Barry Lyndon (1975, UK)

Stanley Kubrick's over 3-hour long costume drama adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 novel was one of the director's most underrated films. The gorgeously-filmed period piece and epic featured astonishing, gorgeous candlelit cinematography by John Alcott and oil painting-like tableaus.

It told a tale of the profligate life-style of impetuous, opportunistic, and jealous young Irish farmboy who became rogue Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal). After a duel, he joined the British Army and was engaged for a time in the Seven Years War, until he deserted and was also pressed into service in the Prussian infantry. He emerged to become a professional gambler in the company of fraudulent nobleman Chevalier de Balibari (Patrick Magee).

In his dealings in Belgium, he happened to notice the Countess of Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) who was married to aging and terminally-sick Sir Charles Lyndon (Frank Middlemass). After his first flirtatious meeting with her in a gamester session (a very seductive scene), lit only with candlelight casting a reddish glow, he met privately with her and after restrained moments, he kissed her for the first time.

First Kiss Between Barry and Lady Lyndon

When her husband died, Barry followed up with a stately courtship of Lady Lyndon and soon married into wealth - becoming Barry Lyndon. He made England his home, lived off his wife's riches, with no money to his own name. Theirs was an unhappy marriage ("Lady Lyndon tended to a melancholy and maudlin temper, and, left alone by her husband, was rarely happy or in good humor. Now, she must add jealousy to her other complaints and find rivals even among her maids"), exemplified by the scene of Lady Lyndon witnessing Barry's unfaithfulness in the garden with his wife's maid. Subsequently, Barry offered his subservient sincere apology to her while she sat motionless, nude and passive in her bath as a despondent newly-wed wife, but then allowed herself to be kissed by him.

Barry's Apologies to His Wife During the Bath Scene

One love-making scene between Barry with two topless ladies was also portrayed on a lobby card.

		On Lobby Card
In the Film

Capone (1975)

Lacking historical accuracy, this crude and violent crime biopic was a Roger Corman-produced exploitation film, taking advantage of The Godfather mobster film craze at its time. Producer Corman had earlier made The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) with many of the same characters, including Al Capone (Jason Robards, Jr.).

Its poster tagline promised:

"Now, After 45 Years the True Story Can Be Told! Capone - The Man Who Made the Twenties Roar."

The film purported to tell about the rise and fall of infamous and ruthless Chicago gangster Al Capone (Ben Gazzara), and his relationship with pretty 'flapper' Iris Crawford (Susan Blakely), other gangsters (Hymie Weiss (John Davis Chandler) and George "Bugs" Moran (Robert Phillips)) and various underlings, including pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone as his right-hand man Frank Nitti.

First seen on the streets of Brooklyn, Capone was transferred to Chicago where he worked his way up the ranks, while dealing in rackets, bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution. He mentored and then competed with local crime boss Johnny Torrio (Harry Guardino). Some of the footage was reused from Roger Corman's own earlier The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967).

The first full frontal female nudity (an open crotch shot) in a major-studio (or mainstream) American film was found in this film. In the most notorious scene, Iris opened her legs in full view as she left Capone's bed.

[Note: It was the predecessor of a more publicized shot involving Sharon Stone during a police interrogation in Basic Instinct (1992).]

The first account of the "Happy Hooker" was director Larry Spangler's X-rated porn film The Life and Times of Xaviera Hollander (1974), with Samantha McLaren (aka Samatha McClearn) in the lead role as Xaviera, and the real-life Madam serving as Narrator.

A year later, a series of three R-rated films in the sexually-revolutionary 1970s were inspired and loosely based on the novelized true accounts or raunchy memoirs of former call-girl and madam Xaviera Hollander, published in 1971 as The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.

Three different actresses portrayed the title character in the trilogy: Lynn Redgrave (a respectable actress), Joey Heatherton (a leggy blonde bombshell), and Martine Beswicke (known for appearances in two Bond films). The films were produced by the Cannon Group - the last film in the trilogy was overseen by its notorious new owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus:

• The Happy Hooker (1975), with Lynn Redgrave (see below)
• The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977), with Joey Heatherton
• The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980), with Martine Beswicke

[Note: See the other years (1977 and 1980) for the next two entries in the 3-part The Happy Hooker film series.]

