Big Bad Mama (1974)

B-movie producer Roger Corman's low-budget, R-rated sexploitation cult film, shot in only 20 days, was intended as one of many Bonnie and Clyde knock-offs of its era. The trashy road film by director Steve Carver was a fast-moving, 'woman on the run' follow-up film to the earlier low-budgeted Corman-produced Bloody Mama (1970) with Shelley Winters as Ma Barker.

There was also a remake (or more accurately, a reboot) titled Big Bad Mama II (1987), with Angie Dickinson reprising her role as the title character - although she definitely appeared to die in this film.

Other similar films during the 1970s era were:

• Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (1972) starring Barbara Hershey
• John Milius' Dillinger (1973)
• director Jonathan Demme's Crazy Mama (1975) starring Cloris Leachman
• The Lady in Red (1979) with Pamela Sue Martin

Crazy Mama (1975)

The Lady in Red (1979)

Big Bad Mama II (1987)

Most of the film's twangy, country bluegrass guitar and banjo music was performed by The Grateful Dead's lead singer Jerry Garcia. The film's tagline described the plot:

Wilma Gave Her Daughters Everything. Her Looks, Her Lovers, and The Crime of Their Lives

It told about 1930s, Depression-era East Texan gangster moll Wilma McClatchie (43 year-old Angie Dickinson who wasn't yet famous for her TV role in Police Woman), known as "Big Bad Mama." She wished to protect and provide for her equally nubile and promiscuous daughters in the town of Paradise:

• Billy Jean (Susan Sennett), a conniving, sexpot blonde
• Polly (Robbie Lee), an infantile, virginal brunette

In the film's opening, widowed Wilma was reprimanding her youngest daughter Polly for wanting to marry dirt-poor, white-trash hillbilly Charlie Johnson (Rob Berger): ("Sittin' with your underpants showin' and holdin' a damn doll. Dumb enough to wanna marry Charlie Johnson with a stiff on and not ten cents in his ragged pockets"). She also criticized Billy Jean: "Keep your legs together, Billy Jean, and shut up. I'll tell you when to get married." At the church, Wilma objected to the marital proceedings ("I don't give my goddamn consent"), causing a brawl.

They took off in a 1931 Chrysler owned by Wilma's bootlegging lover, Uncle Barney (Noble Willingham), heading anywhere "but East Texas." Along the way, they were shot at by federal agents, and Uncle Barney (a wanted man) was killed during the car chase. After burying him and stealing his ruby ring, Wilma took over Barney's business of making deliveries of moonshine to his customers and collecting payments. Her first delivery was to a "sporting house" (brothel) (after going to the wrong house and getting attacked) and then to the house of Barney's "Woman" (Sally Kirkland) who quickly stripped naked to be ready for him. When Polly was caught selling bootleg gin and making out with the Sheriff's (Ralph James) son (Michael Talbott), Wilma was forced to bribe the officer to set Polly free.

She became desperate after she couldn't handle the bootlegging moonshine enterprise, and vowed determinedly to make money more easily - with a gun:

"Got to get to California and make a whole new life....There's better ways. And I'm gonna find 'em. We're not gonna starve...Nothing is gonna hurt us. Not while I got this."

First, however, they remained in town during a July 4th celebratory parade. Outside a VFW veterans' post, Wilma's daughters were enticed to make $5 dollars a day by stripping for a "smoker" later in the afternoon, although Wilma objected: "Most of 'em got a dose of the Old Joe....Disease of the privates." While the desperate Wilma was working a cafe-diner waitress job (that didn't bring in tips), her two daughters returned to the veterans' post to audition with an impromptu strip-dance. Without removing their clothes, they were quickly hired and then prepped for the night's entertainment of "dancing girls."

That afternoon in the smoke-filled VFW post, a patriotic speech was first delivered by the Sheriff before the strip show:

"The threat of socialism is like a snake in the parlor - there's no room for it. The only 'ism' under the red, white and blue is Americanism. Free enterprise. In God we trust. And let's stop the New Deal before it gives the country away to them foreigners."

Wilma's two girls, along with an older Stripper (Shannon Christie), were introduced to the stage as "Miss America, Miss Texas and Miss Sweetwater!" In the middle of their act, as the Stripper was twirling the pastie tassels on her breasts, Wilma barged in and lectured the card-playing lecherous veterans: ("You're a disgrace. All of ya! Drinkin' and gamblin'! Kidnappin' my innocent daughters and corrupting them!"). Wilma pulled out her gun and robbed the post's cash box: ("I'm defendin' my little girls' honor") before fleeing with her daughters in Barney's car.

They were persistently pursued by two federal agents: Dodds (Tom Signorelli) and William Bonney (Dick Miller). When their car broke down, they mixed in with an unscrupulous evangelistic Preacher (William O'Connell) and his followers to escape detection on the crusade's bus. The religious group was driven to a river's edge for a baptism ceremony, where Wilma robbed the Preacher who was attempting to abscond with the church's funds: ("I've had all the dunkin' I need"). They took him hostage and drove off, before stealing his money box, leaving him stranded in the countryside and stealing his car. They checked into a luxury hotel where Wilma promised: "We're going to California and start us a new life."

During their journey, Wilma was attempting to cash a fake check in a Lubbock, TX bank being robbed by Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt). After a deadly shooting in the bank's lobby, she took the money that Diller was robbing and he fled with them in their car. She was now considered "an accessory to homicide" by the authorities. Afterwards, Diller warned Wilma: "Like it or not, you're in the bank-robbing business, and you can't back out now." Wilma had now been inevitably forced to take to the road and resort to crime, including armed heists and thefts. She decided to join up with Diller and form a new gang, proposing that she would be in charge: ("I'll think about taking you on. Might find a use for you"). They became lovers for awhile.

But then Wilma met up with retired Southern con-man and hustler-gambler William J. Baxter (TV Star Trek's William Shatner) at the horse-races. When Billy Jean noticed Wilma's newfound interest in Baxter, she hinted to a jealous Diller: "You can have me and Polly." After winning at the race track, the group also robbed the main track office.

With Con-man William Baxter (William Shatner)

In the film's most infamous scene, Wilma immediately jumped in-the-sack with Baxter. He made love to Wilma from behind as she grabbed the bedstand, while Fred listened to them from behind a closed door.

[Note: The scene was nominated as "The Most Embarrassing Nude Scene in Hollywood History" in Harry and Michael Medved's sequel book Son of Golden Turkey Awards, published in 1986.]

Wilma with Baxter

Feeling left out and jilted, the jealous Diller (who called Baxter a "goddamn Kentucky fruitcake") was invited by the very eager Billy Jean to have sex with her. Diller was also treated to a three-way that also included Polly (because she was "lonely").

Over time and once they reached California (where they were caught illegally picking oranges in a grove), Wilma became skeptical of Baxter: "Baxter, you got more moneymaking schemes than a damn politician...We ain't buying land in Kentucky and we ain't buying no phony stock." She proposed a new scheme or strategy rather than robbing another bank: "The secret of my success is I never pull the same job twice" -- the heist of the refinery office of the Atlas Oil company. At the same time, Polly revealed to her sister that she was pregnant with Diller's child (and wanted the baby), causing Billy Jean to explode in anger: "I mean, I share Diller with you. And you get knocked up!"

During their wild escape after the robbery, Polly was shot in the right arm. As she was being treated on a coastal beach, everyone learned of her pregnancy, and Diller sheepishly admitted to being the father: ("I just wanted you, Wilma"). Wilma was upset by the news: "I don't want my baby's child illegitimate" - while Polly was also against marrying him: "I don't want him to! What kind of a husband would he be - sleeping with my sister?" A rift developed between the members of Wilma's "family."

The group went on to infiltrate the party of high-society "rich folks" held at the home of an oil tycoon - Kingston Industries. They held up the guests and stole their jewels and other valuables. Soon after, they also kidnapped the bratty rich daughter Jane Kingston (Joan Prather), the only child and heiress of the parents in the mansion. They tied her up and then held her for ransom. Diller attempted to have sex with Jane by first groping her, telling her: "I just, uh, never felt the titties of a millionaire before." Baxter was against the whole plan, although Wilma was adamant about carrying it through - she criticized Baxter as a "cowardly, no-good son of a bitch."

