History of Sex in Cinema: 1982 |
1982 Academy Awards Nominees There were an astonishing number of cross-dressing, gender-reversed, transvestite performances and roles with confused sexual identities among the 1982 Academy Awards nominees (all lost their bids), highlighted by the following:
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Tootsie (1982) Victor/Victoria (1982) The World According to Garp (1982) |
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The Beach Girls (1982) This silly, R-rated coming-of-age teen sex comedy by director Pat Townsend of the early 80s (with a subplot about drugs) was typical of "drive-in" type films. Its tagline described the setting:
It exhibited numerous sexual innuendoes and slapstick as an excuse to glimpse the nudity (called T & A shots), mostly of the two partying college coeds - the "Beach Girls" of the film's title, in Southern California:
It also included various other scenes such as spying on nude sunbathers, topless sunning on a boat deck, half-naked chicken-fights at a pool party, a sexy dope-smoking sauna scene, and the sexual awakening or loosening of an uptight, naive, and virginal nice-girl Sarah (Debra Blee in her film debut) who went topless at film's end. [See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."] |
Redhead (Jeanette Linne) Sarah (Debra Blee) |
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The Beastmaster (1982) This low-budget romantic fantasy sword and sorcery adventure by director Don Coscarelli soon became a revered cult film, and was created to capitalize on the trend for these films following Conan the Barbarian (1982). The tagline described the title character: "Born with the courage of an eagle, the strength of a black tiger, and the power of a god." Also, "The epic adventure of a new kind of hero." There were two sequels also:
Its main draw was not the handsome and muscular Beastmaster Dar (Marc Singer) but minor female star Tanya Roberts, TV's Charlie's Angels star (for one season) and future That '70s Show cast member.
She was introduced as sexy temple slave girl Kiri - viewed from afar in a nude swimming scene with a companion by the Beastmaster, who fell in love with her at first sight. He sent his ferrets (Podo and Kodo) to steal her top from the shoreline. She soon became his love interest as he went on a quest for revenge.
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Kiri (Tanya Roberts) |
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Butterfly (1982) Writer-director Matt Cimber adapted his trashy film from James M. Cain's 1947 potboiler novel The Butterfly - a love story. The low-budget film, made for $2 million, was financed by the female star's Israeli millionaire casino owner/husband Meshulam Riklis. It was tauted with this tagline:
Voluptuous, baby-faced, one-time child actress Pia Zadora won two contradictory awards for her role in this melodramatic drama:
She starred alongside Stacy Keach, Johnny Carson's Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon, Stuart Whitman (as a fire and brimstone preacher), James Franciscus and Orson Welles (as lecherous Judge Rauch), among others. See also Zadora's The Lonely Lady (1983) The film told about a "Lolita-esque" 17 year-old sexpot named Kady (Pia Zadora) who in the opening scene - wearing a flimsy low-cut dress - was hitchhiking in 1937 to Good Springs on the Arizona-Nevada border. The pouty, baby-faced female located the shack of hermit miner Jess Tyler (Stacy Keach), left guarding an abandoned Nevada silver mine. When he asked: "Miss...somethin' you want?" She replied: "How can I tell 'til I know what ya got?" Kady told him "I'm lookin' for you," and added that she was "just somebody you might like to know." She drank fresh creamy milk from a dipper, provocatively claiming: "I like it warm with foam on it." Ten years earlier, Kady had been taken away by his alcoholic ex-wife Belle Morgan (Lois Nettleton) when she deserted him, set up a boarding house for "lusty miners," and permanently ran off with Moke Blue (James Franciscus). [Now, Belle was stricken with terminal tuberculosis.] Kady asked Jess: "Don't it get lonely out here? Or is just milking that cow good enough for you?" She told her estranged father that she was his long-lost, daughter Kady. After delivering a child out of wedlock a month earlier (an infant son named Danny) and with "nowhere to go," Kady went looking for him, boldly declaring to "keep you from being lonely. I come to stay with you." That evening, she enticingly undressed behind a sheet hung up as a room divider. The next morning, she told him that the father of her own illegitimate child was a spoiled rich kid named Wash Gillespie (Edward Albert), the silver mine owner's (Ed McMahon) son, who had impregnated and then abandoned her when she started "swelling." She claimed that she was owed a share of the Gillespie silver mine, hoping to become rich ("I want more for me and for my baby. I want good things for us, and if that's bad, then I wanna be bad!") - and she soon enticed him to chip away at the silver in the mine if she stayed. The film's most notorious scene was a bathtub scene in which Tyler helped bathe his alluring "daughter" in a metal tub, to relax after mining all day. As she dipped herself naked into the tub, she told him: "Feels good. Is it gonna be like this every day? Hurtin' all over and not a thing to show for it?" Kneeling behind her, he massaged her shoulders ("You got good hands") and then squeezed and cupped her full breasts. But then he pulled back: "It ain't right," although she reassured him as a grown woman: "What's wrong? It feels good to me. Does it to you?...It's right if it's good." When he protested, "but you're my daughter, Kady," she added: "And I'm a woman, too." She held his arm under the water as he touched her sexually between her legs, but he further resisted. Although the film hinted at their incestuous relationship, it turned out - in the complex family tree - that Jess wasn't her father after all. When Jess' older daughter Janey (Ann Dane) appeared at the shack with the infant Danny, and Moke and Belle also arrived, Moke announced that he was taking Kady away. When Jess caught Moke stealing silver from the mine, he also learned that the despicable womanizer was Kady's father, and young Danny was also Moke's grand-son (both shared a tell-tale hereditary butterfly-shaped birthmark near their bellybutton that was passed on through the male lineage) [the incest theme again, although displaced]. In anger, Jess shot and killed Moke in the mine. Then, the wedding between Wash and Kady was unexpectedly called off - Kady didn't know that Jess had told the Gillespie parents about Danny's true heritage. Kady now realized her real goal: "I don't want nothin' from the Gillespies but what I came here for in the first place - the silver." Jess obliged her and excitedly promised to resume digging. When the prelude to their 'incestual coupling' at the entrance to the mine was witnessed (while she still believed that Jess was her father, although he knew she wasn't his "blood"), the sheriff arrested Jess for incest. A trial was held for their "crime against nature." Kady pleaded with Judge Rauch:
