa, sitting in a Bugatti. Next, after playing the piano, Michel (with overstuffed intestines) stumbled to an outdoor terrace and collapsed. Thirdly, Philippe stuffed pate into dying Ugo's mouth as a weeping Andrea pleasured him through his pants' zipper - while he was laid out on a kitchen table.

In one of the last profligate scenes of engorgement that succeeded in the final death, Philippe who gorged himself on two enormous, breast-shaped mounds of pudding (with giant nipples). All of the corpses ended up in a deep freezer, in a completely undignified fashion.

Death Scenes of the Four Males

Marcello and Exploding Bowels

Michel's Death on Terrace

Ugo's Death on Kitchen Table

Philippe Eating Himself to Death


Vintage Porn Viewing While Gorging Themselves




Andrea
(Andrea Ferreol)



Danielle with Marcello

Danielle Pelted with Food


Gorged with Food

The Harrad Experiment (1973)

Director Ted Post's film was based upon Robert H. Rimmer's 1962 best-selling book published in 1966. Many versions of the film were severely edited and cut. The campus scenes were shot at the Busch estate in Pasadena, CA.

[Note: It was one of the first films of young 16 year-old Melanie Griffith (as an extra), daughter of Tippi Hedren, one of the film's stars. After meeting him on the set, Melanie went on to marry star Don Johnson in a short-lived one year marriage in 1976. She later re-married him in 1989 and divorced again in 1996).]

"The sex manifesto for the free love generation" was made during the sexual 'free-love' revolution of the 70s. It told about non-existent Harrad College run by Professor Philip Tenhausen (James Whitmore) and his liberated wife Margaret (Tippi Hedren) for "a controlled group experiment in pre-marital relations."

This infamous R-rated film included lots of full-frontal nudity (including brief glimpses of a nude Don Johnson), outdoor 7:30 am nude yoga in a large circle, group indoor swimming pool skinny-dipping, drug use, and more. As the large group of students held hands in a circle, they played a communications game - each person said “zoom” to the person next to them and the message was sent around the group.

Harrad Free-Love Experimental Activities
Naked Group Yoga Exercises

For one year in the experimental co-ed institution, two incompatible and mismatched young student couples were encouraged to have pre-marital "sexual intimacy" in order to encourage self-exploration. A male and female were paired together for a month (and afterwards free to change partners) - to practice what they had learned about pre-marital sex and anti-monogamous behavior. Almost immediately, Stanely began sexual flirtations with Beth who was uncomfortably paired with Harry.

The Co-ed Pairings
Stanley Cole
(long-haired Don Johnson)
open-minded and forward
Sheila Grove
(Laurie Walters)
very shy and reluctant, virginal, brunette
Harry Schacht
(Bruno Kirby)

inexperienced, insecure, and awkward, nerdy
Beth Hillyer
(Victoria Thompson)
alluring, experienced, outgoing blonde

Toward the film's conclusion, after Stanley had asked the head of the institution - Professor Tenhausen - why he and Margaret advocated non-traditional values while remaining monogamous, Margaret attempted to seduce Stanley by stripping down to her underwear in front of the main administration building. She attempted to call his bluff regarding his sexual bravado and encouraged them to make love on the open lawn - but Stanley was embarrassed and departed.

This film was followed by the sequel Harrad Summer (1974) (aka Love All Summer) with only Victoria Thompson and Laurie Walters reprising their roles.


The Paired Up Couples:
(l to r) Sheila, Stanley, Beth, and Harry


Stanley (Don Johnson)

Stanley's Shy Co-ed Roommate Sheila



Overweight Wilson (Elliott Street) and Barbara
(Sharon Taggart) Swimming Naked


Sheila Grove
(Laurie Walters)



Margaret Tenhausen
(Tippi Hedren) - Attempting to Seduce Stanley on the Open Lawn of the School

Lialeh (1973)

Writer/director Barron Bercovichy's blaxploitation flick (also noted as released in 1974), the first major black porn movie, was allegedly based upon Deep Throat (1972), and featured provocative taglines: "He's Slick, He's Hard, He's Bad...And That's Good For Lialeh!" and "Pink on the Inside, Black on the Outside." It was also advertised as the first Black XXX Flick ever made.