Xaviera Hollander was originally "Secretary of the Year" in her native Holland before moving to New York City and becoming notorious as a 'high-class' Madam who was arrested for running a bordello. She continued to write autobiographical books and sex guides, and for three and a half decades served as Penthouse Magazine's sex-advice columnist for "Call Me Madam."

The Happy Hooker (1975)

The first film in the three-part franchise was a slow-paced, tame and unappealing adult film about sex-for-hire. Its tagline was:

"Don't Be Embarrassed To Spend 96 Minutes In A Dark Room With A Hooker. You Know About Sex. Now Learn About Life."

The only nudity came from one of Xaviera's prostitutes named May Smith (Anita Morris). The nakedness occurred during two scenes when she was dressed in food (as an ice cream sundae and in a whipped cream wedding dress).

Ilsa: Exploitational Women-in-Prison Series (1975-1977)

A series of infamous, violent and shocking B-films, all with the title of Ilsa, were released in the mid to late 1970s. They were part of the era's trend to exhibit women-in-prison (WIP) films and add Nazi-exploitation to the mix, after the tremendous success of Love Camp 7 (1969).

• Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975) (see below)
• Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976)
• Ilsa: The Wicked Warden (1977)
• Ilsa: The Tigress of Siberia (1977)

[Note: Ilsa: The Wicked Warden (1977) (aka Greta, the Mad Butcher, and Wanda, the Wicked Warden), was an "unofficial" Ilsa film directed by Spanish exploitation master Jess Franco. Dyanne Thorne starred in the film as a warden named Wanda.]

All of the films featured torture (sometimes with sex involved), in various locales:

• a Nazi prison camp somewhere in Germany
• in an unnamed Middle Eastern country (Saudi Arabia?) with wealthy sheiks kidnapping females for their harems, assisted by Ilsa
• in an asylum (psychiatric hospital) for young women, run by a "wicked warden"
• in part 1 in the Soviet Union's Siberia, set in a gulag run by Ilsa ("Comrade Colonel"), and then in part 2, in modern-day Montreal in a brothel also run by Ilsa

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)

The first film in the series, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, a 1975 Canadian production (from David F. Friedman) was the original film in a 3-part sexploitation series (see above).

It was sick, degenerate and semi-pornographic with abundant gratuitous full-frontal female nudity and gruesome incidents. It was reportedly based on the real life atrocities of merciless Nazi murderess Ilse Koch who was christened the "Bitch of Butchenwald."

[Note: Coincidentally, it was shot on the set used for the Hogan's Heroes TV show after it was cancelled.]

Ilsa (big-breasted Las Vegas showgirl Dyanne Thorne) was featured as the camp's nymphomaniacal, over-the-top, sadistic commandant, who personally inspected stripped female prisoners, and decided which would be 'retrained' to serve the soldiers of the Third Reich, or be subject to torturous medical experiments.

Personal Inspections-Abuse of Stripped Prisoners and Torture Victims
Rosette (Jacqueline Giroux)	Red-Headed Prisoner (Colleen Brennan, aka Sharon Kelly)
Anna (Maria Marx)	Prisoner (Donna Young)

Ilsa conducted private research to prove that females could take more pain than males (including the use of electrified dildos and electrodes attached to sensitive areas) - one hapless female experimental test subject was Anna (Maria Marx) who was mercilessly tortured for "three nights" and couldn't be broken. Torture victim (Uschi Digard) was strung up in a pressurized chamber until she died, and another prisoner (Sharon Kelly) was hung upside down outdoors to die.

Prisoner (Peggy Sipots) was gagged, hung by her neck with a noose and standing on a melting ice block (at the end of a dinner table during a party held for other German commandants). After the dinner, the drunken and aroused Commandant invited Ilsa to urinate on his face as he laid down on the floor in front of her.