The kidnap victim Jane enticed Diller by asking for a bath ("you could soap my body"), and then kissed him. After stripping off the top half of her tennis outfit, once he had let down his guard, she kicked him in the groin and then fled. (Baxter appeared to give his consent - was he an under-cover agent?). Jane temporary escaped but was then recaptured. Meanwhile, Baxter ran out and was seized by the FBI agents, and he was pressured to tell them the gang's whereabouts.

As the film was concluding on the morning that the ransom money was to be delivered, Wilma was making love to Diller outdoors. Billy Jean interrupted them: "He's here with the money." Wilma stood up, fully naked in a revealing shot, to cover-up with a full-length nightgown. Then, she pulled up her dress over each of her bare breasts before accepting the suitcase full of money. Suddenly, federal agents arrived in three vehicles, with Baxter in tow. During a massive shootout, many officers were shot dead by Diller with a machine-gun. Wilma dragged Jane out to temporarily end the gunfire. Diller noticed Baxter and believing that he had betrayed them, shot him dead. Jane was rescued in the confusion. As Wilma and her daughters fled in a open vehicle, Diller was gunned down.

As Wilma and her two daughters drove away, Wilma promised her two girls: "We ain't ever gonna be poor again." However, in the film's final moments, it was revealed that Wilma had actually been hit during the confrontation - her bloody arm dangled over the car's right door, and she slumped over to her left onto Polly.

Caged Heat (1974)

Director Jonathan Demme's (The Silence of the Lambs (1991)) early trashy, low-budget, B-grade, campy cult women-in-prison flick, and exploitation classic with tongue-in-cheek humor, was his first theatrical feature film as a director - for B-movie king producer Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Two other unrelated films were Caged Heat II: Stripped of Freedom (1994), and Caged Heat 3000 (1995). [Note: Jonathan Demme also produced Corman's The Hot Box (1972), another 'women-in-prison' (WIP) film.] Demme's 83-minute film is generally considered one of the best of its type - an "innocent females in prison" film, advertised as:

"White Hot Desires Melting Cold Prison Steel!"

Demme would go on in the 1980s-2000s to make some very memorable Oscar-awarded films, such as Melvin and Howard (1980), Swing Shift (1984), the Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense (1984), Something Wild (1986), Married to the Mob (1988), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993), and Beloved (1998) before the turn of the century.

Other WIP films in the 'heyday' of the exploitation sub-genre (from the late 1960s through the 1980s) included:

• 99 Women (1969)
• Love Camp 7 (1969)
• The Big Doll House (1971) and its sequel The Big Bird Cage (1972)
• Women in Cages (1971)
• Sweet Sugar (1972) - Blaxploitation
• Black Mama, White Mama (1973)
• The Ilsa Films: Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975), Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976), Ilsa: The Tigress of Siberia (1977), and Ilsa: The Wicked Warden (1977) ("unofficial")
• Jackson County Jail (1976)
• Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977) - Nazisploitation
• Women in Cellblock 9 (1977)
• Chained Heat (1983)
• Women's Prison Massacre (1983)
• Jungle Warriors (1984)
• Caged Fury (1983) and remake Caged Fury (1990)
• Reform School Girls (1986)

Demme's WIP (women in prison) exploitational classic, with photography by Tak Fujimoto, showcased various attractive and empowered tough women in prison and was designed for the 'drive-in' crowd, with expected exploitative scenes of rebellion and the requisite prison escape. Various punishments in prison included illegal electro-shock experimental, Corrective Physical Therapy (aka CPT) (in other words, lobotomies), nude solitary confinement, exploitative assembly-line group showers, guard molestation of the prisoners, and sadistic torture. Requisite components of many WIP films included nudity, dirty hair-pulling catfights, and predatory lesbianism.

• the film opened with an exciting drug bust by an undercover cop and other officers; one of the assailants was Jacqueline Wilson (Erica Gavin, Russ Meyer's favorite), accompanied by two other men, who were chased on foot from their residence; one of the men was shot and another hopped a fence, before Jacqueline was arrested on charges of drug trafficking and accessory to a cop murder - one of the men had shot back and lethally wounded an officer in the neck
• in voice-over, the hand-cuffed convicted prisoner (standing before a black background) was sentenced by an off-screen judge to "no less than 10 nor more than 40 years."

Lavelle's (Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith) Opening Dream Sequence

• after the opening credits and title screen zoomed into place, the first of the film's three dreams occurred; one of the womens' prison inmates, waifish pretty blonde Lavelle (Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith), while sleeping in her cell, was visited by a "Dream Man" (John Aprea) who kissed her through her jail cell's bars, then fondled her through her clothes (amidst heavy breathing) as she stabbed over her shoulders with a giant butcher knife before awakening
• some of the main characters were introduced in an outdoor recreation area: blonde Belle Tyson (Roberta Collins) was sharing an off-color sex joke with tall, black and curvy Pandora (Ella Reid), as new inmate arrivals (including Jacqueline) were transported in a van into the Connerville Institute for Women

Dr. Randolph in Processing Center

Three New Inmates

Initial Search of Stripped New Inmates

• a pipe-smoking, perverted and twisted white-coated Dr. Randolph (Warren Miller) was summoned to the Processing Center, where he warned that it was the three inmates' last chance to surrender "concealed" drugs, before 'search and seizure' of any contraband from the stripped females: "Please remove all articles of clothing at this time. And this is your last opportunity to surrender any, ah, concealed narcotics, drugs, or weapons on your person. You'd be surprised at the foreign objects we find hidden inside new arrivals....Listen, I don't enjoy this ritual any more than you do. Now, what we're going to do now is some callisthenics. I'd like you girls to help me"; Dr. Randolph ordered the group to perform calisthenics (deep knee bends) - and then put on plastic gloves and pulled out his speculum for illegal, full-cavity searches
• at a communal meal in the cafeteria, Jacqueline sat across from two of her fellow female inmates, already introduced in the prison yard, Belle and Pandora; the latter warned Jacqueline about not becoming claustrophic - and ultimately catatonic; a prisoner named Bonnie (Ann Stockdale) appeared to be in a zombie-like state; there were hints by them that patients who were disobedient or too unruly would be taken away to the clinic for calming: ("She doesn't scream and shout anymore")
• humorously in the next sequence, masturbation was implied before revealing that inmate Pandora was playing dice: "Come on, baby, come on! Hmm, mmm"; a tracking shot down a row of cells showed the inmates rolling dice during game-play, conversing, dressing in a toilet, and reading the Bible
• an intimidating gang leader was introduced - Maggie Cromwell (Juanita Brown), a mean and tough African-American bully and gang leader, whose first words were: "God damnit! Who copped my smokes?"; she barged into the cell of Pandora and Belle where she accused kleptomaniac Belle of stealing her pack of smokes; after finding a stolen pack under Belle's mattress, she threatened: "If she rips me off just one more time, I'm gonna spill a can of kick-ass all over her butt"
• that night, Jacqueline experienced an erotic nightmare (the second of the film's 3 dream sequences) - she imagined a bearded man kissing inmates, and a doctor - symbolic of Dr. Randolph, threateningly approaching with an open speculum
• during the day, the women were trucked to an agricultural area to pick fruit under the watchful eye of armed guards; during the ride, Pandora revealed to Jackie why she had been incarcerated - not for murder but for an assaultive castration of a male: "Cut his balls off instead...Didn't need the mothers anyway"
• in the evening, the females were entertained by a staged, amateur improv skit-talent show with in-drag inmates (Pandora and Belle) telling ribald and bawdy jokes; it was attended by the film's most notorious character - the stern-faced prison warden

Stern Warden Superintendent McQueen (Barbara Steele)

• the stern Superintendent McQueen (Barbara Steele, a 'Scream Queen' veteran) was a sadistic, semi-lesbian, repressive, wheelchair-bound, and butch-looking supervisor with an English accent; the perverse warden left the show early due to her disgust with the jokes
• later that night, the Warden experienced an erotic dream (the 3rd and final dream sequences) of performing for the cheering inmates, in a top hat while lecturing to them:

  Don't you realize that sex is what put you behind bars in the first place? Stealing to dress better for a man.
  Fornicating.
  Packing the pockets of women using pimps.
  Killing to eliminate a sexual rival.
  