In the opening title sequence, legendary drummer-musician Bernard "Pretty" Purdie and his band performed one of their songs with explicit lyrics, "Sweet, Sweet Lialeh," as topless black dancer Lialeh (Jennifer Leigh) undulated around the stage. It was one of the rare instances when a mainstream musician contributed to an XXX-rated movie.

Lialeh was the name of the film's black female protagonist, who was part of an all-black sexual revue show promoted by Arlo (Lawrence Pertillar), who continually clashed with the club's exploitative, racist white owner Roger. Arlo's intent was to unleash his male and female strippers and their sexual parts: ("black tits, c--ts, dicks, pricks...") and transform them into a "big-time money-making show."

In the film's next-to-last sequence, Lialeh met with her Preacher (John D. Montgomery) after choir practice to discuss her lack of confidence and anxieties about her upcoming stage performance ("I have a show I have to sing Saturday, and I don't think I'm good enough"). When the minister returned from the bathroom, he was screaming for a doctor because his penis had become stuck in his zipper (pre-There's Something About Mary (1998)). Although he didn't demand sex, he allowed Lialeh and two of her dance friends to save him by stimulating him - and helping to dislodge his member from the zipper through fellatio - followed by sexual intercourse with Lialeh.

In the final scene of the stage revue, Lialeh continued her striptease into the seated audience, where she gladly accepted money tucked into her G-string by a black male, but then reproached a white male for doing the same thing: "That's a fiver, not a C-note!", and stuffed the money back into his open mouth.









The Naked Ape (1973)

This box-office and critical disaster (executive-produced by Hugh Hefner), directed by one-time Donald Driver, was an experimental, pseudo-docudrama and semi-animated Playboy magazine adaptation of the popular 1967 anthropological Desmond Morris book of the same name. The film's tagline was:

The Naked Ape is Only Human

This PG-rated sex comedy cult film, often with the mild nudity edited out, attempted to explain, in hip 70s fashion, the history of man's sexual urges and mating rituals. It was actually considered a "deft mixture of anthropology, animation, fantasy, and romance."

It starred ex-Mousketeer (and the 1950s TV western The Rifleman young co-star) Johnny Crawford as Lee - an evolved college student who still had very base, animalistic desires. His prime interest was for a classmate in his "Erotic Poetry and Prose" class:

  • Cathy (Victoria Principal, who posed nude in a six-page spread in Playboy Magazine, September 1973 issue, to advertise the film), a fellow college student, mini-skirted with white go-go boots

To the sound of applause of cheering classmates, they entered hand-in-hand through a door into the blackness of space, and together floated off as their clothes were inexplicably torn off - and then were making love in bed together, in a fantasy sequence. She asked Lee: "Do you know monkeys and apes don't fall in love?"

[Note: Following her disastrous appearance in the film, Victoria Principal claimed that her career crashed and burned. She had received a Golden Globe award for Most Promising Newcomer for her debut film the year before, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), but became the laughing stock of Hollywood -- until she took the role of Pamela Ewing for a new 1978 TV series called Dallas.]


Cathy
(Victoria Principal)



Nudity in Film's Publicity

Ricco, the Mean Machine (1973, It./Sp.) (aka Ricco, or The Cauldron of Death, or Some Guy with a Strange Face is Looking for You to Kill You)

This crime-action story by Spanish director Tulio Demicheli was released in the US (dubbed) in 1974 as a sleazy, exploitative, grindhouse film. Two of its taglines were:

Tender Flesh, Burning Acid
and
Pray It Doesn't Happen to You

It was a tale about a recent prison parolee (released a year early for good behavior), long-haired blonde hippie Ricco Aversi (Christopher Mitchum, Robert Mitchum's son), who was persuaded to seek revenge. He had been framed for assaulting sadistic Mafia head and drug lord Don Vito (Arthur Kennedy) after the brutal killing of his own chieftain father Gaspare (Luis Induni) (to take over the business), with a graphic shot to the head. Don Vito also snatched Ricco's sexy dancer girlfriend Rosa (Malisa Longo). Rosa (who frequently sunbathed topless) had become the traitorous moll of the mobster.