Prisoner on Ice Block (Peggy Sipots)

Ilsa Forcing Herself on Male Prisoner

Male Castration

In the opening scene, Ilsa was forcing herself on a male prisoner and threatened him with castration if he couldn't hold out long enough to satisfy her. Obviously, he didn't, because she had to satisfy herself with a shower head. (Soon after, there was a punishing male castration - mostly off-screen but still gruesome.)

One of the American prisoners, blonde-haired Wolfe (Gregory Knoph), who could satisfy her insatiable appetite for sex because he didn't ejaculate - ultimately was able to lead a prisoner uprising. He was able to convince Ilsa to be tied up on her bed (for S&M bondage sex games) before he gagged her and let a mutilated Anna approach to stab her (but she fell limp and died? before killing her). Ilsa's busty blonde, half-naked henchwomen were also dragged out into the compound and shot for revenge.

In the conclusion (just before the Allies arrived), the Reich had ordered the camp to be destroyed (and everyone killed) by the Nazis themselves. Ilsa's brains were blown out while she was still tied up on her bed (and then there were three sequels to this film?) by the Nazi Commander. The leader of the massive cover-up to eliminate evidence and witnesses radioed into his headquarters:

"General, your orders have been carried out. Camp 9 has ceased to exist. You may tell the Reich Fuhrer that the Allies will find nothing. They will never know."

From a hillside, it was revealed that there were two who could testify as survivors of the horrific prison camp: Wolfe and Rosette (Jacqueline Giroux).

Lisztomania (1975, UK)

The experimental, controversial and sensational Ken Russell directed a number of films in the 1970s, including this reviled Warner Bros. effort about 19th century composer Franz Liszt. The flamboyant musical genius was depicted as a pop-rock star (the Who's lead singer Roger Daltry portrayed the title character, as he had for Russell's rock opera Tommy (1975)). The self-indulgent film, an immense flop, was also notable as the first to use the new Dolby Stereo sound system.

This outrageous, loud, misogynistic and bizarre semi-biographical fantasy was presented by Russell in obscene and vulgar episodic vignettes, with rampant sexual imagery. The impressionistic film was based upon the notion that 'mania' accompanied many of Franz Liszt's public concerts - they were composed almost entirely of screaming females.

The promiscuous and hedonistic Liszt carried on affairs with a number of mistresses and followers, including Marie d'Agoult (Fiona Lewis). In the opening sex scene in a bedchamber, Liszt was kissing the naked breasts of Marie, rhythmically (left and right) to the clicking sounds of a glittering metronome (that she sped up to pleasure herself faster).

Her husband Count d'Agoult (John Justin) discovered them and challenged Liszt to a naked saber duel. Afterwards, the Count nailed both Liszt and Marie into a piano box that was then set on railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train. Later in the film, Marie became Franz' wife with three children before they separated.

Backstage just before one of Liszt's concerts, he was besieged by photographers, adoring fans and a lustful naked female groupie named Lola Montez (Anulka Dziubinska, Playboy's Playmate of the Month, May 1973). During the concert, he enraged composer Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas) by mocking him during the performance of one of his pieces.

While in St. Petersburg, Russia during a concert tour, Liszt was seduced by Princess Carolyn (Sara Kestelman), one of his many groupies. He hallucinated in a fantasy sequence that he had a 10-foot erection caused by his stimulating music and the women in Carolyn's court. Five barely-clad chorines simultaneously rode upon and straddled Liszt's engorged penis, and then opened their legs while lying back on the floor as the phallus zoomed through them. They also danced around the erection acting as if it was a maypole. The sequence ended when the Princess threatened to have a guillotine perform phallic dismemberment on him, after calling him a 'savage beast' for selling his soul to debauchery: "You must pay the price."

The 10-Foot Erection - Fantasy Sequence

In Russell's telling of the tale, Liszt's real-life friend and opera composer Richard Wagner was his scheming, jealous rival and Jew-hater. Wagner led a devilish cult in a castle that proclaimed Nazis as the master race. At one point, Wagner secretly drugged Liszt, and revealed himself to be a fanged, blood-sucking vampire who supported German nationalist unity with his piano music.