  Give me contrition! Let's have redemption!
  Repentance! Repentance!
  Of one's debt to society!

• the next day, the Warden reprimanded Pandora and Belle for their "disgusting" gutter-talk show the previous night: "That show of yours last night was positively disgusting. Given the chance to express yourselves you went straight to the gutter. Even for criminals you're just a particularly poor reflection on womanhood"; Pandora was ordered to spend a few days stripped naked in solitary confinement (without food) for her unacceptable behavior (and for a contraband picture of a naked male found and confiscated from her cell); as they were taken away, McQueen told her assistant Pinter (Tobi Carr Refelson) about her "disturbing" but "oddly gratifying" dream - "Y'know I had the most strangest dream, most disturbing, last night; disturbing - but oddly gratifying"
• there were three separate female shower segments in this film (one of the staples of WIP and 'girls-behind-bars' films); the first one the longest and most extended, showcasing various attractive and empowered cell-block prisoners

• while others took showers, Belle took risky trips from the green toilet room through the air-vent passageway system (counting backwards to herself to get back in time) to steal food from the guards' break room and bring the items to her incarcerated friend Pandora in isolation
• during shower time, Maggie was threatened by Jacqueline's presence and warned her after being pushed: "I'm gonna kick your little pretty teeth so far down your throat you're gonna get a picket fence around your asshole." They started a vicious, hair-pulling cat-fight in the locker room; after being restrained, the two were brought before the warden who warned that further infractions would lead to CPT; Jacqueline was specifically cautioned to "toe the line and avoid trouble like the plague"
• that evening, Lavelle explained to her cellmate Jackie that she was imprisoned for life for 1st-degree murder while hitchhiking, when her friend was raped and she vengefully stabbed the rapist ("the guy's father was a senator or somethin'")
• in the prison kitchen, after one of the mean female guards dropped a dead roach into a large pot of soup Maggie was preparing, Maggie wiped the roach onto the guard's shoes and mouthed the words "F--k you" to the guard; when the guard reached for her gun, Maggie assaulted her and a gun shot was diverted into the air; Jackie threw an object at the guard's head and knocked her out; then, Maggie and stole her gun, set the kitchen on fire, and tried to escape; during a deadly shootout, a third inmate was killed, and Maggie's escape attempt was quickly thwarted

After Thwarted Escape Attempt, Dr. Randolph's CPT Punishment for Jacqueline

• both Maggie and Jacqueline were brought before the Warden who ordered them for CPT - to be forcibly brain-shocked with an electric current; the two were taken to Dr. Randolph's 'Behavioral Correction' facility, where Jacqueline was strapped to a table; she pleaded for mercy ("You can't do this to me!....Don't hurt me anymore") as the doctor gagged her to stifle her awful screams; after initial treatments for both Jacqueline and Maggie, more CPT sessions were scheduled; afterwards, Maggie called the doctor "a god-damn perverted, sadistic maniac" for using an outlawed procedure; she vowed to escape: "They ain't lightin' me up like a f--kin' Christmas tree no more! I'm gettin' outta here if it f--king kills me!
• during one of her stealthy trips to Pandora's cell, Belle was caught and detained by an elderly kitchen attendant (Dorothy Love); when the matron died of fright in Belle's arms (and lost her set of false teeth), Belle was seized and blamed for the death
• meanwhile in the fruit orchard, other prisoners overpowered a guard and fled; Maggie was able to hijack the prison van for a successful escape with Jacqueline - bringing together the unlikely pair; the two later stole a cop's car at a gas station and then car-jacked another family's vehicle
• in the prison, Pandora was released from solitary; in his prison clinic, Dr. Randolph drugged Belle with an injection; and for her complicity in the orchard escape, Lavelle was placed naked into solitary confinement
• Maggie and Jackie met up with one of Maggie's friends, double-paroled Crazy Alice (Crystin Sinclaire) at a brothel (Academy of Sexual Satisfaction featuring females wrestling with clients on waterbeds); when Alice's client - an under-cover cop - showed his badge and threatened to arrest Alice on charges of soliciting and prostitution, they knocked him out, and she joined with Maggie and Jackie holed up at her sister's place in a trailer park before deciding what to do next
• the Warden encouraged Dr. Randolph to punish Belle's "capacity for violence," although stressed that she sign a voluntary psycho-surgery release; he forced theimpaired and drugged-up female to sign a voluntary psycho-surgery release form, tricking her by calling it a parole-release form
• Lavelle was removed from solitary and the suspicious Warden assigned her to work in the clinic as Dr. Randolph's assistant ("Keep your eyes open, and learn"); Lavelle watched through the keyhole as the doctor took Polaroid pictures of his naked and unconscious conquest in the Detention Clinic and then raped her

Exploitation of Unconscious Belle by Dr. Randolph After Tricking Her to Sign a Voluntary Release Form

• still on the run elsewhere, the threesome of Maggie, Crazy Alice, and Jacqueline robbed the Los Alamos Currency Exchange business (which was in the process of being robbed by another Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck mask-faced gang!) - they stole the money from the thieves after a shootout, and escaped cleanly when arriving officers followed the two surviving robbers
• meanwhile inside the prison, Dr. Randolph was making plans to perform a lobotomy on Belle's brain, to make her more docile; Lavelle warned Pandora about the doctor's sadistic surgery
• in a hideout, the females decided to return to the prison and free their fellow inmates; Crazy Alice pretended to faint by the side of the road, causing the driver of a prison van with new inmates to stop; the inmate threesome confronted the driver who pulled out his gun; Alice shot and killed the driver, and then the two prisoners in the van were allowed to hitch-hike to escape
• the prison van was hijacked and driven to the facility with prison worker Bernice (Mickey Fox) as their hostage, to help them to gain entry; their objective was to free both Belle and Pandora, and then break back out again
• in the prison, Lavelle and Pandora watched as Dr. Randolph prepared to perform a psycho-surgical lobotomy on Belle; knife-wielding Pandora interrupted Dr. Randolph's operation on Belle at the same time that both Warden McQueen and Jacqueline (with a shotgun) and Alice (with a gun) entered the operating room; Belle was given an injection to revive her, and Lavelle showed evidence and proof of the doctor's perversions to the Warden - the forged form, and naked Polaroids of Belle - before her mouth was taped

		Lavelle's Proof of Belle's Treatment - Seized Naked Polariod Photographs
Prison Break-In: McQueen and Dr. Randolph Were Captured and Held at Gunpoint

• during the inmates' escape attempt, the three prison officials McQueen, Bernice and Dr. Randolph were taken as hostages in the back of the prison van where they rode with Belle, Lavelle, and Pandora, while Crazy Alice was at the wheel and Jacqueline was next to her in the front seat; Maggie was awaiting the group outside the prison's gates with a getaway car; meanwhile, the Warden's assistant Pinter had alerted guards and state troopers
• there was a major shootout at the institution's entrance, but all five inmates were able to make a safe getaway unscathed in a car with Maggie, while in the van, Dr. Randolph was hit numerous times with stray gunfire and killed, and McQueen was seriously wounded with an abdomen gunshot

Candy Stripe Nurses (1974)

This R-rated soft-core sexploitation film was a mid-70s cult comedy - the fifth and last of the New World-Roger Corman variety of nurse pictures, and a formulaic entry in New World Picture's unofficial series of drive-in flicks.

The multi-part "nurse" series was composed of these four previous films:

The Student Nurses (1970), d. Stephanie Rothman	Private Duty Nurses (1971), d. George Armitage
Night Call Nurses (1972), d. Jonathan Kaplan	The Young Nurses (1973), d. Clint Kimbrough

This final film was advertised with the tagline: "Playing doctor was never like this!" and "They'll give you fast-fast-fast relief!" The trailer introduced the film:

"Welcome to Oakwood Hospital, where pleasure is the best medicine."