But it was to no avail until Jess revealed Kady's true fathering ("She's not my daughter") to the court's (and Kady's!) astonishment. Jess also told her of his own true love: "I wanted to be everything I could to you, because I love you." After the case was dismissed, she decided to drive off with Wash in a luxurious convertible ("he can give Danny everything he needs or wants"), and then consoled forlorn-looking Jess outside the courtroom with a kiss:
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Kady (Pia Zadora) |
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Cat People (1982) Director Paul Schrader's updated version of this horror classic was a kinky, moody remake of the Val Lewton classic Cat People (1942). It was advertised as "an erotic fantasy for the animal in us all." Its main dualistic character was waifish, timid, green-eyed, pouty-lipped Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) who possessed a feline heritage and animalistic tendencies - she was also virginal and sexually-frustrated. The film remade the eerie swimming pool scene - now modernized with topless swimmer Alice Perrin (Annette O'Toole) in an indoor pool being terrorized by cat-like Irena. The feline female was often exhibited naked, especially during a nude nocturnal wandering scene in the woods, where her primal instincts were exhibited as she attacked a rabbit. 34 year-old New Orleans zoologist Oliver Yates (John Heard) fell in love with her and was obsessed by her, although she feared what would happen if they made love, and asked: "Would you love me just as much, if we, if we could never sleep together?" She claimed: "I'm afraid for you."
After making love for the first time with Oliver, Irena rose in the middle of the night from their bed and went to the bathroom, where she felt between her legs and discovered blood. Upon returning to bed, the blood flow had an effect upon her, and she turned leopard-like, with yellow-eyes and claws, and was transformed into a snarling black leopard. When Oliver begged for his life: "Please, Irena," she jumped off the balcony into the woods, and saved him from certain death. Later claiming that she loved Oliver, she begged for him to kill her - or free her, and then asked: "Make love to me again." She also added: "I want to live on my own." He lowered his gun after she stripped fully naked in front of him behind a window frame, and they engaged in a spread-eagled bondage scene. He tied her arms and legs to the bedposts so that her claws wouldn't injure him. He mounted her and they engaged in ferocious and ravenous out-of-control sex, as the scene faded to black. Shortly thereafter, the film ended with Irena captive as a leopard in the zoo under the care of Oliver. |
Alice Perrin (Annette O'Toole) Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) |
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Deathtrap (1982) Director Sidney Lumet's twisting and convoluted dark comedy contained one of the first openly-portrayed acts of homosexuality on screen - in a straight-on kissing scene between two homosexuals:
Reportedly, the producers claimed that a Time Magazine expose caused the film to lose a considerable amount of revenue ($10 million) due to negative publicity and spoiling the plot - therefore, the kiss was dubbed "the $10 Million Dollar Kiss." Christopher Reeve described the kiss:
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Demon Seed (1982) (aka Dark Eyes, or Satan's Mistress, or Fury of the Succubus) This low-budget, drive-in horror sexploitation grindhouse film from director James Polakof was the lesser precursor to director Sidney J. Furie's The Entity (1982) with Barbara Hershey in the lead role - both female leads in the two films were sexually-frustrated housewives. It was filmed in 1978, but not released until 1982 - with many title variations for differing audiences. Demon Seed tried to draw in audiences by promoting its two Bond girls stars:
It was advertised with the tagline (with a grammatical error!):
Other taglines gave away the plot: "She was dead, but her lust lived on," and "Her wildest dreams are about to come true," and "When Erotic Dreams Turn Into a Nightmare Reality...There's Hell to Pay!" In the opening filmed with a dark bluish tone, an unidentified woman found herself running in a sheer negligee through California's Pacific Ocean beach waves, as she was pursued by a dark-clothed maniac with a hood. In the dreamy vision, her breasts bounced and flew out of her nightgown. She ran to her secluded beachhouse - where she awoke screaming and horribly frightened. Title cards explained:
The female was identified as:
Lisa often woke at night, totally naked and frightened, with the lights flickering. As she showered, she also saw visions of a ghostly, voice-less Satanic Spirit (Kabir Bedi) reflected in the shower-tile wall. Soon, she fantasized that she was engaging in nightly sexual/rape encounters or trysts that she actually began to enjoy after her initial carnal contacts. Lisa ultimately became obsessed with the supernatural lover and further distanced from reality. Her spiritual psychic medium Anne-Marie (Britt Ekland) and investigator, married to Carl (Don Galloway), attempted to help her. Eventually, Anne-Marie's husband was decapitated with a guillotine located in the basement. |
Lisa (Lana Wood) Possessed |
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Famous T & A (1982) In the mid-80s, before the advent of the Internet, one of the most popular print magazines was titled Celebrity Skin. It specialized in exhibiting photos, screenshots (from movies and TV) and other images of nude and semi-nude celebrities. This film - with a similar goal to highlight famous T & A shots of famous individuals, was assembled by Charles Band and producer/director Ken Dixon. The direct-to-video documentary compilation of famous nude scenes from cinema was advertised as: "Seductive Celebrity Skins Bared Beyond Belief!" It was subtitled: "A Rare Look at the Bare Beginnings of Today's Stars." However, it was hardly a quality film, with scratchy clips, off-putting narration, and some filler material of unidentifiable females. It began with a scrolling list of the film's stars that would be exposed (plus many others), with notations here of which films were showcased for clips:
The film's special guest hostess and narrator, Sybil Danning (scantily-clad in a shiny gold, gladiatorial outfit of tin-armor, and wielding a thigh-sheathed sword), introduced the objective of the film:
Most of the footage was either from trailers, excised clips, or other archival footage, and some were seen multiple times (as different takes of the same scene).