After Ricco's release, sister (Paola Senatore) didin't want him to seek revenge, but his still-suffering, wheel-chair-bound widowed mother did. First, Ricco confronted Rosa, who claimed that her new sex partner was "better than with you, a thousand times better." He slapped her back onto a bed, held her down, and asked: "Why, Rosa, why with Vito?" She barked back, "And why not? All of you are rubbish. My father, yours, all. At least he knows how to live." Ricco claimed he had spent two years thinking of her, and then kissed her - and she surrendered to him.

The often carefree and laidback Riccio went after the crime lord with the assistance of pretty, red-headed scam artist Scilla (Eurobabe Barbara Bouchet), the niece of one of his father’s old allies, a counterfeiter named Giuseppe (Angel Alvarez). She was introduced with T&A close-ups as she walked toward and then away from the camera, wearing skin-tight pants.

A T & A Introduction to Scilla (Barbara Bouchet)

In one of the film's sensational scenes, Scilla performed a memorably dreamy striptease in the fog in front of the mobsters' car. She then climbed onto their car's hood, and tantalizingly kissed them through the windshield before posing. Her ploy worked to lure the bad guys out of the car before Ricco tossed them off a bridge. After the ambush, she comfortably remained topless as she and Ricco drove away.

Scilla's (Barbara Bouchet)
Memorable Foggy-Dreamy StripTease

One of the film's posters described Ricco's and Scilla's combined efforts: "He's mellow and mad, but she's just plain bad. Together, they're the Mean Machine."

The film's main controversial gore-scenes involved the retaliatory switchblade castration and murder of one of Don Vito's untrustworthy bodyguards-assistants after he was caught having sex with the seductive Rosa. After being stripped and held down, his genitals (a fake-looking prosthetic) were grabbed (in a split-second shot), bloodily severed with a crude switchblade knife, and then pushed down his throat.

He was then tossed in a gurgling acid-bath vat in the mobster's soap factory, where close-ups of his face floating to the surface showed his skin burned and disintegrated (shortly later, faithless Rosa joined him (off-screen)).




Rosa (Malisa Longo)







Punishment: Severe Castration- Dismemberment

Sleeper (1973)

Actor/director Woody Allen's science-fiction satirical comedy classic and screwball comedy Sleeper (1973) was about the dystopian future in the year 2173.

The brave new world contained prophetic instances of robotic, mechanized sex substituting for or replacing human contact.

When nerdy jazz clarinet player and health food store co-owner Miles Monroe (Allen) woke up to the future 200 years later (after being cryogenically frozen), and disguised as a domestic servant robot, he encountered two convenient devices for quick sex:

  • the "Orb" - a cylindrical, silver colored, metallic sphere, known to induce intense pleasure (laughter); stored in a clear plastic case, it could be passed from guest to guest at parties

  • the "Orgasmatron" - a tall, round-shaped booth, large enough for two people to enter; once inside, the door slid closed, red and green lights alternately flashed, and individual(s) inside would rapidly experience an orgasm

When asked by socialite Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton), a greeting card composer, about using the Orgasmatron machine, Miles refused:

Miles: "I'm not getting into that thing. I'm strictly a hand operator, you know? I-I don't like anything with moving parts that are not my own."
Luna: "Sex is different today. You see, we don't have any problems. Everybody's frigid."
Miles: "Oh, that's, that's incredible. Are all the men impotent?"
Luna: "Yeah, most of them, you know, except for the ones whose ancestors are Italian."
Miles: "Oh, I knew there was something in that pasta." (He kissed her)
Luna (pointing): You want to get into the machine now?"

Later, when he hid in the machine from the Leader's red-uniformed security police guards, he was sexually-satiated when the door was opened.

The film ended with the famous "sex and death" line - his statement of beliefs after he declared that he didn't believe in science, political systems, or God:

"Sex and death. Two things that come once in a lifetime. But at least after death you're not nauseous."