The Three Candy Stripe Nurses
Marisa Valdez (Maria Rojo)	Dianne (Robin Mattson)
Sandy Bates (Candice Rialson)

It told about the under-age misadventures and sexploits of three different high school girls working as volunteer hospital candy-stripers. Most of the film involved their action-based encounters: juvenile delinquent Latina Marisa with a wrongly-accused Hispanic after a gas-station robbery, Sandy with a wasted, long-haired rock star Owen Boles (Kendrew Lascelles) accompanied by two mostly unclothed groupies April (Kimberly Hyde) and ZouZou (Elana Casey), and aspiring doctor Dianne with local drug-taking Valley State Matadors basketball player Cliff Gallagher (Rod Hasse).

The pink and white-striped nurses experienced many things:

• Sandy was sitting up naked in bed in Room 317 after having sex with a bored patient and being complimented about the room service: "And they tried to tell me hospital service was deteriorating?"
• Dianne had sex with patient Cliff in a gymnastics practice room and at his place
• Sandy substituted as a receptionist at a 'sex-clinic,' where she had this strange, one-sided conversation over the phone:

  "Are you serious? With a duck? Three ducks? Yeah, but how do ya? No, well in that case, who? No. Well, who would do it? Your sister? With Scotch tape? Well, wait a minute, I thought that you said that your husband? Oh, pictures. Oh yes, well, I'm sure they are, but? No, I really wouldn’t know about that. Yes, suit yourself. OK, bye."

• Marisa was nearly raped at gunpoint
• Sandy slept with Dr. Wally (Richard Gates) in a hospital's linen closet, in exchange for having him complete her homework; she also attempted to cure Owen of his impotence

Chinatown (1974)

In the neo-noirish Roman Polanski film Chinatown (1974), private detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) and Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) leisurely smoked after having sex (off-screen). Shared cigarette smoking between a couple on screen had often been symbolic of the sex act in films during the Hays Code era.

In a non-censorship time period, on-screen couples could share a cigarette and be shown enjoying a smoke together following actual sexual intercourse.

The post-coital scene showed them naked in bed, as she said: "I want to know more about you," but realized he was reluctant to talk about his past: "You really don't like to talk about the past, do you?...Why does it bother you to talk about it?" As he took another drag from his cagarette, he mentioned that in his past, Chinatown where he worked was "bad luck," because "you can't always tell what's going on. Like with you."

She slightly turned and took a long puff on her own cigarette, and then asked: "Why was it bad luck?" He answered (with portentious foreshadowing): "I was trying to keep someone from being hurt. I ended up making sure that she was hurt." Evelyn noted (partially in French) and half-smiled: "Cherchez la femme. Was there a woman involved?" He replied: "Of course." When she asked: "Dead?", the telephone loudly rang and interrupted them.

She answered it with worry and concern in her voice after being told something troubling. Anguished, she replied cryptically to the caller: "Look, don't do anything. Don't do anything till I get there." After hanging up the phone, she insisted that the call had "nothing to do" with Gittes, but that she had to leave immediately (the call divided them irrevocably because he didn't trust her) - she withheld her destination and her reasons for a hasty exit.

Female Trouble (1974)

A second quintessential John Waters film, after Pink Flamingos (1972), was this shocking and raunchy NC-17 rated camp comedy. The dialogue was often unbelievable (Taffy Davenport (Mink Stole): "I wouldn't suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating, and there was oxygen in your balls!").

One of the dark and trashy film's notorious characters was overweight, 58-year old gap-toothed Aunt Ida Nelson (Edith Massey) who in one scene orgiastically fondled her large, bare breasts. In another scene, she was confined and locked up in an over-sized bird-cage, wearing a white gown and a hook-prosthetic for her left hand after it was amputated by Dawn with an axe.

The main plot was a biography of the film's main star, 300 lb. transvestite Divine, who was featured as Dawn Davenport - a feisty Baltimore HS teenage runaway delinquent on Christmas day. While hitchhiking, she was picked up by a driver of an Edsel station wagon and raped.

[Note: In the self-rape scene, Divine played both parts of the sexual assault performed on a dirty mattress on the ground]:

• as Earl Peterson - the sleazy male rapist
• as Dawn - the female rape victim

Divine often wore a series of unusual outfits during the film, including grotesque, skin-tight, leather dominatrix outfits, as she worked a succession of jobs, including waitressing, go-go-dancing, prostitution, and petty criminal activity.

She was duped into becoming a face-disfigured fashion model (to test the theory that "Crime is Beauty") when acid was thrown in her face by Ida. The media-obsessed, glory-seeking troubled female was sponsored by Donna and Donald Dasher (Mary Vivian Pierce and David Lochary), the perverted owners of The Lipstick Beauty Salon, to perform a night-club act.

After murdering her daughter Taffy by strangulation, she went on stage with a bizarre, freakish "nightclub act," when she was introduced as the "most beautiful woman in the world." During her act, she jumped up and down on a trampoline, tore up a book, rolled around on stage, sat in a small crib and pretended to masturbate, fondled her body with a dead fish, and made some lewd gestures with a gun. Then, she yelled out to the audience: "Who wants to be famous? Who wants to die for art?" When an audience member lept up and replied: "I do!", she shot him, and when the audience fled, she continued to fire on them maniacally.

Dawn Davenport's (Divine) End

Arrested and brought to trial, she was sentenced to die in the electric chair. In jail before she was executed, she made lesbian love with female inmate Ernestine (Elizabeth Coffey). Strapped in the chair in the final scene, she delivered a 'thank you' speech, similar to an Academy Award acceptance, in which she gave a shockingly prescient speech on the cult of media criminal celebrity:

"I'd like to thank all the wonderful people that made this great moment in my life come true...And especially all those wonderful people who were kind enough to read about me in the newspapers and watch me on the television news shows. Without all of you, my career could never have gotten this far. It was you that I burn for and it is you that I will die for! Please remember, I love every f--king one of you!"

Flesh Gordon (1974)

This was a mildly bawdy and silly, soft-core campy sci-fi film (X-rated however), so successful and humorous that an edited R-rated version was released for wider distribution to appeal to varied audiences and make more profits for the producers. The original version was rampant with toilet humor, sexual innuendo, and frequent nakedness - warranting an X-rating. Nonetheless, the naughty film had first-class special effects (the stop-motion animated monster) that were highly praised, and were worked on by future celebrated artists including Mike Minor, Rick Baker, and Greg Jein.

Its taglines described: "The Space Age Sex Spoof that is Out of this World!" and "An Outrageous Parody of Yesterdays' Super Heros!"

[Note: An R-rated, unrelated sequel followed that was more vulgar and scatological - Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders (1989).]

The film's action sexually spoofed and was adapted from the first 1938 superhero Flash Gordon serial and its characters (with appropriately-named characters) that starred Buster Crabbe.

• Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams), a football player
• Dale Ardor (Cindy Hopkins/Suzanne Fields), Flesh's love interest
• Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins), Flesh's pal

Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams)	Dale Ardor (Cindy Hopkins/Suzanne Fields)
Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins)	Emperor Wang the Perverted (William Hunt)

The film opened with alarming news from Professor Gordon (John Hoyt), Flesh's father, who was in a conference of scientists in Washington DC, that the menacing aphrodisiac sex rays that were bombarding Earth and causing sex-crazed behavior were coming from a far-off planet of the film's main degenerate villain - Emperor Wang - the Perverted (William Dennis Hunt). News headlines proclaimed: "SEX MADNESS PERILS PLANET!"

In the opening action scene, handsome square-jawed blonde Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams) - returning from US ice-hockey playoffs in Tibet, and pretty passenger Dale Ardor (Suzanne Fields) were traveling together on a small bi-plane (a Ford Trimotor passenger aircraft). It was struck with the rays - causing sexual chaos in the cockpit. Dale and others stripped off their clothes and engaged in sex. To escape the plane's crash, Dale and Flesh bailed out, parachuted away and landed near the workshop of eccentric, crazed, and bearded scientist Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins), an associate of Flesh's father.

Although suspicious of them as spies to steal his 20 years-in-the-making secret plans for his rocket-plane-missile, Jerkoff led Dale (by the breast literally) to his lab where he proposed stopping the sex rays at their source. They were flown on his penis-shaped Stratos-ship, and rocketed to Wang's planet of Porno. During the interplanetary journey, they were hit by the sex ray and briefly engaged in an excessive 3-way sex orgy.