[Note: The producers ran into trouble when they used unedited out-take footage from Terminal Island (1973) without Phyllis Davis' permission (including a full-frontal shot not in the film itself).] |
Sybil Danning (Narrator) Ornella Muti in Flash Gordon (1980) Ursula Andress in The Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978) |
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Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) Director Amy Heckerling's superior 80s high-school coming-of-age sex comedy (scripted by Cameron Crowe who went undercover in a San Diego high school for material) was originally rated X during the conservative early 1980s, before editing out a full-frontal male view in the poolhouse scene, and excising an abortion scene. It was the frank story of Southern California (Los Angeles area) teens preoccupied by sex - with some scenes of unglamorous sex (especially for the female involved) and promiscuity. Some of the most notable characters were surfer-slacker Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) and his exasperated US history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston). The film opened almost immediately with a controversial scene in a crowded school cafeteria between two high-school students:
Linda gave her friend Stacy a 'how-to' lesson with a carrot on the best way to deliver "blow jobs" to a guy:
The naive Stacy then asked: "When a guy has an orgasm, how much comes out?" Linda revealed her tendency to exaggerate: "A quart or so," but then claimed she was just kidding. That night - to the tune of Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby" - Stacy snuck out for a date at the Point with 26 year-old home stereo salesman Ron Johnson (D.W. Brown). Once in a dilapidated baseball dugout, he asked: "Am I gonna get to first base?" and then wondered if the innocent-looking Stacy was really 19 years old as she claimed. From her realistic point of view during her painful and uncomfortable deflowering, she looked up at the graffiti-covered ("SURF NAZIS") concrete walls. The next day at school, she told Linda that "it hurt so bad," and was advised: "Don't worry. Keep doing it. It gets a lot better, I swear." Although she received a bouquet of red flowers from Ron, he didn't keep in contact with her, and Linda comforted her friend at Perry's Pizza parlor where they worked in the Ridgemont Mall: "It's his loss." As they sunbathed together at the start of the film's most memorable pool scene, Linda claimed she always climaxed with her older boyfriend Doug: "He's no high-school boy." When Stacy's brother, senior-year Brad (Judge Reinhold) came home, he experienced a fantasy dream-girl view of Linda at poolside as he masturbated in the pool-side bathroom. In his mind, he saw sexually-liberated Linda emerging from the pool, speaking seductively: "Hi, Brad! You know how cute I always thought you were" before opening her bright red-bikini top from the middle in slow-motion as she walked over to him and toplessly kissed him (to the tune of The Cars' hit "Moving in Stereo"). In reality, however, she dove into the pool and embarrassingly interrupted his excitement by barging into the bathroom and catching him pleasuring himself ("Doesn't anybody f--king knock anymore?" he asked himself). The scene has regularly been voted as one of the sexiest scenes ever filmed in the 80s - and of all-time.
Soon after, Stacy had a second awkward and quick sexual experience with smooth-talking Mike Damone (Robert Romanus) in her own pool's outdoor changing room. After he kissed her and she was complimented, "You're really a good kisser," she asked: "You want to take off your clothes, Mike?" He responded: "You first." She decided: "Both of us at the same time." After stripping off her top and her panties and lying down on a sofa, he laid on top of her and quickly climaxed during love-less sex, causing her to ask: "Are you OK?" He said he had come, then hurriedly left ("See ya!") as she sat up and looked bewildered, used, and hurt. The next day, she unabashedly lied to Linda (as they both sliced a large phallic-shaped slab of salami) about how long Damone took: "15 to 20 minutes." She was assured when Linda said: "That's not bad for a high school boy." However, intercourse had resulted in Stacy's pregnancy, and Mike had no interest in taking responsibility: "It was your idea. You wanted to do it. You wanted it more than I did." Stacy arranged for an abortion at the Free Clinic for $150, but Mike reneged in splitting the fee and offering a ride. Eventually, Stacy discovered the truth about sex: "I don't want sex. Anyone can have sex....I want a relationship. I want romance" and she had the possibility of fulfilling her wish with nerdy Mark "Rat" Ratner (Brian Backer) by film's end, with whom she had a "passionate love affair --- but still haven't gone all the way." [See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."] |
Linda (Phoebe Cates) and Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) Linda (Phoebe Cates) Stacy: Sex in a Dugout Sex in a Pool House Also With Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) |
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Friday the 13th, Part 3 (1982) This second sequel in the popular slasher/horror film series, Friday the 13th, Part 3 (1982), lived up to the premise that sex led to death. It was particular true about two lovers at a lakeside cabin called Higgins Haven near the notorious Crystal Lake:
The two had just finished making love in a hammock ("That was the best one yet...Was it you, me, or the hammock?"). Afterwards, Debbie took a shower behind a sheer plastic curtain, and Andy was walking on his hands in the hallway to get some "brew" for them, when he saw the hockey-masked figure of the killer (Richard Brooker) (never named "Jason Voorhees" in the film) in front of him, threateningly raising a thick-bladed machete above him. Andy was split in half (from his crotch to his torso) with the machete and his mangled corpse was wrapped around the rafters. The killer entered the bedroom after Debbie had bathed, where she was lying on the hammock, reading a Fangoria Magazine. Blood splattered from Andy's body above her onto the magazine page. Then, a hand grabbed Debbie's head from beneath the hammock and forced her head back, as a machete was thrust through her back, piercing through her chest. Downstairs in the kitchen, when Chuck (David Katims) was asked about the source of screaming that his girlfriend Chili (Rachel Howard) had heard in the house, he quipped: "It's probably Debbie having an orgasm" - he then asked her: "How come you never scream when we have sex?," to which she retorted: "Give me something to scream about." |
