<<< June 15 - 19, 2005 >>>

Since the earliest days of moviemaking, Sex and Cinema have gone together like, well, … you supply the suitably saucy metaphor! The infamously restrictive Hays Code (1930 – 1968) obliged American filmmakers to avoid most of the juicier topics on film, insisting (and we quote) "Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures are not to be shown." and "In general, passion should so be treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser element." But the sexual, cultural and economic revolutions in America and overseas in the late 50’s and 60’s inevitably opened up a whole new range of subject matter to filmmakers and audiences – and ushered in what might be called The Golden Age of Eroticism, one that was politically liberal, sexually explicit, and most often just downright kinky!!

It is in this context that most of the films for this series were selected. We’re thrilled to kick off with SEX IN THE 70’s: BLUE MOVIE BRITAIN, a deliriously- entertaining new documentary produced by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbarto (INSIDE DEEP THROAT), double-billed with a brand-new print of director Val Guest’s slapstick sex comedy CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER. We’ve picked from a broad selection of American and international filmmakers, from Italian softcore maestro Tinto Brass (THE KEY) to the landmark underground trilogy of Paul Morrissey (FLESH, TRASH and HEAT). From France, we’ve included musician & director Serge Gainsbourg’s notorious arthouse sleaze classic JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS. We’ll also be premiering a superb new documentary, THE WRITER OF O, that unravels the nearly fifty-years old mystery surrounding the identity of the author behind the scandalous erotic novel The Story Of O – and much more! An Egyptian Exclusive!

Wednesday, June 15 – 7:30 PM

Also part of Outfest Wednesdays:

JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS (I LOVE YOU NO MORE), 1976, Connaisance Du Cinema, 90 min. Director/singer/actor Serge Gainsbourg and his wife, actress Jane Birkin were the prime proponents of a bohemian, hedonistic lifestyle in Europe during the seventies, extolling the virtues of everything from free love and bi-sexuality to bacchanalian drinking and drugging. Here Gainsbourg helms one of his most infamous pictures, relating the funny, irreverent, sometimes tender, sometimes brutal tale of two freewheeling gay garbagemen in the French countryside and what happens when one of them falls for a boyish-looking truck stop waitress. Krassky (Joe Dallesandro) finding himself suddenly obsessed with the androgynous waif, Johnny (Jane Birkin), alienates his lover/co-worker, Padovan (Hugues Quester) and love triangle pyrotechnics as well as scorching eroticism follows. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Gerard Depardieu in a cameo as a very odd country bumpkin with a thing for his horse. One of the legendary touchstones of transgressive seventies Euro-cinema! [Note: the film was released in both French- and English-language versions; we’ll be screening the English one tonight, imported from France just for this show!!] An Egyptian Exclusive!

Thursday, June 16 – 7:30 PM

U.S. Premiere! SEX IN THE 70’s: BLUE MOVIE BRITAIN, 2005, World of Wonder, 45 min. Dir. Jacques Peretti. The latest from the enfants terribles of documentaries, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s (INSIDE DEEP THROAT) SEX IN THE 70’s is a deliciously wicked and sinfully entertaining trip back to the good old days of British softcore, when sex was, well, not particularly sexy, and Robin Askwith’s bare bum was everywhere! By the late 1960’s, the British film industry was in the pits – and the only thing that saved it was a series of low-budget, high-grossing comedies with workaday titles like CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER and ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER, that featured Benny Hill-type slapstick spiced with liberal amounts of T&A. BLUE MOVIE BRITAIN looks at the strange, wonderfully tacky and short-lived glory days of the British sex films, featuring interviews with many of the key writers, directors and producers including future James Bond/007 director Martin (GOLDENEYE) Campbell, whose surreal ESKIMO NELL is revealed to be the RASHOMON of its day! "The most tragic episode in British cinema, but also, weirdly, the most memorable. In a world saturated in high-street sex, these strange little films look oddly fresh. Not just a bizarre historical capsule from the 1970’s, but a missive from a land where casual sexism, racism, pathetic humor and fumbled sex were turned into an unwitting art-form." – The Guardian, U.K.