After Liszt joined the Catholic Church as an Abbot, he was discovered breaking his vows in bed with red-headed Olga (Nell Campbell). The Pope (The Beatles' Ringo Starr) appeared to him and commissioned Liszt to exorcise vampirish Wagner. If he failed, he would be excommunicated and his music would be banned. By this time, Wagner had married Liszt's daughter Cosima (Veronica Quilligan) after taking her away from her husband Hans von Bülow (Andrew Reilly) and child, and was using her to further his devilish ends.

In the castle courtyard, Liszt watched one of Wagner's outdoor plays - a ritualistic dance performed before a group of children (being groomed as the Nazi "master race") led by Cosima. The dancers were a group of innocent, completely naked mostly blonde-haired German nymphs, who were suddenly dragged off and raped one-by-one by a demonic-looking, toothy Jew (with a Star of David on his forehead).

The Rape of Blonde Nymph Dancers

It was also revealed in the castle that the anti-Christ Wagner was building a cryogenic Viking Siegfried (a "new Messiah") named Thor (Who keyboardist Rick Wakeman) to rid Germany of the Jews. Through the power of his music, Liszt was able to exorcise vampirish Wagner and brought him to near-death.

Wagner was resurrected or transformed, in a Nazi ceremony, into a Frankenstein-Hitler figure wielding a machine-gun guitar. In the streets of Berlin, he brutally massacred and exterminated bearded Orthodox Jews, while backed by a supportive army of young girls in superhero costumes with red capes that ravaged the city.

Exorcised Vampire Wagner
	Wagner as Resurrected Frankenstein-Hitler - with Machine-Gun Guitar

In the finale, Liszt died and went to Heaven after a voodoo ceremony performed by Cosima used a doll to stab a needle into his heart.

In Heaven, seven women Liszt had romanced were playing stringed instruments on a massive platform. From there, Liszt and the women flew down to Earth in his silver metal, angel-winged spaceship to destroy Wagner-Hitler with a blast of laser rays.

As he piloted away in his spaceship's cockpit (with a keyboard) after eliminating the threat, Liszt claimed through song that he had found "Peace at Last."

Maitresse (1975, Fr.) (aka Mistress)

Director Barbet Schroeder's early, daring, kinky and provocative X-rated erotic drama, without explicit traditional sexual activity displayed, explored the double-life of a professional dominatrix.

[Note: Schroeder was better known later for two other more mainstream, commercial Hollywood films: the crime drama Reversal of Fortune (1990) and the erotic thriller Single White Female (1992).]

The controversial, non-judgmental film with some extreme and 'deviant' content was notable for its graphic portrayal of actual S&M practices, with real practitioners, masks, chains, torture racks, whippings, piercings, and more. It was noted that all of the graphic sequences of sado-masochistic activity were performed by actual masochists.

The dark film's taglines were:

"She will open your eyes."
and
"A LOVE STORY ABOUT THE MYSTERIES OF LOVE"

The film with elements of black comedy, told of a strange, strained romance/relationship, involving a struggle for 'control' regarding domination or submissiveness between:

• Ariane (French actress Bulle Ogier), a blonde, living two lives in Paris, as a respectable middle-class female and as an accomplished dominatrix prostitute
• Olivier (Gerard Depardieu), an ex-con petty thief and drifter, and a Parisian door-to-door encyclopedia book salesman; also Ariane's eventual boyfriend

The world of S&M was unfamiliar to Olivier until he and his pal Mario (André Rouyer) attempted at night to burglarize an unoccupied downstairs apartment in her building, they stumbled upon Ariane's torture chamber. With only a flashlight to illuminate the way, it was slowly revealed that Ariane had a second, secret, neon-lit, windowless dungeon-style apartment (accessible by a hidden mechanical, metallic white staircase that descended from her upper apartment) where she lived an alternate, subterranean existence and engaged in torture, sadomasochism, and bondage with whips. Visible were latex and rubber suits, cages or dog pens (to hold prisoners), a dentist's chair, chains and various paraphernalia (dildos, a hanging noose, etc.).