Debbie (Tracie Savage) and Andy (Jeffrey Rogers) Debbie Andy's Murder Debbie's Murder |
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The Last American Virgin (1982) Writer/director Boaz Davidson's above-average film in this teen film sub-genre was the American remake of his own Eskimo Limon (1978, Israel), although it was now set in Los Angeles. Its tagline: "There's only one thing left to lose," communicated that it was obviously about horny male adolescents looking for love/sex, although it also tackled the sensitive issues of unrequited love (in a love triangle) and abortion. In the film's subplots, there were the usual hijinks for these kinds of juvenile films:
The movie's main dramatic scenes involved cute, curly-haired, good-girl Karen (Diane Franklin) who became pregnant after having sex with shallow, hedonistic boyfriend Rick (Steve Antin) under the school's bleachers (to the tune of The Commodore's "Oh No")
Rick dumped her when he found out about her condition. She had to seek a $250 abortion after a doctor's examination (in the nude), paid for by her nice-guy, socially-awkward, sensitive and infatuated good friend Gary. Unbeknownst to her, Gary had sold some of his possessions and borrowed money in a montage/abortion sequence (to the tune of U2's "I Will Follow"). In the downbeat, unexpected, tearjerking unhappy ending, after he had saved and taken care of Karen for the weekend in his grandmother's empty house and expressed how much he loved her and embraced her (and was planning on giving her a birthday present of a gold-heart locket with To Karen With Love inscribed on the back), she was back in Rick's arms at her own birthday party. A stunned self-pitying Gary saw her passionately making out with him - but they just stared back blankly, leaving a heartbroken Gary crying at the sight as he left and drove away into the darkness in his pizza delivery station wagon - the film's sad ending! [See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."] |
Brenda (Tessa Richarde) Roxanne (Gerri Idol) Carmela (Louisa Moritz) Karen (Diane Franklin) Karen and Rick |
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Liquid Sky (1982) This unusual science fiction cult-classic comedy from Russian emigre film director Slava Tsukerman became a popular midnight movie. It has often been called an updating of Andy Warhol's Trash (1970). Coincidentally, the film was released the same year as Spielberg's friendly alien film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). It emphasized the pronounced and ugly connection between sex and death, in its story about tiny space aliens in a flying saucer (visually looking like disembodied optical nerves or a bloodshot eye) that landed on the top of a NYC apartment building, inhabited by:
The aliens discovered that orgasmic endorphins or pheromones were preferable to what they originally sought to feed on, heroin (known slangily as 'liquid sky'). Soon after, they chose Margaret to provide them with the sexually-climactic substance, and all of Margaret's casual sex partners suspiciously died after intercourse or disappeared by vaporization (or spontaneous combustion). These strange occurrences were being witnessed with a telescope by West German scientist Johann (Otto von Wernherr), the film's narrator, who lived across the street and observed things from his apartment, also occupied by horny Jewish woman Sylvia (Susan Doukas). There was another androgynous, arrogant, vampish, David Bowie-like, drug-addicted gay male model Jimmy (also Anne Carlisle in a dual role) in the picture. In one outrageous scene, Margaret and Jimmy (the same character) had oral sex with each other! During the film, Adrian dared to make love to Margaret: "I'll bet you $300 I can f--k Margaret and not die," but Margaret warned:
But Adrian insisted: "These good people want to see me f--k you." Resistant, Margaret had to be held down during intercourse (with Adrian taunting: "Kill me, baby"), and after orgasming, Adrian disintegrated. Margaret also admitted, in one of the film's most memorable lines, as her face floated in the dark, illuminated by a flourescently-painted mask:
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Making Love (1982) Director Arthur Hiller's bold breakthrough R-rated film with mainstream stars in a pre-AIDS era was significant. It was the first non-exploitative, gay-themed Hollywood film produced and marketed for a general audience, without vilification, to address openly and directly the bi-sexual male character. It was a courageous and honest attempt by 20th Century Fox to make a same-sex love story (or love triangle) commercially viable (as "one of the most honest and controversial films...ever released"), although it caused audiences extreme upset and discomfort. The love story involved three major characters:
The film told about how Zack had left his wife Clair for young homosexual Bart after eight years of marriage. It included a scene of Bart's trip to the doctor to examine a mysteriously-enlarged lymph gland, a passionate male tongue-kissing (a milestone for a major studio feature film), and a scene of the two males waking up together in the nude. In one prescient scene, the two chatted outside a hearing aids shop -- with the word "AIDS' prominently between them. |
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An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) Director Taylor Hackford's R-rated romantic blockbuster (chick-flick) told about a rough but appealing love affair between:
Their relationship was contrasted with the one between Paula's work friend Lynette Pomeroy (Lisa Blount) who was going out with Zack's buddy Sid Worley (David Keith), in the film's sub-plot - a more tragic but less emotional relationship. Aspiring naval officer Zack's and Paula's relationship had its ups and down, especially when Zack believed she was husband-hunting and became frustrated and angered - and closed up about his past, and she desired some kind of loving commitment:
After he comforted her and apologized, they spent the night together. The next morning, she challenged him: "I dare you not to fall in love with me. I mean, how can you resist? I'm like candy." He assured her: "You're better than candy." She replied: "It's going to be very hard to get enough. Very hard. Very hard." He called her a "little cocky Polack," and they fell to the floor and kissed. She asked:
Their relationship included a realistic and sexually explicit love scene, commencing with steamy kisses, in which she wriggled and straddled atop him and then eased herself off of him ("Bye, Zachary").