New 35 mm. Print!! CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER, 1974, Columbia, 90 min. The movie that turned Robin Askwith into the most unlikely sex symbol of the 1970’s, CONFESSIONS was based on a series of pseudo- autobiographical novels recounting the exploits of a virginal young lad, Timmy, who goes to work for his philandering brother-in-law Sid, whose window cleaning business has the memorable tagline "We rub it better for you." Helmed with surefire comic timing by legendary director Val Guest (EXPRESSO BONGO, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE), CONFESSIONS became the top-grossing British film of 1974 and launched a series of sequels (CONFESSIONS OF A POP PERFORMER, CONFESSIONS OF A DRIVING INSTRUCTOR et al.) It also features Askwith’s immortal quip, after finally losing his virginity in a soap suds-filled romp: "Jacqui had certainly taught me how to come clean!" An Egyptian Exclusive!

FLESH, 1968, Paul Morrissey Films, 105 min. Director Paul Morrissey emerges from the New York independent film scene with the first of his hypnotic, often misunderstood trilogy featuring the charismatic Joe Dallesandro. Morrissey’s script and direction are so unobtrusive that we feel, at times, we’re a fly on the wall in a deliciously funny, often poignant cinema verité documentary. Joe, to support his child and lesbian wife, goes out to turn tricks in the asphalt jungle and encounters a rogues gallery of urban denizens that could exist only in the Big Apple – each one connecting in some way to his "flesh." The continually surprising, charming supporting cast includes Geraldine Smith, Patti D’Arbanville, Louis Waldron, Geri Miller and, last but not least, transgender legends, Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis. An Egyptian Exclusive!

Friday, June 17 – 10:00 PM

Uncut NC-17 Version!!

SHOWGIRLS, 1995, MGM/UA, 131 min. "I’m getting a little too old for that whorey look," moans lead showgirl Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), as she tries to protect her turf from up-and-coming dancer Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) in director Paul Verhoeven (ROBOCOP) and writer Joe Eszterhas’s (FATAL ATTRACTION) unforgettable ode to the glitz and glamour of the Vegas Strip, and quite possibly the sleaziest movie ever made in Hollywood. Lambasted by critics on its initial release (people who obviously had no sense of humor, or appreciation for Truly Bad Taste), SHOWGIRLS has only grown in stature over the years – lines like "I’m erect, why aren’t you erect?" and "I used to love Doggy Chow, too!" must be seen and heard on the big screen for full effect, especially in this uncensored, uncut NC-17 print!! An Egyptian Exclusive!

Saturday, June 18 – 6:00 PM

Los Angeles Premiere!!

THE WRITER OF O, 2004, Zeitgeist, 80 min. The Story Of O, the S&M novel that shocked France in the 1950’s had been written by a mysterious lady known only as "Pauline Reage," a pseudonym for an author who remained in the shadows for more then four decades. In this brilliant documentary, director Pola Rapaport reveals the search for the real identity of the author – a woman who secretly composed the novel for her longtime lover, and who willingly chose to conceal her authorship of the book for personal reasons. This illuminating and sensitive film not only describes the poignant depth of character of a European intellectual, but also examines literary attitudes towards sex in the 1940’s and 50’s, and how the publication of The Story Of O literally changed the world almost overnight. [In French with English subtitles] An Egyptian Exclusive!