Ariane caught them in the midst of the petty robbery, handcuffed them together and to a radiator, and went about attending to her clients. She straddled a masochist client who was on all fours, and positioned Olivier directly in front of the man's face. Ariane unzipped his fly, pulls out his penis and demanded that he urinate in the client’s face (offscreen). During the transgressive act, Olivier gazed at Ariane - and while urinating, they passionately kissed. Soon, he became better acquainted - and obsessed with Ariane, a professional dominatrix.

Fetishistic Behavior of One of Ariane's Male Clients	Ariane Unzipping Olivier's Fly To Urinate on Client (She Was Riding Him Bareback)
Olivier Staring at Ariane During Transgressive Act	Passionate Kiss During the Act

She would change into a fetishistic tight rubber/leather outfit, a black Louise Brooks-style wig, and heavy makeup. Love was characterized or symbolized by a Venus fly-trap (signifying entrapment and painful, devouring love).

Ariane took Olivier to a bourgeous party in a country home with punishment-seeking patrons - and Olivier participated by painfully spanking a willing, stripped and "naughty" Female Guest (Cecile Pochet). He produced swollen reddish welts on her butt-cheeks, followed by the whip-teasing of her vulva visible from behind, all of which seemed to turn on or amaze Ariane standing nearby.

Female Guest (Cecile Pochet) in Bourgeois Country Home S&M Whipping-Spanking by Olivier as Ariane Watched

The film's two most disturbing scenes of depravity (sexual and otherwise) included:

• genital torture (nailing down a seated, masked man's genitals to a wooden plank or board - an often excised sequence)
• Olivier's witnessing of the real-life bloody death of a horse in a Parisian slaughterhouse (horse meat factory)

Olivier learned that she was engaged in the unusually dark lifestyle to support her son, and that possibly true surrender and love (including a power struggle with both dominance and submissiveness) could only come through masochistic submission. Slowly, their love grew for each other, and the behavior in the upstairs apartment began to duplicate the goings-on in the downstairs dungeon. Olivier's questions about her shadowy benefactor Gautier (Holger Lowenadler) (or her pimp or blackmailer?) threatened their relationship.

The film ended with risky sex behind the wheel between the couple as they both struggled to control the steering wheel, resulting in a sudden and possibly deadly crash and overturned vehicle (similar to the ending of David Cronenberg's Crash (1996) two decades later).

Risky Sex While Driving With Olivier

Surprisingly, they both emerged unscathed - the two giggled at their circumstances as they stumbled away and wandered off into the woods.

Mandingo (1975)

Adapted from Kyle Onstott's bestseller (first published in 1957) about a southern slave-breeding plantation in the pre-Civil War period, director Richard Fleischer's inflammatory sex- or blaxploitation drama was extremely controversial and banned by the Catholic Church. The big-budget studio exploitation film from Paramount Pictures (and producer Dino De Laurentiis) - a rarity - was condemned for its inter-racial sex, racist attitudes, full-frontal nudity of both sexes (in the unrated versions) and various debased atrocities of slavery and bloody violence.

This infamous film was followed by an equally disturbing and more reviled sequel - Steve Carver's almost X-rated Drum (1976) from United Artists, set 15 years after the events of Mandingo.

The trashy, 'revisionist' melodrama told about an 1840s slave-breeding Louisiana plantation known as Falconhurst, run by the Maxwell family, composed of:

• Warren Maxwell (James Mason), a widower, the bigoted, aging and corrupt plantation owner patriarch plagued with rheumatism
• Hammond ("Ham") Maxwell (Perry King), Warren's lusty plantation son and heir, who suffered from a limp due to a knee injury when he was six years old
• Blanche (Susan George), a blonde Southern belle, a non-virginal white cousin
• Charles Woodford (Ben Masters), Blanche's sadistic and mean brother, both physically and sexually-abusive

Warren was a complete racist bigot, who compared his slaves to animals. When sick, they were treated by his veterinarian Dr. Redfield (Roy Poole), and he felt that they didn't need religion because they had no immortal souls: "Slavery was ordained by God-- by God hisself. Niggers are right happy eatin', workin', fornicating..." He also denounced abolitionists up North: "Damn sons of bitches...Abolitionists! Cracks and loonies!" He wouldn't hesitate to whip his slaves, including loyal house slave Agamemnon ("Mem") (Richard Ward) for disobediently learning how to read, while rationalizing: "A nigger don't feel physical punishment soon as a white man. And you rub in the pimentade after. Hurts like hell, but heals the scars right clean."