It concluded with a cliched fairy-tale ending in which he rescued/saved her from her National Paper workplace and carried her away to the tune of the hit song "Up Where We Belong." |
Paula (Debra Winger) and Lynette (Lisa Blount) Paula (Debra Winger) |
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One From the Heart (1982) Successful film director Francis Ford Coppola intended this R-rated stylized musical romance (from his newly-created Zoetrope Studios) to be a revolutionary film using experimental video equipment that included live, in-camera feeds that could instantly be edited. However, the price-tag escalated to the point that it ultimately bankrupted the studio and Coppola due to a negative reception from the media and public. One of the major criticisms was that its re-created, artificial fantasy world of Las Vegas was entirely filmed on a soundstage (with painted backdrops and superimpositions), with no location shots or exteriors - including complicated lighting and sets that overwhelmed the humanity of its main characters. Teri Garr starred with Frederic Forrest as an unappealing, one-dimensional and ordinary working-class couple who suffered a domestic breakup after exchanging gifts on July 4th. In a rare instance, she appeared semi-naked in a few of the film's scenes, as did Nastassja Kinski as an exotic circus acrobat/performer (in a distant shot). |
Frannie (Teri Garr) Leila (Nastassja Kinski) |
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Personal Best (1982) Director/writer Robert Towne's groundbreaking directorial debut film was also Hollywood's frankest treatment of lesbianism up to that time. It celebrated female athleticism and sexuality, with the suggestive tagline: "How do you compete with a body you've already surrendered to your opponent?" The bold sports film emphasized the naturally spontaneous relationship between two women track and field athletes who were in training for the 1980 Olympics:
The film was noted for frontal nudity, especially for its steamy 'steam-bath' sequences of naked female athletes. After a sweaty workout in a game of touch football, the athletes basked in a steamy spa, as the camera slowly panned from right to left, emphasizing their taut bodies. Bits of conversation were heard:
One of the overweight black athletes Nadia "Pooch" Anderson (Jodi Anderson) proposed a lewd racist joke: "Do you guys know why Oriental men have slanty eyes and buck-teeth?" - and then made a gesture like a man masturbating with a scrunched up face. The lesbianism between the two runners was sensitively portrayed. As they laid naked together, they took turns softly touching and pleasuring each other, as Chris noted: "I've never had this done before." Chris' experimentation was only a phase since by the film's conclusion, she went off with waterpolo player Denny (Kenny Moore). |
Chris (Mariel Hemingway) and Tory (Patrice Donnelly) |
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Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982) Alan Parker's film was based on Pink Floyd's successful rock album of 1979. The cultish, downbeat re-imagining of the Pink Floyd album, a musical "free form video" masterpiece - was a remarkable descent into madness and insanity through a series of rambling music video segments by burned-out and depressed rock singer Pink (Bob Geldorf) in a Los Angeles hotel room. He was mostly mindlessly watching TV - he had constructed a physical and metaphorical protective wall around himself after the death of his father as he experienced flashbacks of his life and attempted to tear down the wall. It contained about 15 minutes of political cartoonist/illustrator Gerald Scarfe's adult-themed animated segments with symbolic, sexually-explicit, botanical Freudian symbolism that presented a misogynistic woman-as-destroyer/devourer motif); in the passionate "flowers" scene before the rock song "Empty Spaces," two flowers, one shaped like a male organ and the other like a female organ -- morphed into a couple having intercourse and then engaged in a bloody fight when the female flower revealed sharp teeth and devoured the male. In the concluding trial sequence (with Pink on trial, and portrayed as a rag doll within his cinderblock wall), a giant creature named Judge Arse, who appeared to be a giant set of buttocks (topped with a wig) that talked out of his anus in a kangaroo courtroom scene; finally ordered and yelled out: "Tear down the wall" - and the brick wall exploded into many fragments to liberate Pink. |
Gerald Scarfe's Botanical Act of Intercourse and Devourment |
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Porky's (1982) The average US film of the 1980s seemed to be aimed at unthinking, moronic teenagers, as evidenced by crude slapstick teen comedies with little character development and poorly conceived jokes. After its surprise hit in 1982, sequels were designed to capitalize further on the surprise box-office smash of the youth market: Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) and Porky's Revenge (1985). This vulgar and distasteful, often-reviled sex comedy by writer/director Bob Clark was about several Florida high school boys seeking to lose their virginity. All of the females in the film were objectified as sex objects or props for this comedy. It was responsible for ushering in a flood of similar teen-oriented material, some of it superb (Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and The Last American Virgin (1982)). It was the ultimate precursor to the raunchy series American Pie (1999) almost two decades later. [See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."] The film's premise: set in the year 1954, several over-sexed boys in a South Florida high school (fictitious Angel Beach High) sought to lose their virginity - especially aptly-named gullible basketball player Edward "Pee Wee" Morris (Dan Monahan) who was always horny and obsessed with getting 'laid.' During the opening title credits, Pee Wee woke up every morning to check his penile length with a wooden ruler - always disappointed with the results. In the opening scene, while students milled around at Angel Beach High, co-ed freshman Mindy (Jill Whitlow) was prompted by one of her girlfriends to strut over to muscle-bound Anthony Tuperello (aka 'Meat') for a question: "Can I ask you somethin'?...Why do they call you 'Meat'?...Why do they call you 'Meat'? Because you're so big?" He non-chalantly answered 'yes' and suggested showing her to prove it. One evening, Pee Wee was pranked by his pals into stripping naked at Cherry Forever's (Susan Clark) dilapidated shack in the swamps - purportedly to prove he was "clean" (of VD). Pee Wee was the first to be nude and was joyously expectant ("I'm gonna get laid. Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus"). When Cherry checked him out, she asked: "What do you use for a jockstrap, kid? A peanut shell and a rubber band? You know we'd better tie a board across his ass, or he's liable to fall in. Save your energy, needle dick. You're gonna need it." It was all a set-up to make it look like Cherry's black 'husband' (a drunken stranger who was part of the ploy) returned and jealously chopped up and bloodied Tommy Turner (Wyatt Knight) in the back bedroom with a machete. Pee Wee fled from the house and became stranded outdoors naked - totally embarrassed, when he was spotted running down the road by two cops in a patrol car. The film's title was derived from a sleazy, legally questionable, rowdy red-neck strip joint and bar in the Everglades named Porky's where five of the teens sought action one night. They negotiated with Porky Wallace (Chuck Mitchell), the owner of the bar/brothel, to have three prostitutes for half an hour for $100. They were deceived by being led into a dark room and dumped into the swamp through a trap door in the floor. When Porky's brother (corrupt Sheriff Wallace (Alex Karras)) arrived, the humiliated boys were cited for broken headlights (broken by the Sheriff himself) and told to never return; the boys soon plotted their revenge. Pee Wee made a prank pay-phone call to Wendy (Kaki Hunter), a waitress at Deadbeat's - a roadside diner hangout, asking her: "Hello. Hi. I'm lookin' for a friend of mine. He's s'posed to be there....His name's Michael Hunt... uh Mike, Mike. Yes, Mike." The clueless Wendy turned to the patrons and asked in a loud voice: "Is Mike Hunt here? Is Mike Hunt here? Has anybody seen Mike Hunt?" When she turned and asked the guys at the counter: "Do you know Mike..." - she suddenly realized how she had been fooled: "Pee wee! I'm gonna get you! You little prick! And I mean that literally!" There was a heated, insult-ladden show-down argument in a stairwell between gym teacher Ms. Lynn Honeywell (Kim Cattrall in an early role) and head gym coach Ms. Balbricker (Nancy Parsons), when she caught Honeywell flirting with Coach Brackett (Boyd Gaines). Ms. Balbricker complained: "Ms. Honeywell. Do you mind?...The two of you squirming around like a pair of eels in heat. You're a disgrace," and Ms. Honeywell retorted: "Yeah? Well I'm certainly not stompin and waddlin' around like a frilly hippopotamus, Beulah! Beulah Ball-breaker... Well, if I heard a herty-gerty playing, I'd think I was talkin' to the fat lady in the circus, but as it is, I guess I'm talkin' to a ton of bad news named Beulah, Beulah, BEULAH!" Ms. Balbricker threatened to have Ms. Honeywell fired for "moral turpitude" but Honeywell wasn't intimidated: "You can take your moral turpitude and you can stick it up the old gazoo, Beulah!" In one of the film's more infamous scenes, in the equipment room, horny, turned-on Ms. Honeywell (nicknamed "Lassie") revealed the reason for her nickname (Coach Warren: "Just get her up in the equipment room, you'll find out. But beware of King Kong") -- after she and randy Coach Brackett both removed each other's underwear and her skimpy blue skirt was pulled off. She was in the midst of orgasmic love-making when she let out a loud, shrill dog-howl: ("Yes, yes, yes!"), heard echoing throughout the entire gymnasium. To stifle her screams, Brackett stuffed socks into her mouth to gag her. Shortly later, Brackett's excuse was that he had "a case of the runs." The centerpiece of the film was the "Peeping Tom" scene in the girls'shower-room, in which one of the teens exclaimed after viewing through a peep-hole: (Tommy: "Jesus Christ! It's the mother lode." Billy (Mark Herrier): "I've never seen so much wool! You could knit a sweater." Tommy: "This has gotta be the biggest beaver shoot in the history of Florida"). The towel-clad girls discovered the boys ogling them after Pee Wee (with a mostly blocked and obstructed view) yelled out at obese Nola McNeil: ("Goddammit, will you move it, you lard-ass!"), revealing their hidden location. One of the guys - Tommy - announced in a deep voice: "Don't be alarmed, girls. This is just your health department. We're here to check out all unlicensed pussies. Please step forward and spread your legs... Originality, neatness, and hygiene." Then, he first placed his tongue through the spyhole, and Wendy slapped soap onto it. To play along further, he stuck his member through the hole: ("I'll give you something to play with"), and Wendy reacted knowingly: ("Hey, wait a minute, I know that guy") just as head gym coach Ms. Balbricker appeared. She charged forward to make a painful two-handed grab and cried out in glee: "I've got you *NOW*, TOMMY TURNER! And I'm taking you to the principal!...Somebody get me the principal! Mr. Carter! Somebody get me the principal!...You disgusting, little, filthy, pervert!... (Tommy escaped from her grasp) You freak! You filthy little pervert. I know you're in there. You dirty little dickhead!" After the shower room incident, there was an hilarious scene in the principal's office, when Ms. Balbricker implored the school's prudish principal Mr. Carter (Eric Christmas) to have a penis line-up to identify the boy who displayed his member through the peep-hole:
She was met with stifled laughter from the two male coaches in the room. Carter was nervous about using the word 'penis': ("Five young boys in the nude, a police line-up so that you can identify his tallywhacker. Please, please can we call it a 'tallywhacker'? Penis is so ppp... penis is so personal....Can you imagine what the Board of Education would say if you were granted a line-up in order to examine their private pa... their private parts for an incriminating mole?"). Coach Brackett offered a solution: "We, uh, call the police, and we have 'em send over one of their sketch artists. And Miss Balbricker can give a description. We can put up WANTED posters all over school -- 'Have you seen this prick? Report immediately to Beulah Balbricker. Do not attempt to apprehend this prick, as it is armed and dangerous. It was last seen hanging out in the girls' locker room at Angel Beach High School.'" Even Mr. Carter burst into laughter. In the film's finale, the boys found revenge on Porky's, dumping him and some of his men into the swamp, pulling the entire bar apart with a tow truck, and eventually blowing it up and collapsing the building. And during the closing credits, Pee Wee finally lost his virginity to Wendy on a school bus, and pounded his chest like Tarzan through the window before she pulled him back in for more. |
Pee Wee Measuring His Penile Length Mindy: "Why do they call you 'Meat'?" Porky's Bar/Brothel: "Get It at Porky's" Strip-Joint with Dancers - and Underage Drinking Negotiating with Porky For Girls in the Backroom Boys Pranked at Porky's: Dumped Into Swamp Water Run Off by Local Sheriff Wallace (Alex Karras) Wendy: "Has anybody seen Mike Hunt?" Ms. Honeywell vs. Ms. Balbricker Ms. Honeywell's "Lassie" Howl Lassie's Howls Heard Everywhere Flabbergasted Principal Mr. Carter Listening to Ms. Balbricker ("I'd recognize that penis anywhere") Destruction of Porky's Pee Wee's Victory Over Virginity |
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The Seduction (1982) In the early 1980s, one of the most popular stars was pin-up queen Morgan Fairchild (star of TV's Falcon Crest). Now, she appeared in her feature film debut, an early exploitational stalker-voyeur thriller written and directed by David Schmoeller. It was part of the trend of the time to jump on the bandwagon of slasher films (such as Friday the 13th (1980), and specifically John Carpenter's TV movie Someone's Watching Me! (1978), Eyes of a Stranger (1981) and Visiting Hours (1982) which were similar films). Its tagline was:
Attractive LA-TV news-anchorwoman Jamie Douglas (Morgan Fairchild), a stable and happily married female to Brandon (Michael Sarrazin), who was menacingly stalked and viewed narcissistically by obsessed peeping tom and psychotic photographer/neighbor and fan Derek (Andrew Stevens, son of actress Stella Stevens). In this high-toned, glossily unreal, soap opera-like teasing film (with three Razzie nominations, including two for Fairchild as Worst Actress and Worst New Star!), there were many prurient opportunities to show the star in various stages of undress (with the 'guilty pleasures' camera stalking her somewhat voyeuristically, ironically):
In the concluding titular seduction scene, the heroine redemptively shotgun-blasted her stalker. |
Jamie (Morgan Fairchild) |
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The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) This early 80s horror film, released by Roger Corman's New World Pictures, came at a time when slasher films were the fad - following the success of Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980). The film was rife with lots of false and fake scares and some satirical touches, including a corpse in a refrigerator that was not noticed. It was noted for being 'feminist' (written and directed by two women, writer lesbian activist and novelist Rita Mae Brown and director Amy Holden Jones), although its simplistic tale was very predictable and unremarkable - a power drill-carrying killer was on the loose, seen on a newspaper headline: "Mass Murderer of 5 Russ Thorn Escapes." There was no suspense about the identity of the mass murderer, who was wearing denim and cowboy boots. The star was 18 year-old Trish (Michele Michaels) who was left by herself when her parents went away on a brief trip. In the film's first few minutes, she removed her nightgown and then dressed in her bedroom, and proceeded to discard her childhood playthings - a symbol of growing up. The first murder was a few minutes away - pretty blonde telephone repair work-person Mary (Jean Vargas) with a hard-hat was dragged into her work van and slaughtered by the murderer. After basketball in the HS gym, the coed team players headed for the shower room - led there by a back view of Linda (future scream queen Brinke Stevens, in her first credited screen appearance). The shower sequence, and the plans for a weekend slumber party with fellow BB players hosted by Trish in her empty house, were followed by another stalking. Linda, who went to retrieve a schoolbook from her locker in the closed-up school, found herself lethally pursued by the killer. The slumber party commenced, with smoking of a joint, gossip, and a change of clothes to be more comfortable. Diane (in a red/white striped shirt) made out with her boyfriend David Contant (Ryan Kennedy) in Trish's garage (with breast fondling using a body double) until the killer approached, killed him, and confronted her with a drill - positioned symbolically between his legs as a suggestive phallic symbol. [This same framing was repeated in Brian DePalma's Body Double (1984) a few years later.] The horror film concluded with the killer faced with only a few survivors, including Trish, wounded Coach Rachel (Pamela Roylance) and Valerie (Robin Stille) (a girl on the 'outs' who was in the house next door babysitting her younger sister throughout much of the film). Valerie cut off the murderer's left hand with a machete, and then gutted him with another swing and propelled him into the outdoor swimming pool. Although the killer was resurrected and fought back from his 'castration', he was impaled on his machete as the film ended. |
Trish (Michele Michaels) Kim (Debra Deliso) Diane (Gina Smika) The Crazed Killer |
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Summer Lovers (1982) Writer/director Randal Kleiser's idyllic film (coming after his The Blue Lagoon (1980)) was enhanced with sun-drenched nude sunbathing on the 'fun in the sun' Greek island of Santorini. The beautiful-to-watch film was supplemented with pop hits, including the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited." It told about an uninhibited summer love triangle and menage-a-trois sensual odyssey between a vacationing couple who were joined by a third French woman for a few months:
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The Menage-A-Trois |
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Xtro (1982, UK) Director Harry Bromley Davenport's poorly-reviewed, low-budget sci-fi horror film was a mean-spirited, strange, trashy and grotesque thriller, and sub-par monster movie from New Line Cinema. Its timely release coincided with Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), and was the horror-genre version of Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It was criticized in the UK and incorrectly labeled as a "video nasty," although it was given an uncut video certificate by the BBFC. The cult film's taglines were:
About the only claim to fame in this bizarre, psychosexual, incoherent, and exploitative film was the nude (and film) debut of spritely English actress Maryam d'Abo, who would go on to appear as a Bond girl in the film The Living Daylights (1987). As the gory film began in Britain, monsters (or aliens) landed in a spaceship accompanied by a bright light near a country farm cottage. They kidnapped and took over the body of Sam Phillips (Philip Sayer), the father of a young son named Tony (Simon Nash). It was assumed that Sam had deserted his family. Three years later when the aliens returned in a UFO, they deposited goop (actually a seed) in the woods that emerged into a half-human, extra-terrestrial Monster (Tim Dry) - Sam's alien form. The slimy, deformed, crab-walking alien hybrid and quadruped (that appeared to walk backwards) had a deadly tentacle tongue. In one of the film's most repugnant and gory scenes, the face-grabbing alien creature raped and impregnated a blonde woman (Susie Silvey) in a cottage, who almost immediately and graphically gave bloody vaginal-birth on the kitchen floor to a full-grown man from her enlarged and ballooning abdomen - it was a reborn and matured Sam (an exact duplicate of the missing man), who then gnawed through his own umbilical cord as his host 'mother' died. The strangely rebirthed Sam sought to find his home and his son Tony. Meanwhile, Sam's son Tony Phillips - suffering from nightmares, was now living in a London condo with:
Sam was reacquainted with his son and moved in to live with Rachel and Joe - he was suffering from amnesia and recalled nothing of the previous three years. Strangely, Sam ate Tony's pet snake's eggs, and gave him telekinetic powers after a sucking shoulder-neck kiss (to suck his blood and also to pass on infectious alien microbes), to help him biologically invade Earth. The infected boy with new powers mentally enlarged his toys (an Action Man GI Joe soldier and a teddy-clown) and brought them to life as full-sized, murderous creatures: a giant plastic soldier Commando (Sean Crawford) and Clown (Peter Mandell) with a razor-bladed Yo-Yo. Tony also animated a toy tank that could fire live rockets, and summoned a live prowling black panther - to kill others.
There were a few scenes of a very-naked Analise making love with her boyfriend Michael (David Cardy), before she was knocked unconscious by the Clown wielding a rubber hammer. After Tony sucked her belly with his mouth (to impregnate her), she became a human incubator, womb or breeder for the alien eggs. Analise became pregnant with his alien-human hybrid offspring - which were first laid as eggs within the bathroom. She was soon cocooned to death, and her boyfriend was assaulted by the black panther. Joe was killed when Sam used his horrifying alien scream, causing Joe's ears to explode with blood. The nihilistic film ended cheerlessly and hopelessly. The skin of both aliens Tony and Sam decomposed as they approached the bright triangle-shaped lights of the mothership near the original farm cottage - and thereby returned to the alien world. When Rachel returned to her London apartment (full of Xtro eggs), she was killed by the face-grabbing alien hybrid creature. |
The Graphic ReBirth Scene of Sam Analise Mercier (Maryam D'Abo) |
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Young Doctors in Love (1982) The theatrical poster warned about the raunchy laugh-fest:
The R-rated ensemble film included many reputable stars with cameos from lots of daytime soap stars (Michael McKean, Sean Young, Harry Dean Stanton, Hector Elizondo, Dabney Coleman, and Pamela Reed). The young doctors "in love" were phobic Dr. Simon August (Michael McKean) of Beverly Hills and Dr. Stephanie Brody (Sean Young). The setting was LA's City Hospital filled with horny young interns, residents, and nurses, looney doctors, confused staff members, etc, with lots of bodily function, hospital-related humor, topical and referential nods to other medical shows, sight gags, and funny scenes mixing blood and death. One of the best scenes was madly crazed scientist Doctor Oliver Ludwig (Harry Dean Stanton) instructing a class on Pathology about body fluids and orifices. Buxom Kimberly McArthur (Playboy Playmate January 1982) provided some of the nudity quotient as Jyll Omato - a barely-costumed Santa Claus from the gift shop - "a Chrismas present from the staff" to egotistical senior surgeon Dr. Joseph Prang (Dabney Coleman). And at Dr. Prang's Christmas party, guests were greeted at the door - not by "chest-nuts roasting on an open fire," but by a topless, pretty Christmas Elf (Peggy Trentini). Doctor Simon immediately pointed at a dark mole between her breasts and suggested its removal. |
Christmas Santa - Jyll Omato (Kimberly McArthur) Christmas Elf (Peggy Trentini) |
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Action-Driven, Classic Macho
Films in the 1980s and early 1990s
Quintessential male action heroes, including Sylvester Stallone, Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Bruce Willis, were the muscle-bound 'beefcake' stars of a number of predictably violent and formulaic films (often presented in series). The macho films glorified the male physique and their overwhelming physical power and prowess - their films included, to name just a few:
Buddy cop films were a derivative, such as 48 Hrs. (1982), Lethal Weapon (1987), and Tango & Cash (1989). |
Stallone Schwarzenegger |