Saturday, June 18 – 8:00 PM

Double Feature:

TRASH, 1970, Paul Morrissey Films, 110 min. Joe Dallesandro returns, playing a character that could easily be the same Joe from the earlier FLESH, in one of director Paul Morrissey best films, and the most well known and critically-lauded of the trilogy. This time Joe’s a junkie whom a lot of women would like to have sex with – but, ironically, the drug has made him impotent. Living in a one room, unheated cold water flat with his eccentric, ragpicker girlfriend (Holly Woodlawn, in an astounding performance), Joe hustles through the mean streets of NYC doing what he can to raise money for his next fix. Something that gives Morrissey the perfect opportunity to zero in with his mercilessly satirical eye on the counterculture, upper-middle-class values, the welfare system - you name it. A simultaneously hilarious, wistful, truthful slice-of-life masterpiece. With another great supporting cast, including Andrea Feldman, Geri Miller, Jane Forth and Michael Sklar as the welfare investigator from hell.

HEAT, 1972, Paul Morrissey Films, 102 min. The last in director Paul Morrissey’s trilogy heads out west to Hollywood and creates a pitch perfect parody of SUNSET BOULEVARD. Joe Dallesandro is down-on-his-luck ex-child star, Joey Davis, reduced to using his body to help him get by with his landlady (the incredibly funny Pat Ast). He soon zeroes in on seducing washed-up TV star, Sally Todd (the always-amazing Sylvia Miles), hoping she can help him jumpstart his stalled career. Arguably the funniest of the trilogy, with another helping of Morrissey’s trenchant, unpretentious observations on sex & morals, pop culture and people in general. Look for Andrea Feldman in a deliciously unhinged performace as Sally’s bratty, lesbian daughter. An Egyptian Exclusive! Discussion with actor Joe Dallessandro in between films.

Sunday, June 19 – 5:00 PM

Legendary Underground Japanese S&M Action!!

DUE TO PROBLEMS WITH THE PRINT OF THE KEY IT WILL NOT BE SHOW TONIGHT. IN ITS PLACE IS THE BEAST. IF YOU PURCHASED TICKETS IN ADVANCE YOU MUST ASK FOR A REFUND PRIOR TO THE START OF THE SHOW:

Rediscovered Euro Sex/Fantasy Classic! New 35 mm. Print!!

THE BEAST (LA BETE), 1975, 104 min. Polish director Walerian Borowczyk's infamous piece of erotic fantasia was one of the most notorious underground movies of the 1970’s. Loosely inspired by "The Beauty and the Beast", LA BETE tells the story of an American heiress, Lucy Broadhurst, whose arranged marriage to a French nobleman is disturbed by troubling rumors of a massive, sexually voracious creature (with a VERY unique phallus) who prowls the corridors of her husband’s sprawling mansion. With Sirpa Lane, Lisbeth Hummel. No One Under 18 Will Be Admitted To This Screening. Subtitled.

THIS FILM WILL NOT BE SHOWN. THE KEY (LA CHIAVE), 1983, Cult Epics, 116 min. Inspired by the novel by Japanese writer Junichirô Tanizaki, Italian softcore maestro Tinto Brass recast his story in Venice during the period of Fascism just before WWII. A husband and a wife communicate their sexual desires and intentions through a secret diary. The man (Frank Finlay), much older than his young, beautiful wife (Stefania Sandrelli from THE CONFORMIST), allows her to enjoy the advances of Lasko (Franco Branciaroli) in a game of seduction and extreme and elegant eroticism. One of director Brass’s major achievements, THE KEY captures the essence of lust and surrounds it with socio-cultural awareness, setting the events in a time and place where political repression ruled. Also starring Barbara Cupisti, Armando Marra and Maria Grazia Bon. Original music by Ennio Morricone. [In Italian with English subtitles]

THE SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEASTS (SEI JU GAKUEN), 1974, Cult Epics, 91 min. Sexploitation guru Norifumi Suzuki plunges us into a maelstrom of secret masochistic desires and blasphemous rites as Yumi Takigawa takes religious vows to find out what terrible things happened to her mother inside the Sacred Heart Convent. She finds out – with the help of lecherous archbishops, a lesbian mother superior and a line-up of fellow nuns ready to whip her (in the film's most deliriously over-the-top scene) with a gauntlet of rose-thorns. A shocking, subversive masterpiece – Dario Argento meets the Marquis de Sade. [In Japanese with English subtitles]