In one of the film's earlier scenes, Black Pearl (Reda Wyatt) was set to be de-virginized by her "white master" Hammond - she was prepped with a bath and given helpful advice from her mother. Hammond was accustomed to bedding many different black slaves, and had already impregnated another young female named Dite (Debbi Morgan). She told him: "Master, I knocked up....Master, when my sucker come, can'st I keep it?" ("sucker" - the name for a slave baby). She knew that it was common for a mulatto baby to be sold off.

Hammond was finally compelled by his father Warren to properly marry and produce offspring to carry on the Maxwell tradition: "It's time for us to be a-thinkin' of an heir for Falconhurst. You need a white lady to give you a son with human blood -- not them suckers of yours through wenches." Hammond admitted his inexperience with white females: "Pa, I wouldn't know what to do, not with no white lady." He was encouraged to agree to an arranged marriage with his cousin Blanche (Susan George), the sister of his childhood family friend Charles Woodford (Ben Masters).

Upside Down Whipping of Naked 'Mem' For Having Learned How to Read

Hammond's Purchase of Young "Wench" Ellen (Brenda Sykes) in New Orleans

Slave Auction - Sale of Ganymede (Mede) (Ken Norton)

During a trip to New Orleans, Hammond purchased beautiful black 'bed wench' slave Ellen (Brenda Sykes), whom he treated respectfully (he at first told her: "If you don't like me, you don't have to stay").

In a slave market scene where Price & Birch Exchange were selling slaves, one of the "black buck" slaves, Ganymede (or Mede) (future WBC heavyweight boxing champ Ken Norton), was up for auction - he was a potent and strong male from the Mandingo tribe in Sierra Leone in Africa. An older German widow reached under his shorts to examine his studly manhood. Mede was bought by Hammond, to serve as a 'Mandingo' - a breeder-male on the plantation.

Hammond Maxwell (Perry King) and Fiancee Blanche (Susan George)

In New Orleans, Hammond was introduced to his cousin Blanche (Susan George), who wished to marry him to get away from her family - and especially her sexually-abusive brother Charles. After an off-screen marriage, during their honeymoon's first sexual encounter, Hammond learned that Blanche wasn't a virgin and wondered: "What man you had before me." She protested: "I was pure, till you." Hammond threatened: "You might as well tell me who he is. I'll kill the son of a bitch! Now, you tell me who pleasured you 'fore me!" He stormed off, telling her: "You disgust me!"

Hammond rejected her from then on and instead visited a bordello. There, Hammond learned that Mede could become a profitable prize-fighter ("They make the best fightin' niggers, mandingos") via wagered fights. On his way home with Blanche, Hammond acquired Ellen from her white owner for $1,500 and took her along as his new house slave (or "wench"). He explained to Blanche that Ellen wasn't bought for the Mandingo. As they approached Falconhurst, Hammond insisted to his new bride Blanche that she not speak about her lack of virginity to his father: "He never got to know you weren't pure."

Although now married, Hammond took a separate bedroom from Blanche, and continued to cheat in an affair with Ellen as his "bed wench." It was discovered that Mede, who was being prepped to breed with Big Pearl, was actually his sister - so it would be considered incest. However, Warren wasn't concerned - if the baby was born monstrous, it could be killed: ("Snuff it out!"). Meanwhile, Hammond ignored his new wife and she began to drink heavily. When Blanche begged for his sexual attention: "You ain't touched me. I want you to touch me," he pushed her away.

Shortly later, Ellen became pregnant by Hammond, and he tenderly vowed his genuine devotion to her that he wouldn't sell her off or her baby, and then reluctantly promised to let her "sucker" go free one day: ("Ellen, honey, I ain't givin' you away, ever. You're mine...Our sucker, we, we keep him, raise him right here at Falconhurst....All right, honey. The sucker can go free").