The Orb


Orgasmatron Sex

Some Call It Loving (1973) (aka Sleeping Beauty)

Although this moody, pretentious and surreal, soft-focus art-house erotic film was savaged by US critics and was a complete flop, it actually gained a cult following (mostly in Europe) for its unique originality, bizarre nature and strangeness. It was written and directed by James B. Harris and based on John Collier's short story Sleeping Beauty. Its taglines were:

"He who wakes the sleeping beauty is in danger of awakening himself"
and
"The only act of its kind in the world. For sale"

In the slow-paced, hypnotic story, a lonely but fabulously-well-off, passive, tossle-haired jazz musician named Robert Troy (Zalman King, a soft-core filmmaker known for The Red Shoes Diaries, 9½ Weeks (1986), Two Moon Junction (1988) and Wild Orchid (1989)) benevolently purchased a carnival attraction known as "Sleeping Beauty" (Tisa Farrow, Mia Farrow's younger sister) for $20,000 (along with a van - marked with a "Sleeping Beauty" logo).

He had visited a kissing-booth sideshow of a sleeping female (an orphan who was being exploited and had been dormant for 8 years) attended by a doctor (the attraction's barker (Logan Ramsey)) and model-nurse (Pat Priest), where attendees (who paid $1 dollar) could offer up a kiss for another $1 to see if she could be awakened or aroused. After becoming immediately enamoured and obsessed with the comatose female, he just wanted to stare and gaze dreamily at her sleeping figure, although the 'doctor' offered that he could do whatever he wanted (implying sex) for $50, as long as he didn't take too long.

Afterwards, Robert (a "kept" man) drove the liberated sleeping girl, named Jennifer, to an oceanside Los Angeles, California baroque-styled chateau that he shared with two other mysterious bisexual girlfriends: his wealthy mistress-wife? Scarlett (Carol White) and blonde companion Angelica (Veronica Anderson), who were his lovers who often engaged in fantasy role-playing or sexual game-playing as fetishistic nuns or domestic maids, and were not as subservient as they appeared. [In one of the film's most unusual sequences, Robert's fetish about role-playing was evident at his jazz nightclub where he instructed pretty blonde waitress (Brandy Herred in her sole film role) to do an uncoordinated cheerleading pom-pom dance on stage, first topless and then completely naked.]

Cheerleader (Brandy Herred) Pom-Pom Dance

Once Jennifer woke up (after not being given a sedative or doping medicine on a regular basis), he attempted to introduce her, as a social experiment, to his world of debauchery and free love with Scarlett and Angelica, but at first, she was too naive, childlike, vulnerable, and innocent to engage in their lifestyle. Jennifer admitted to Troy (she always called him by his last name) that after being asleep for so long, it was difficult to distinguish dreams from reality. She immediately fell into idealized 'romantic love' with Robert, believing that she was happy and not wishing for anything to change. Then, temptress Scarlett began to train receptive Jennifer into becoming another plaything who would join in their kinky exhibitionism and dominant/submissive role-playing - moving beyond Robert and his ability to have her in a conventional, normal loving relationship.

Awakened - or disillusioned - by his new acquisition who couldn't fit into his idealistic view of love, a frustrated Robert returned her to her sleeping state and became her new barker in the sarcastic and tragic conclusion.




The Sleeping Beauty Jennifer (Tisa Farrow)

Scarlett (Carol White) and Angelica (Veronica Anderson)

Terminal Island (1973)

Director Stephanie Rothman's violent action thriller - a Roger Corman-styled 'drive-in' film, was originally designed as an exploitation film (similar to the sub-genre of women-in-prison films or WIP), although it has become a cult classic since. Rothman was notable as one of the first female drive-in directors. Her film has become famous, mostly because of the early appearance of a young Tom Selleck in one of the lead roles, seven years before Magnum P.I..

The low-budget story was about San Bruno Island (dubbed Terminal Island) located 40 miles off the coast of California, where violent and dangerous criminals (all first-degree murderers and death-row inmates) were sentenced (as "legally dead") to live for the rest of their lives (after the US government had abolished the death penalty). It opened with a new African-American detainee named Carmen Sims (Ena Hartman) being transported by a guard boat to Terminal Island.