Phallic Stratos-ship On Its Way to Porno with Flesh, Dr. Jerkoff, and Dale
Wang's Dragon-Ship	Enroute to Porno	Landing on Porno

Approaching Porno, their phallic-ship was shot at and incapacitated by one of Wang's dragon ships but they were able to land in a deep cavern. Upon disembarking, Jerkoff exclaimed after a deep breath: "Good, there's oxygen on this planet." Spotted by dragon-ship soldiers, they fled into a nearby cave with a long and smooth veined chamber ("It almost looks alive"). They were attacked by several long-necked, one-eyed dinosaur-like Penisaurus, one of which threatened Dale, before being taken prisoners by Wang's soldiers and led to Wang's immense castle.

Orgy in Progress in Wang's Throne Room

In a throne room, a lisping, impotent, white powder-faced Wang was observing a full-scale orgy in progress. (Clever names used for his highness included "Your Protuberance," "Your Sickness," "Your Assholiness," "Degenerate One," "Great Impotentate," etc.). He summoned the "earth people" to his presence, but then ordered Jerkoff to be sent off to work in the labs, while he eyed Dale as his future wife: ("You shall be my bride!"). To defend against Dale's abduction, Flesh objected but was ordered seized: "Take him to the sex depletor and bring me his essence!"

However, Wang's sorceress sister - seductive witch and Queen of Magic Amora (Nora Wieternik) ("Queen of darkness and guardian of the sacred Power Pasties") suddenly appeared on the throne. Wang agreed instead that if Flesh survived a torturous ordeal in the arena, Amora could have him. After battling three dildo-wearing, topless she-beasts with wild red hair and long blue claws, Flesh defeated them. He was rewarded by Amora who immediately took him away on her swan-shaped spacecraft, and made love to him during the flight, making him her King of Darkness ("We shall love, and my body will be linked forever with yours").

While a naked female was being pleasantly tortured in a feather-tickling machine, Wang made preparations for marrying Dale, and Jerkoff cleverly escaped from imprisonment. The dragon-ship sent to pursue Flesh fired a missile at Amora's spacecraft during their love-making, causing it to crash and ending her life. Flesh survived the deadly crash and was reunited with Jerkoff. The spirit of Amora appeared and offered them her power pasties to battle against Wang:

Take these stones. These are the source of my power. And with them, destroy Wang and his insidious schemes. These, my power pasties, are the only force that can stop the sex beam. Once accomplished, earthlings, my spirit shall at last rest in peace.

Dale's forced marriage to Wang was already in festive progress, accompanied by a middle-finger-flashing priest (Steve Grummette) and 4 bottomless cheerleaders (leading a chant: "W-A-N-G"), when Flesh and Jerkoff returned to rescue Dale. They burst into the ceremony as Wang complained: "I have been robbed of my beautiful virgin bride." However, they were trap-doored down into a pit, while Dale was whisked away to an underground cavern and kidnapped by revolutionary Amazonian lesbians in a sex cult. They were "devoted to the over-throw of Wang and his corrupt male chauvinist regime."

The Sapphic group was led by topless, one-eyed, hook-handed, cigar-smoking pirate space queen Chief Nellie (Candy Samples, a porn star) with a pegleg and Cylon eyepatch - first seen in a tracking shot up her body. Dale was to be initiated into their ranks. She was forcibly placed on a table, stripped, and bound by a group of Amazonian guards. The females were also lined up by Nellie for "selection inspection" as she commented on their bodies, specifically on their nipples and bottoms. One large-breasted black guard was chosen to have sex with Dale, as the other half-naked warrioress females stood around, watched, and chanted.

Dale Bound by Amazonians and Raped

Nearby, Flesh and Jerkoff heard Dale's screams, and used Amora's Power Pasties to blast their way out of the pit. They came to her rescue and saved her from the dykes. A warning gong was sounded by one of Wang's assistants to summon a sword-wielding Bug Warrior (a stop-motion creature). Flesh fought off the creature, with unexpected aid from effeminate, flamboyantly gay Prince Precious (Mycle Brandy) of the Forest Kingdom (a take-off on Robin Hood and his Merrymen) with a bow and poisoned-tip arrow, and a band of rebels.

The Prince claimed he was the rightful ruler of Porno. He also described how Wang, a maniacal botanist, was accidentally made a eunuch when his genitals were devoured by a crazed penis fly trap. He explained how Wang, who then sought revenge upon the cruel universe with a sex beam, had seized the throne and forced him into exile by:

banding together an army of the impotent and frustrated, and armed with a small, but effective, sex ray, plunged my palace into carnal chaos, and took it over, exiling me...

On the way to the Prince's camp on a lady-bug shaped Forest Flyer aircraft, Flesh and Prince Precious engaged in an oral sexual interlude. After arriving, Jerkoff began to develop a new more powerful weapon using the Power Pasties - known as a Destructo Beam - that could destroy Wang's sex ray with one blast. A traitorous spy reported to Wang about the new gun invention.

As the entire group made their way back to Wang's castle in the Flyer, their arrival was anticipated, and as they approached, the pilot (one of Wang's spies) stole one of the Pasties (a "Power Jewel" necessary for the Destructo Beam to work) and parachuted with an umbrella. In the Flyer, the heroes were magnetically drawn into the opening and closing chomping mechanical jaws of Wang's castle, but saved (after an INTERMISSION) by evacuating with umbrella-parachutes. At the palace, the group fought off a few soldier-guards, but then were flushed down a gigantic toilet and whisked away down sewer pipes.

In the throne room where Wang was being entertained by congo dancers singing "Flesh Gordon is dead," he became frustrated when the stolen Power Pastie (or "Power Jewel") became "stuck" and lost between the legs of one of his naked attendants. Precious and the others ran into the throne room to demand the return of the "Power Jewel" - while Flesh discovered its hiding place inside the female - and tried to extract it. Meanwhile, Wang unleashed an attack of his rapist robots with mechanized and spinning pointed genitals, as he fled to a hidden chamber to summon his most powerful weapon - the Great Murder Monster or God of Porno (uncredited voice of Craig T. Nelson).

The Great Murder Monster or God of Porno

The dreaded, foul-mouthed and beastly idol was brought to life by Wang and began to attack, but was distracted by the sight of Dale. He captured her and took her in his clawed hand to his Tower of Murder (similar to King Kong's capture of Ann Darrow when he took her to the Empire State Building). He lasciviously told her: "I just want to look at your tits."

Dale - A Helpless Victim of The Monster

Using one of Wang's dragon-ships to fly closer, Flesh, Precious and Jerkoff deployed the new Destructo Beam weapon (with the Power Pasties) and aimed it toward the creature. The Beam struck the Monster a number of times, causing him to swear: "Up yours, Gordon." He also reacted humorously: "My ass! Pain, humiliation, the hemorrhoids...For this, you'll pay. No one burns my ass and lives to get laid." Flesh used a rope ladder to rescue Dale and bring her into the Dragon-ship - before the Monster tripped, fell off the tower and crushed Wang. His fall destroyed the castle and sex ray, and killed both of them and everyone else inside the palace in the process. The planet of Porno was freed, with Prince Precious restored to power.

The main heroes - Flesh, Dale and Jerkoff - said goodbye to the Prince, climbed aboard Jerkoff's Stratos-ship and voyaged back to planet Earth. Dale delivered the last line of dialogue to Flesh: "Oh, Flesh, there's no place like home."

Foxy Brown (1974)

A female version of the action sub-genre developed, often starring a vengeful heroine, notably Pam Grier, Rosie Grier's cousin, who was dubbed the "Queen of Blaxploitation." As a sexy super-mama toting a gun, she appeared in a number of hard-hitting, violent films as the star - first in Coffy (1973), her biggest hit, and then in this fast-tracked film, also directed by Jack Hill

Posters advertised her as "the meanest chick in town." The taglines added: "She's brown sugar and spice, but if you don't treat her nice, she'll put you on ice." The film was famous for its lesbian bar fight, and Foxy's boast: "I've got MY black belt in barstools!"