Hammond went away for an epic prize fight in New Orleans pitting Mede against Jamaican Topaz (Duane Allen) owned by Marquis De Veve (Louis Turenne), subsequently won by Mede in a "fight to the finish." Meanwhile in his absence, the frustrated, sex-starved Blanche, who had increasingly been neglected by Hammond, discovered that Ellen was pregnant by her own husband. The drunken Blanche whipped Ellen mercilessly: ("I'm gonna whip that sucker out of you") while yelling: "Dumb animal! Dumb! Fornicator! Fornicatin' animal!" The punishment induced Ellen's miscarriage when she fell down stairs as she ran away ("She slip her sucker").

Warren coerced Ellen into keeping Blanche's involvement in the miscarriage quiet, and then insisted that Blanche get Hammond back in bed with her: "Then you're gonna do dirty things, just so you get him in your bed and keep him there" - and produce a grand-son. They were reconciled for a short while, and planned to build a new house (financed by selling a number of their slaves in Natchez, Mississippi). However, their reconciliation was short-lived. She realized that her husband still loved Ellen: "You like that black meat! You'd rather pleasure with a baboon!" And she divulged that she had been raped by Charles when she was 13 years old: ("We only did it once").

To spite Hammond again when he was away, Blanche vengefully sought sexual attention, through miscegenation with her husband's slave "Mede." She summoned him to her bedroom, and threatened him with blackmail (a false threat accusation that he had attacked her in the woods), to force him to have sexual relations with her ("Ain't you ever craved a white lady before?"). She slowly undressed him - and then made love to him. Later, she announced happily: "I'm with child." (Hammond reassured a fearful Ellen: "You always gonna be mine. Ain't nobody never, white or black, gonna take your place").

There was a paralleling of inter-racial sex (with two babies that resulted from mixed parentage due to the couplings):

• a white male with a black female (Hammond with Ellen)
• a black male with a white female ("Mede" with Blanche)

When the baby was born to Blanche, her infidelity to Mede was revealed - the baby was a mulatto ("It ain't white"). Blanche had ordered Mede to her room four times, proving the assertion that she "craved that black ape." Blanche's half-black child (born from her affair with Mede) was deliberately left to die by the family doctor to prevent a scandal: ("Untie the cord and let it bleed to death"). Although Warren wanted to deny Blanche's desire for a black man: ("Do you suppose she could be lyin' - most likely were rape?"), Hammond attempted to poison Blanche with a doctored drink. And then he set his sights on punishing Mede, but first, Hammond cruelly pushed aside his black slave mistress Ellen while stressing his white dominance:

"Don't think because you get in my bed you're anything but a nigger."

Hammond's Poisoned Drink for Blanche

Hammond's Harsh Condemnation of Ellen

The film concluded with extreme violence - the crazed Hammond shot Mede twice with a rifle and propelled the wounded slave into a boiling kettle of brine. Then he grabbed a pitchfork to keep him under the scalding water and drown him. Another house slave 'Mem' came to Mede's rescue with a rifle aimed at Hammond. When Warren intervened and called Mem a "crazy nigger....you looney black bastard," Mem shot him dead on the porch of Falconhurst. Hammond was left with devastated relationships and death all around him.

The Deaths of Mede and Warren

Nashville (1975)

Maverick director/producer Robert Altman's country-western character study Nashville (1975) - a classic, multi-level, original, two and a half-hour epic study of American culture, show-business, leadership and politics - one of the great American films of the 1970s; the director miraculously interwove and criss-crossed the lives and destinies of 24 different characters in a free-flowing tapestry or kaleidoscope - especially in the opening sequences, during a five day (long weekend) period in Nashville, Tennessee (the "Athens of the South") in 1976, culminating in an outdoor gala fund-raising concert and political rally for unseen US Presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker (Thomas Hal Phillips) running for the populist Replacement Party. Typical of many films of the 70s, it contained a requisite scene of nudity. See full description of scenes here.