Dozens of prisoners lived together in a makeshift compound, cruelly run by Bobby Farr (Sean Kenney) aided by a brutal black sidekick named Monk (Roger E. Mosley). The day's routine involved hard work at construction, cooking and plowing-gardening, while at night, the few females serviced the men on a regular basis:

  • Bunny Campbell (Barbara Leigh), beautiful but mute, dim-witted and traumatized (after murdering her father), and Bobby's favorite sex partner
  • Joy Lang (Phyllis Davis), slutty, a spouse murderer
  • Lee Phillips (Marta Kristen), brainy, incarcerated for a deadly bank bombing

[Note: A slight controversy was generated when outtakes and unedited footage from one of the film's two nude scenes was excerpted (without the actress' consent) in the direct-to-video compilation-documentary Famous T & A (1982) (see later).]

It soon became clear that a rival group of outcasts had developed and was hiding out elsewhere on the island, led by cop killer A.J. Thomas (Don Marshall). In a daring guerrilla-warfare plan, they kidnapped and liberated the females for themselves, although were more civilized in not forcing them to be sex slaves.

A bloody and lethal civil war between the two groups erupted, with A.J.'s heroic group intelligently devising poisonous darts and homemade explosive grenades. Although most of the inmates were killed in the conflict, including Bobby (who was burned to death in a fiery bunker explosion) and Monk who was blinded, the smaller rebel group was victorious.

In the final optimistic scene, junkie Dr. Norman Milford (Tom Selleck), convicted and imprisoned after illegally committing an assisted suicide (a "mercy killing"), decided to remain on the island (now hopefully more Utopian and less violent) even though he had been granted a retrial.



Bunny (Barbara Leigh) as a Sex Slave for Bobby


Joy (Phyllis Davis) Skinny-Dipping

Dr. Milford (Tom Selleck)

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (aka They Call Her One Eye, Hooker's Revenge, and Thriller - En Grym Film) (1973, Swed.)

This notorious and controversial Swedish violent revenge sexploitation film from writer/director Bo Arne Vibenius was advertised with the tagline:

"The Movie That Has No Limits of Evil. First They Took Her Speech...Then Her Sight...When They Were Finished, She Used What Was Left of Her For Her Own Frightening Kind of Revenge - THEY CALL HER ONE EYE"

Other exploitational rape-revenge films during the same era that sensationalized brutal revenge by wronged women included The Last House on the Left (1972) and I Spit On Your Grave (1978).

It was the first non-silent era Swedish film to be completely banned in its own country. Reportedly, Quentin Tarantino based his own Kill Bill, Vol 1 (2003) and Daryl Hannah's one-eyed killing character Elle Driver upon this tawdry, grindhouse snuff film.

It was repeatedly edited, and censored (and banned outside of Sweden) for its controversial rape and revenge themes and hard-core sex.

[Note: Allegedly, crude and explicit inserts of a body-double being penetrated vaginally and anally, and closeups of female genitalia were added to the film.]

After this film, star Christina Lindberg ended her acting career, as she refused to perform hardcore sex scenes and expressed discomfort over the use of explicit, full-penetration inserts being used for her characters.

The main character was completely mute Frigga (Christina Lindberg) (Madeleine in the English version) whose life was forever traumatized after a molestation-rape at a young age (Pamela Pethö-Galantai as young girl) by a derelict elderly man in a wooded area in the opening scene.

Fifteen years later, after missing her bus (to her therapist's office) one day, Frigga was given a ride from her farm to the city by smooth-talking pimp Tony Dill (Heinz Hopf). He took her to dinner and his apartment, where he drugged her. He saw her as a new prospect: "A new prospect, 110 pounds, a real beginner....In ten days, I'll have a fine new chick ready." He told her: "I like women who don't talk too much, but you set a new record." He hooked her on heroin (two shots a day) as a junkie and forced her into the abusive profession of prostitution. Her existence became overshadowed by sexual abuse, heroin addiction, and forced prostitution.

[Note: A similar story was first detailed three years earlier in Gustav Wiklund's roughie Exponerad (1971) (aka Diary of a Rape), also with Lindberg (in her third film).]