The basic plot was Foxy Brown's vengeful pursuit of drug pushers in an underworld crime syndicate who killed her undercover cop lover Dalton Ford/Michael Anderson (Terry Carter). She joined a Black Panther-esque vigilante posse ("neighborhood committee") led by her friend Oscar (Bob Minor, a stuntman) to seek revenge on the crime bosses, led by bitchy drug-lord "Ms" Katherine Wall (Kathryn Loder).

The big-breasted Foxy posed as a prostitute named Misty Cotton and joined Ms. Katherine's call-girl agency, the front for the drug-dealers. In one of the film's most humorous segments, she intimidated, humiliated and mocked one of her clients: sleazy, gray-haired Judge Fenton (Harry Holcombe) who was not well-endowed. In a back bedroom with Claudia (Juanita Brown) and the Judge, as Foxy pulled off the judge's red-heart decorated underwear, she declared: ("Will you look at that? Baby, is this what you're gonna use on me? I mean, I've heard of a meat shortage, but, that's ridiculous!...Oh, I'm sure I'll like it. But, I just can't find it! Claudia, help me find it. I think it's under there somewhere. Watch it. Don't rub on it. The charge, Your Honor, is assault with a very undeadly weapon"). Claudia added: "Well, you talk about your blunt instrument!" Foxy eventually dismissed the "little man" after pushing him backwards onto the floor: "You pink-ass corrupt honky judge, take your little wet noodle outta here and if you see a man anywhere, send him in because I do need a MAN!"

During her pursuit for justice, she was caught, shot full of heroin, and bound on a bed in a farmhouse shack known as the "Ranch" - the group's off-site drug lab. One of the henchmen, a bald-headed redneck named Brandi (H.B. Haggerty, an ex-wrestler), threatened her with a lascivious taunt: ("Me, oh my. I'm beginning to get that ole feeling. Funny how fast it comes when a chick has really got the goodies to show ya"), ripped off her bra, and then raped her. Afterwards, the resourceful Foxy acquired a razor (used to cut the heroin) with her teeth, cut herself loose, slashed a second redneck with an improvised coat-hanger weapon, and set her rapist on fire as he was working under a car.

In another sequence of the film, girlfriend Deb made love (while snorting coke) to Link (Antonio Fargas), Foxy's trouble making, black-sheep brother, a drug hustler who was revealed to be responsible for Anderson's killing (because he was in debt to loan sharks for $20,000). Both Link and Deb met gruesome deaths - he was shot twice with a shotgun by Ms. Katherine's kinky lover/partner Steve Elias (Peter Brown), while Deb's throat was slashed.

Deb (Sally Ann Stroud) in Foxy Brown (1974)

Gruesome deaths ended the film involving an airplane propeller, and the dismemberment of Steve's manhood (delivered in a pickle-jar to Katherine).

In the final scene, Foxy deliberately only wounded Katherine with a gunshot to the arm. When Katherine demanded an answer: ("Why didn't you kill me too? Well go on and shoot! I don't want to live anymore!"), Foxy replied that she wished for her to suffer for her crimes:

"I know. That's the idea. The rest of your boyfriend is still around, and I hope you two live a long time, and then maybe you get to feel what I feel. Death is too easy for you, BITCH! I want you to SUFFER."

Freebie and the Bean (1974)

Director Richard Rush's un-PC, R-rated parody of Dirty Harry cop films was an action-comedy, and a precursor of the buddy cop films to come, such as 48 Hrs. (1982), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Running Scared (1986), and Lethal Weapon (1987).

The two macho partners in this film were San Francisco rogue and unorthodox buddy-cops:

• Freebie (James Caan), nicknamed because of frequent paybacks
• Bean (Alan Arkin), Mexican, hot-tempered, who suspected that his wife Consuela (Valerie Harper) was having an affair

They were in search of racketeer Red Meyers (Jack Kruschen), until they found out they had to protect him from Detroit hit-men, and the showdown was to occur on Super Bowl weekend.

There were the requisite car chases (and a dirt-bike pursuit through traffic) and destructive crashes (one off a raised freeway into a third floor apartment's bedroom where an elderly couple was in bed).

Racial and sexist slurs were rampant, and homosexuals were portrayed derisively and as cliches. In the film's twist ending often enthusiastically applauded by audiences, a gay character (Christopher Morley) turned out to be an evil transvestite assassin wearing a print dress. He shot Bean and then held a young girl hostage in the ladies restroom at Candlestick Park.

Before entering, Frebbie mumbled to an objecting female: "Lady, I've spent half my life in toilets, probably die in one." Confronted by Freebie, the karate-kicking cross-dressing male had the upper hand, but then was repeatedly shot until dead. Afterwards, Freebie broke open the sanitary napkin dispenser and used one of the absorbent pads to tend to his own left arm wound.

Games Girls Play (1974, UK) (aka The Bunny Caper, or Sex Play)

This Arthur Marks Presentation, an exploitational, nudity-only sex comedy directed by Jack Arnold. The film's thin plot enabled the four main female stars to keep very undressed for about half the film. It boasted the tagline: "Some have the urge...Some have the touch...These girls have it all!"

Promiscuous and sex-crazed 17 year-old Bunny O'Hara (Christina Hart) persuaded her diplomat father Randolph O'Hara (Gordon Sterne) to get reassigned to a position as an American ambassador in London. To keep her sexual libido dampened, Bunny was enrolled in an elite female boarding school. Although her parents wanted to make a lady out of her, Bunny was met by her soon-to-be corrupted roommates:

• Bunny O'Hara (Christina Hart), blonde - "Bunny Comes Up With All the New Ideas and Ways"
• Sal (Drina Pavlovic), brunette - "Sally Likes to Follow the Leader All the Way"
• Jackie (Jane Anthony), blonde - "Jackie is So Studious She Loves to Keep the Score"
• Chris (Jill Damas), redhead - "Chrissie is the One Who Breaks All the Rules"

Bunny O'Hara (Christina Hart)	Sal (Drina Pavlovic)
Jackie (Jane Anthony)	Chris (Jill Damas)

The finishing school in the country outside of London was run by detestable headmistress Miss Grimm (Eunice Black) and lesbian ("bulldyke") gym teacher Harriet (Sarah Brackett). After meeting her roommates, Bunny proposed that they go swimming in the pool naked: "What's to be modest about in a house full of females?" The four agreed to revolt and marched downstairs without their bathing costumes to cavort in the pool.

Afterwards, during a basketball game with boys in a private school closeby, they engaged in a friendly competition to strip down the younger men. Ducky (Erin Geraghty), the school's stereotypical nerd wallflower and photographer, was aghast when witnessing their antics, although she was later appointed to document the girls' sexual conquests.

Eventually, the challenge or goal of each of the horny girls was to compete with the others to see who could bed down an older male partner.

Chris with Ping Pong Player	Bunny with American
Jackie with Russian	Sal with American too

They each selected a high-ranking public official attending a London conference on nuclear disarmament, although there was a slight mix-up:

• a drunken Soviet diplomat-ambassador, with Jackie
• the star member of a Chinese ping pong team, with Chris
• a Henry Kissinger-like American foreign affairs statesman, with Bunny and Sal
• a member of British royalty from Windsor Castle, originally to be with Bunny

Going Places (1974, Fr.) (aka Les Valseuses)

Bertrand Blier's French-style Easy Rider (1969) road comedy (the title literally meant 'The Waltzers; or more colloquially, "testicles") was the director's first feature film. Approximately five minutes of the misogynistic and nihilistic picture were edited/censored for its US release. Its stars were two offensive, loutish small-time bohemian crooks sought by police who engaged in stealing cars, and robbing and brutalizing victims:

• Jean-Claude (Gérard Depardieu), the more aggressive one
• Pierrot (Patrick Dewaere), the more resourceful one, although a follower

Both were obsessed with abusive sex during a wild, raucous, aimless, joy-riding journey in the French countryside. The pleasure-seeking duo had sexual experiences with four females:

• Marie-Ange (Miou-Miou) - a dim-witted blonde beautician's assistant, and a young disinterested hostage who often accompanied them. They both wanted to cure her of orgasmic frigidity. During their lengthy scene of three-way sex, they alternatingly took turns, while she laid there bored and compliant. [To their dismay, by the end of the film, she had been cured of her orgasmic dysfunction by Jeanne's timid son Jacques.]
• Jacqueline (Isabelle Huppert) - in this sequence, the group met a picnicking family and took away the wayward, virginal, bourgeois teenager to form a quartet, in order to deflower her in a field - as Marie-Ange cradled Jacqueline's head in her lap
• 'Woman in Train' (Brigitte Fossey), the two intimidated a lactating mother in an empty coach car with a baby. Pierrot opened her blouse and bra from the front and then touched and sucked on her right breast's nipple while Jean-Claude fondled her left breast
  
  

  'Woman in Train' (Brigitte Fossey)
  Jacqueline (Isabelle Huppert)	Jeanne Pirolle (Jeanne Moreau)



• Jeanne Pirolle (Jeanne Moreau), the arrival of the recently-released, empowered, and wise ex-convict also taught the two men, because of her middle-age and experience. She first explained to a restaurant waitress how being in prison had caused her menstrual cycle to end: ("You see, I just got out of prison, I spent 10 years in a cold, wet cell. I haven't menstruated in years. No more blood - nothing. At first, my period was late. They gave me aspirin at the infirmary. Then it came later and later. 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month. After a while, you forget about it. That's when it goes away completely"); she also explained to the stunned waitress why she was telling her this tale: ("So you understand how lucky you are to bleed every month even if it makes you irritable. It doesn't matter, the bad moods, painful ovaries, it's not important. What matters is bleeding. You understand?"). During three way sex with her, she also taught them about love before she awoke, snuck into the adjoining hotel room, and committed suicide by bloodily shooting herself in the crotch.

The film ended with their stolen Citroen speeding and disappearing into a dark tunnel.

Immoral Tales (1974, Fr.) (aka Contes Immoraux)

Polish director Walerian Borowczyk's X-rated soft-core anthology film contained four different erotic historical tales/segments:

• La Maree (The Tide) - featuring a 20 year old boy and his 16 year old cousin Julie (Lise Danvers) whom he persuaded to be nude and then perform oral sex on him - timed to the rhythmic on-rushing tides of the ocean.
• Therese Philosophe - after being locked up in her bedroom, Victorian-era Therese (Charlotte Alexandra) was sexually awakened by masturbation with various objects, including a large cucumber.
• Erzsebet Bathory - a semi-historical account of mid-1500s countess Elisabeth Bathory (Paloma Picasso, daughter of the famous painter) who was obsessed with her beauty. The scene began with young, freshly-showered virginal girls entering into a large bedroom chamber. There, Elisabeth chose Istvan (Pascale Christophe) as her partner, and then bathed in the blood of the other slaughtered girls - after an orgy and bloody massacre in the countess' bedroom.
• Lucrezia Borgia - an account of Lucrezia Borgia (Florence Bellamy) involved in an incestuous 15th century orgy with her brother and her father the Pope (Alexander VI) - after stripping and being tickled with a peacock feather, her brother took her from behind as she fellated the Pope.

Tale # 1: La Maree (The Tide) - (Lise Danvers)

Tale # 4: Lucrezia Borgia (Florence Bellamy)

Inserts (1974, UK)

First time writer/director John Byrum's originally X-rated dark, odd-ball sex comedy (re-rated NC-17 for its DVD/video release, due to crude language, a violent near-rape scene, and full-frontal female and male nudity) was little seen due to its harsh rating. Although filmed in the UK in 1974, it didn't open in the US until 1976, after star Dreyfuss had appeared in the mainstream blockbuster Jaws (1975).

Its poster proclaimed: "A DEGENERATE FILM, WITH DIGNITY," and "Now they make pornos. But they're brilliant pornos."

Set in 1930s Hollywood, the stage-bound film starred Richard Dreyfuss as unshaven, alchoholic, robe and pajamas-wearing silent film-maker Boy Wonder. He had resorted to making more explicit, low-budget, silent black and white hardcore stag/porno loop films in his crumbling and decaying mansion when the talkies arrived.

Screechy-voiced, red-haired former silent film starlet and flapper junkie Harlene (Veronica Cartwright) was one of the 'stars' of his erotic films, appearing with gay stud co-star Rex, the Wonder Dog (Stephen Davies), a disillusioned aspiring actor who worked a day job at a funeral parlor. Harlene was viewed spreading her legs during the opening credits, during a stag film sequence.

When Harlene overdosed on heroin, the impotent filmmaker prodigy Boy Wonder realized he must finish the film he was making by shooting body parts 'inserts' (extreme close-ups of genitals and penetration shots). Another aspiring dark-haired actress - Miss Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), the virginal, silly and naive girlfriend-fiancee of Rex's financier - mob boss Big Mac (Bob Hoskins), proposed that she could appear in the 'inserts' shots required in the stag films (she also had aspirations of being an actress). In a foreshadowing, Big Mac's plans were to open a chain of gas stations and hamburger stands on an LA freeway.

During filming, he advised Cathy Cake about getting down "into the valley of indecency," telling her: "The trick, Miss Cake, is not to look at it at all, but simply limp to the edge of patience and let yourself fall." At the same time, she attempted to seduce and taunt impotent Boy Wonder. She believed his inability to get aroused was curable, and tried to get his limp "rope to rise," while he told her: "Unwrap the meat!" - referring to her private parts.

Lenny (1974)

Stage dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse directed the Best Picture-nominated biopic of the life of 1960s foul-mouthed, self-destructive night-club stage comedian Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman), chronicled through flashback.

It told of his trouble-filled, deeply-flawed life when he began as a struggling Jewish stand-up comic artist in the Catskills, and his romantic courting of a steamy stripper named "Hot" Honey Harlowe (Valerie Perrine) whom he called his "shiksa goddess."

Their relationship provided the framework for the entire film, with the opening scene being a close-up of Honey's lips as she reminisced about Lenny. The ground-breaking, revolutionary performer was un-PC for his time and crudely honest as he used taboo words and fearlessly took on many of society's sacred cows: the establishment, politicians, relationships between men and women, religion, etc., portrayed in episodic documentary-style interviews filmed in black and white.

When Lenny first met Honey, she was a headline stripper (wearing pasties and a thong) - shown in a lengthy introductory scene as she disrobed in front of an audience - and eventually she became Bruce's wife.

At one point, Lenny romanced Honey in a hotel room decorated with hundreds of flowers - and as she posed naked in the sea of flowers, he exclaimed: "Oh man, is that an album cover?" She replied in an exaggerated voice: "Why don't ya come in, big boy, and pick a few flowers?"

However, their lives began to degenerate, exemplified by unfaithful Lenny's extra-marital affair with a blonde nurse, and when hedonistic Lenny expressed an interest in having a threesome with unwilling but bisexual Honey and another woman (Kathryn Witt).

Afterwards, Lenny hypocritically castigated Honey for doing exactly what he begged her to do, and made unsubtle jabbing insults at her in his act (the "I like dykes" scene). The couple's lives fell tragically apart when they both became drug junkies and alcoholics, she was imprisoned for drug possession, and the two thereafter separated. Drug-addicted Bruce died of a heroin overdose, lying naked on the floor in his house.

The Night Porter (1974, It./USA) (aka Il Portiere di Notte)

Co-writer and director Liliana Cavani's shocking and dark adult arthouse drama was typical of the boundaries-breaking films coming from Europe at this time.

Its theme of obsessive sexual behavior brought outrage and controversy by Jewish leaders, feminists, and Nazi concentration camp survivors who opposed the idea of seeking sexual gratification by abuse from a Nazi captor.

It told about the unhealthy, twisted, sado-masochistic, co-dependent relationship between abused sexual-slave/victim and her oppressor during the Holocaust in a concentration camp:

• Lucia Atherton (Charlotte Rampling), an androgynous concentration camp new arrival
• Maximilian "Max" Theo Aldorfer (Dirk Bogarde), her ex-SS camp commandant-captor, Nazi torturer and lover

They relived, rekindled and reawakened their sordid past and master/slave relationship by reestablishing their tragic love affair. It was twelve years later after a startling chance meeting in post-war Vienna after a 1957 opera performance of Mozart's Die Zauberflote. She learned that he was in-hiding and working as a night porter at the Opera Hotel where she was staying as a hotel guest with her famous American conductor husband.