In the film's most infamous POV scene, Tony sliced into her left eyeball with a scalpel - reminiscent of Truffaut's Un Chien Andalou (1929) (the mutilation was performed on a fresh cadaver) shown in graphic close-up detail, when she refused to service her first john (an accountant) and clawed his face. She was forced to wear an eyepatch that changed color (from pink to red to black, to match her mood) as the film progressed. She was abused numerous times - including by a twisted photographer, a male demanding sex (including X-rated, hard-core inserts of sexual intercourse), and a domineering lipstick lesbian (Despina Tomazani).

Madeleine (Christina Lundberg) Abused by a Twisted Photographer
Forced Intercourse with a Sex Buyer
Abused by a Domineering Lipstick Lesbian (Despina Tomazani)

She was stunned to learn that her parents committed suicide on account of her (after reading a faked and hateful letter that she was forced to sign, that claimed that she hatefully deserted them). She saw their caskets carried from the farm in a funeral march. She turned (during her time-off on Mondays) to training herself for self-defensive revenge (buying weapons, taking driving lessons, and firearms and martial arts training, etc.). Her determination to seek revenge became intensified when she was told that another sex-slave worker named Sally (Solveig Andersson) had left for another job in Beirut, but then discovered bloody evidence that suggested Sally had been murdered by Tony in her bed because she was making plans to escape.

Completely wordless, she resorted to graphic and violent blood-letting retaliation (mostly filmed in slow-motion) as long, dark leather coat-wearing "One Eye" (against her vile male clients and the lesbian trick) with a sawed-off shotgun. Tony learned of her retaliation and hired two hitmen-thugs to eliminate her: "Madeleine shot two of her customers. Set a trap for her and then take her for a drive. She is not to be found again." Madeleine was ready for their ambush and shot and killed the two hitmen in a harbor warehouse, and then assaulted the two policemen called to the scene. She stole their police car and drove off to pursue Tony, but lost him when the roadway was blocked.

She decided to mail Tony a letter - he reacted angrily to her suggested duel-challenge after receiving it: "She's challenged me to a duel. I get to choose the weapons. She should be in a nuthouse. Now she's gonna get what's coming to her. I'll get her once and for all." Madeleine drove to a windswept deserted field outside of the city and awaited Tony's arrival. When he appeared, he exited from his car, sporting a semi-automatic gun stuffed into the back of his pants. He entreated her:

"Put down the gun, and let's talk about this. It's just a misunderstanding. What kind of nonsense is this? Put down the rifle. Madeleine, please."

When she laid down her shotgun and ammunition bag, he reached for his concealed gun and threatened her: "You f--king whore! Thought you could fool me, huh? Damn slut. Which knee should I blow away first? F--king whore!"

With a trip wire, she activated an explosive roman candle that she had positioned earlier in a nearby wall, in order to distract him. At the same time, she reached for her pistol, shot him once in the leg, and then approached and shot him again in the same leg two more times. She tied a rope around his waist that was attached to a draft horse that she led down the dirt road, dragging Tony behind. Tony was buried up to his head in a rock pile, where she placed a noose around his neck that was tied to the horse. She calmly watched from a distance as the horse (moving toward a bucket of apples) slowly decapitated and pulled off Tony's head (off-screen). She returned to the stolen police car and drove away.

Show-Down Against Tony - Exacting Revenge by Slow Decapitation

Young Frigga/Madeleine Accepting Ride From Tony

Tony
Dill (Heinz Hopf)





Eye Mutilation - Punishment for Disobedience


Heroin Addicted






Initial Revenge of "One Eye" - Death to Her Abusers and Hit-Men


Turkish Delight (1973, Netherlands) (aka Turks Fruit)

Dutch director Paul Verhoeven's film (collaborating with cinematographer Jan de Bont in his debut film) was a frank, provocative, vulgar and controversial work about love, free-spirited sex, intimacy and loss/death.

It was Oscar-nominated as Best Foreign Language Film (defeated by Francois Truffaut's Day For Night), and in 1999 was voted as the "Best Dutch Film of the Century" in the Nederlands Film Festival.

This sexually-explicit yet non-exploitative psychodrama was told as a series of flashbacks. It opened with the main character lying naked on his bed and recalling two violent dream revenge fantasies involving his ex-lover and her new boyfriend. He pictured himself on two occasions angrily and brutally bludgeoning the man, and then shooting the female in the middle of her forehead - and also strangling her.

Raw and angry sexuality were exhibited when he searched in a box of sexual mementos, and stuck a photo of his ex-beloved nude girlfriend on a wall and then masturbated toward her, moaning: "I'll lick the s--t from your ass!" as he climaxed.Then, he sought a random woman for a rough bout of purgative sex in his unkempt studio, and after bruising love-making, he presented her with a hand-drawn line depiction of his large penis, to remember him by.

As a hitch-hiker, he forced himself to be picked up by Josje in a convertible, and when he took her back to his place for sex, the first thing he did was cut off a swatch of her thick pubic hair, and glued it into his book of sexual mementos. There were more lovers for quick sex, including a young mother with a baby in a carriage, and another who was thrown out into the street naked when she spitefully criticized his box of mementos under his bed.

It was then revealed that two years earlier, he had been in a fateful, tempestuous relationship involving himself and another star-crossed lover:

  • Erik Vonk (Rutger Hauer in his screen debut), a promiscuous libertine and bohemian, selfish and rebellious, a Dutch sculptor living in a squalid Amsterdam apartment
  • Olga Stapels (19 year-old Monique van de Ven), his uninhibited, erratic, highly-sexual, but mentally-unstable, somewhat childish partner/wife

He met Olga when she was driving her father's Rolls Royce and she picked him up at the side of the road. They parked and immediately had sex, awkwardly honking the horn and activating the windshield washer. As he zipped up his fly after their roadside quickie, he experienced a painful, pre-There's Something About Mary incident that caught his penis in his zipper. She drove to a remote farmhouse to borrow a pair of pliers to separate him from his pants. They returned the bloody implement to the astonished farmer. Shortly later, he distracted her driving, and they had a serious car crash that injured both of them.

The remainder of the entire film surveyed his life and their relationship, much of which involved torrid sex.

Erik (Rutger Hauer) and Olga (Monique van de Ven)

There were many instances of sex and casual nudity between them, and she became the real love of his life, although she eventually tired of his sexual prowess, and his constant one-track mind and demands for sex. Erik was sex-obsessed and had boasted: "I f--k better than God." She rebelled by leaving him.

Controversial elements, with often harsh language, included:

  • Erik's obsessive and perverse production of sexually-oriented art, including a private collection of sexual mementos (nude pictures and pubic hair souvenirs from his sexual conquests)
  • Full frontal nudity of both sexes, including the scene of the two dancing, stripping her, and kissing her nude belly as he looked up at her; he often expressed an obsessive interest in her bodily fluids - in her urine and defecated toilet feces (once reddish with blood)
  • Maggots on Olga's naked breasts
  • Deathbed scene of Olga's father

Everything culminated with a brief reunion and tragic Love Story ending, when he attended the mentally unstable and dying Olga at the hospital (suffering from a brain tumor) and fed her turkish delight, his final gift.


Erik (Rutger Hauer)

Masturbation Toward Photo in Opening Scene


Random Sex with Pick-ups

Sexual Mementos Scrapbook

Zipper Incident





Olga (Monique van de Ven)

War Goddess (1973, It.) (aka The Amazons, or Le Guerriere Dal Seno Nudo, translated The Warriors with Naked Breasts)

The film's director was famed Terence Young (known earlier for Wait Until Dark (1967) and the director of three early Bond films). Young's film was an early, low-budget, exploitative campy Spanish/French/Italian sword-and-sandal feature and a costume drama (with superb production values). Its taglines included:

"When Women Ruled the Earth"
and
"Women Warriors as Sensuous as they are Savage. Women Rulers as Passionate as they are Powerful"

It was released in 1974 in the US by American International Pictures (AIP), and featured two Amazonian war goddesses (also lesbians) of the fierce all-female clan - both sisters and often unclothed (hence the film's title!):

  • Orytheia (French actress Sabine Sun - wife of the director), a butchy fiery red-head
  • Queen Antiope (Alena Johnston), a blonde Amazonian bombshell
Orytheia and Queen Antiope
Orytheia (Sabine Sun)
Amazon Queen Antiope (Alena Johnston)

The film featured two amazing wrestling scenes (the first topless, the second completely nude). The earlier topless fight was to determine the society's next queen leader - and Antiope won. [Note: Young featured another female wrestling scene in his earlier Bond film, From Russia with Love (1963).]