The Iconic Cabaret Flashback Scene with Lucia (Charlotte Rampling)

In one sexually-provocative, visually-stunning scene (a flashback), Max had perversely forced a bare-breasted, topless Lucia to dress only in pants (with suspenders), lengthy black leather gloves, and SS-Nazi headgear (subsequently a Nazi fetish costume often duplicated), and perform a seductive cabaret number (to the tune of a Marlene Dietrich song) for a group of concentration camp Nazi guards. During the narrated flashback, Max had promised Lucia that he would transfer away from her an abusive prisoner named Johann, if she would do the dance for him. However, instead of transferring the other prisoner, the depraved Max had Johann decapitated and presented Lucia with his severed head in a box (a reenactment of the Salome biblical tale).

Their relationship (of submission and subjugation) was now freely re-established until Max's former SS colleagues feared discovery by Lucia's threatening existence. As a potential war criminal, he was being pressured by the ex-Nazis to rid themselves of guilt for their complicity in the Holocaust, by turning in Lucia. When he refused, the lovers hid out in his apartment, and were soon after executed. They were shot after they both left Max's apartment, parked their car, and walked across a bridge together - the film abruptly ended..

TNT Jackson (1974)

Former October 1969 Playboy Playmate Jeannie (Jeanne) Bell starred in Roger Corman's and New World Pictures' TNT Jackson (1974) - a merging of kung fu and blaxploitation. Its tagline referred to the title character - a black Afro-haired heroine who lived in Harlem: "SHE'S A ONE MAMA MASSACRE SQUAD." The film was produced as a copy-cat film to compete with Pam Grier in Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974).

The plot in Filipino director Cirio H. Santiago's action picture was about a karate expert known as Diana 'T.N.T.' Jackson, who was searching for her brother Stag in a lawless and unsafe section of Hong Kong (actually shot in Manila) known as "Yellow Town," while posing as a prostitute. It turned into a quest for vengeance against the drug runners who killed her brother.

There were a number of notable scenes, including a martial arts fight in a cemetery against blonde Elaine (Pat Anderson) (who was partnered with the film's middle-aged American drug-kingpin Sid (Ken Metcalf) but was actually an undercover cop), and TNT's seduction by kung-fu master and hustler Charlie (Stan Shaw), Sid's chief enforcer and bodyguard (who killed TNT's brother in the pre-credits scene).

In the seduction scene, Charlie asked if TNT would partner with him and she replied: "Just what makes you so sure that I'm agreeable?" - as he opened up her terrycloth blouse, he responded: "You know damn well you agreeable. You'll love it." He caressed her left breast and they began love-making. Unfortunately, Charlie took a post-coital smoke - unwittingly using the lighter he stole from TNT's brother after murdering him.

In the action thriller's most remembered scene set in a hotel room, TNT was captured and confronted by Sid's Chinese middleman - drug-dealing mobster Ming (Max Alvarado). He tore off her blouse and threatened to burn her bare chest with his cigar, but then changed his mind ("Such a waste! Perhaps this will not be necessary.") She began to seduce him: ("I never made it with a chink before. OK, baby"), and was able to escape, turned off the lights, and - while completely topless with only panties (that changed color) - fought off a darkened room full of male criminals after taunting them:

"You want it black? You got it black."

Ming Threatening to Burn TNT's Chest with His Cigar
		Topless Kung-Fu Fight

In the climactic conclusion, TNT introduced herself to Charlie: "The name is Diana Jackson. T.N.T. to you" (the film's last line), and fought to the death against him - knowing that he was hijacking the drug shipments and had been responsible for killing her brother. The film ended with her punching through Charlie's stomach - with her hand emerging from his back!

Vampyres (1974) (aka Vampyres: Daughters of Darkness, or Daughters of Dracula)

This ultra-erotic Euro-horror/vampire film, typical of a slew of similar exploitative films in the 1970s, was much more extreme than the stereotypical Hammer Studios film, such as:

• The Vampire Lovers (1970, UK)
• Lust for a Vampire (1971, UK)
• Twins of Evil (1972, UK).

This lesbian vampire film capitalized on the parallel connections between vampirism and sex, and eroticism and bloody gore.

This film's tagline clearly explained its ultimate appeal: "They shared the pleasures of the flesh, and the horrors of the grave!" Another proclaimed: "The Ultimate Lust. Their lips are moist and very, very red!"

Spanish director José Ramón Larraz's atmospheric film told about a pair of gorgeous lesbian-bisexual, blood-lusting vampires who haunted an abandoned castle in the British countryside and appeared in dark overcoats in the moors:

• Fran (Marianne Morris, nude model in the UK's Mayfair, October 1976), a brunette
• Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska, ex-Playboy centerfold Miss May 1973, credited only as "Anulka"), a blonde

Pair of Vampyres: Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska)

In the opening scene, the two were shot down in their bedroom by an unknown assassin - and the film brought up the possibility that the two bisexuals in the English countryside were ghosts of the murdered females haunting a gothic castle.

As the film proceeded, they hitch-hiked or waylaid passers-by on a nearby foggy country road. Transient travelers became lured male and female victims, who were taken to the castle, fed (wined and dined), offered carnal sex, and then wounded and drained of their blood. One such victim, Ted (Murray Brown), was kept alive by Fran to serve her needs, and another English couple, John and Harriet (Brian Deacon and Sally Faulkner), camping on the castle's grounds, were also targeted. The bloodlusting vampyres eventually murdered with knives in order to feast on fresh blood - although without fangs.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

In writer-producer-director Mel Brooks' nostalgic, hilarious spoof-tribute to classic horror films titled Young Frankenstein (1974), there were a number of strong phallic references in its jokes.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein's (Gene Wilder) untouchable fiancee Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) had an encounter with the over-sized Monster (Peter Boyle). After Elizabeth was kidnapped from her castle bedroom, she was carried into the woods by the Monster, and developed streaks locks of white hair. While he was being pursued by torch-bearing villagers, she awoke and tried to bargain with him to not rape her when he grunted at her. But when she saw his "enormous schwanstucker," she changed her mind and barked out willingly: "Oh, my God! Woof!"

However, she continued to vainly convince him that she was engaged: "I'm engaged. And once he... But I didn't... It was never...Ah! Ooh! Ah!", as he crouched atop her for sex, but then gleefully warbled in falsetto the song from Naughty Marietta (1935) during intercourse:

Ah, Oh, Ah, Ahh, O Sweet Mystery of Life, at last I've found you! Ahhh! At last I know the secret of your arms.

Afterwards, she shared a post-coital cigarette with the Monster (actually, after an inhuman six bouts of sex), who lit two in his mouth and gave her one - an after-sex standard practice in 1940s films. As they smoked, she continued to deliver one-liners, such as: "A penny for your thoughts....(the Monster grunted) You're incorrigible, aren't you? You little zipperneck. Oh, all right, seven has always been my lucky number. Come over here, you hot Monster." But when he left abruptly, she quipped:

"Oh, you men are all alike. Seven or eight quick ones, and you're off with the boys, to boast and brag. You better keep your mouth shut! Oh, I think I love him!"

The spoof culminated with a transference operation (conducted by Frankenstein's hunchback assistant Igor (Marty Feldman) and his sexy lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr)) in which Dr. Frankenstein transferred his intellectual brain to the Monster, while he received in turn the Monster's enormous schlong. The operation was interrupted when the villagers attacked the castle and destroyed some lab equipment, but the Monster, now sophisticated and intelligent, was able to placate the mob.

Dr. Frankenstein ended up marrying Inga, and the Monster had coupled up with Elizabeth (with a beehive harido) in her NYC apartment. When in their honeymoon bed at the Transylvanian castle, Inga asked Frankenstein about the results of the sex operation:

"You know, it's a puzzlement. Just something I've always wanted to ask you about that operation. You know, in the transference part, the Monster got part of your wonderful brain. But what did you ever get from him?"

Frankenstein responded with a long gutteral noise (inferring that he had indeed acquired the Monster's giant penis), and as they had sex (off-screen), she also screamed out ecstatically:

"Oh, I don't believe! Ow, oh, oh, O Sweet Mystery of Life, at last I've found you!"

There was also a zoom-in closeup of Frankenstein's expectant face and the fireplace.