In preparation for their second bout that was to regain supremacy of the Queenship, Orytheia's naked lesbian hand-maiden assisted her with a liberal application of sacred "ceremonial oil." Then, she and Queen Antiope began their epic catfight, both completely naked and battling during a lightning storm.

Ceremonial Pre-Wrestling Match Oiling (Lesbian)

Exhausted from their lengthy struggle, the two fell into each other's sweaty and oily embrace, became intimate and ultimately kissed.

Also in the story, to provide progeny for the tribe, tribe members would meet up with Greek soldiers for annual mating. Buxom, man-hating Queen Antiope was forced to dutifully mate with Greek king Theseus (Angelo Infanti), and as he stroked her bountiful breasts, she reacted nervously and they had this strange conversation:

Antiope: "Do you ever practice Oriental concentration?"
Theseus: "Well, only when I'm with Orientals."
Antiope: "Well, it accentuates the emotions. Did you know that?"
Theseus: "Oh, yes, I know, I'm sure it does."
Antiope: "You know, when I reach the apex of concentration, I'm even capable of killing."
Theseus: "Yes, but do the opposite now. Like one of our Greek poets has said, 'Let's make love, not war.'"

Uncharacteristically, she was surprised when she enjoyed the experience and ultimately fell in love.


The First Match-Up (Topless)




Epic Wrestling Match-Up (Naked)



Sex Match-Up

Antiope Love-Making with Greek King Theseus

The Wicker Man (1973, UK)

Director Robin Hardy's suspenseful, mysterious and erotic folk horror-occult film was an R-rated classic thriller. [Note: It was remade (with less sex but more violence) by Hollywood, starring Nicolas Cage in the role of the Scottish police officer, The Wicker Man (2006), directed by Neil Labute.] Its tagline described the double lure of sex and death:

Flesh to touch...Flesh to burn! Don't keep the Wicker Man waiting!

It told about a sexually-repressed, self-denying, virginal and devoutly religious Scottish policeman Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward). He was engaged in a search for missing young 12 year-old schoolgirl Rowan Morrison (Geraldine Cowper) after an anonymous tip in a letter.

He believed that the alleged kidnapped victim was to be a potential virgin sacrifice (the May Queen) on May Day by openly-sexual pagan worshippers and inhabitants of the remote Scottish island of Summerisle, who worshipped the pagan teachings of leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee).

The island was inhabited by townsfolk who worshipped older gods and practiced open sexuality:

  • couples copulating in a graveyard
  • women dancing naked in a circle around a ceremonial fire in a Stonehenge setting; various fertility rites
  • a sexy librarian (Ingrid Pitt) bathing
  • frank discussions in school about phallic symbols, such as the Maypole

The film included the much-discussed scene of the innkeeper's sensual daughter Willow MacGregor (Britt Ekland) attempting to entice Howie. At first as she laid in bed and pounded the wall behind her with her right hand, she sang about "the things I'll give to you...the things I'll show to you." Rising from the bed, she strolled to the door and pounded against it, as she writhed naked. [The full body scenes of Ekland seen from the rear were performed by body double Jane Jackson.] She also stroked a statue before going to her window and also striking its frame. She was soon striking other objects in the room such as furniture and the wall to further drive him insane.

The Sensual Innkeeper's (Britt Ekland) Daughter's Dance

He learned about virginal fire sacrifices inside a giant, hollow wicker-constructed figure of a man, where he suffered his own fate - after not having succumbed to the fleshly temptations provided by Willow.


Copulation in Graveyard


Sexual Rituals

Librarian
(Ingrid Pitt)

Sex in Cinematic History
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