Desperate wannabe Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles) - a dim-witted, red-haired, tone-deaf, lower-class airport cafe waitress, aspired to be a singer. She had been invited to appear at an all-male political, Walker fund-raising smoker (that she thought was a singing engagement, but instead was a stag party). She descended from the ceiling on a stage - wearing a provocative green dress and promised to sing "I Never Get Enough" - "about a girl who never gets enough." Shamelessly, the amateur, tone-deaf singer began her flat-tuned song off-key. She also sang a second song titled "When I Love You" before the misogynistic crowd.

With the promise of appearing the next day at Walker's political concert by local political organizer "Del" Reese (Ned Beatty), she agreed to embarrassingly perform a bump-and-grind striptease. It was a clumsy, inept, asexual un-dressing in front of the crowd, including removing the socks-padding from her bra and tossing them into the hooting group of spectators before going topless to satiate the crowd.

Thoroughly humiliated by the show's end, she had stripped off her dress, bra, and her yellow panties (also tossed to a cheering male) before running off.

Night Moves (1975)

Arthur Penn's noirish psychological detective thriller, a moody, post-Watergate noir, told about middle-aged, world-weary LA private eye Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), an ex-football player.

At first, he made the shocking discovery that his unfaithful wife Ellen Moseby (Susan Clark) was having an affair when he saw her kissing and riding off with another man: crippled Marty Heller (Harris Yulin), in the front of the Magnolia Theatre marquee advertising Eric Rohmer's New Wave art film My Night at Maud's (1969, Fr.). He discovered the man lived in an art-filled Malibu beach house.

In the main plot, Harry was investigating a missing persons crime case in the Florida Keys. He had been hired in LA by wasted ex-actress and sexually-liberated studio boss divorcee Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) to find her daughter who had been missing for two weeks:

• Delilah "Delly" Grastner (Melanie Griffith in an early role at age 16 or 17, in her film debut), a free-spirited, promiscuous 16 year-old runaway who was suspected of seducing her mother's two ex-lovers, stuntman/pilot Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello) and Tom Iverson (John Crawford)

Harry first spoke to Delly's former boyfriend Quentin (James Woods), a greasy, suspicious LA mechanic, who led him to visit a film set in New Mexico. There, he spoke to stuntman/pilot Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello) and stunt coordinator/director Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns), Harry was able to track Delly to the Florida Keys, where the liberated Delly was living with her stepfather Tom Iverson and his sexy hippie mistress Paula (singer Jennifer Warren).

Delly was first seen unclothed behind a clothesline (similar to Brigitte Bardot's entrance in ...And God Created Woman (1956, Fr.)). She refused to return to California with Moseby - she believed that the only reason Arlene wanted her back in Los Angeles was to live off her trust fund of $30,000/year, that required them to be living together:

"I'm not going back to that bitch!...She doesn't want me. The money! I know Arlene and so does Tom. He hates her as much as I do."

Griffith's notable breakthrough role called for her to appear naked twice, once while dressing, and secondly during a mid-night swim scene. During the night-time dive sequence from a glass-bottom boat, the fully-nude Delly discovered a crashed plane with the decomposed remains of Marv Ellman, one of Arlene's ex-boyfriends. Either the crash was entirely an accident, or mechanic Quentin had monkeyed with the plane's mechanics to sabotage the plane in order to get back at Marv for stealing Delly away.

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) With Various Women
Estranged Wife Ellen Moseby (Susan Clark)
Paula (Jennifer Warren)

The downbeat film concluded with a number of shocking occurrences and revelations - the death of Delly in California on a movie set in a suspicious car accident, and the deaths/murders of four other key individuals in Florida:

• Delly's orchestrated death in LA was during a failed film stunt on set with coordinator Joey Ziegler, where she was performing as a stunt extra; Joey was driving the car and had set Delly's safety belt; further questions were raised about Quentin's part in the murder. Had Delly been silenced because she knew too much? It was suspicious that Arlene didn't grieve Delly's death - she had a lot to gain from the death
• the revelation of the smuggling of pre-Colombian art sculptures and antiquities by Delly's stepfather Tom (and his mistress Paula), who were working in Florida in cahoots with pilot Marv Ellman
• the murder of Quentin by Tom Iverson in Florida, when Quentin threatened to go to the police
• the possible (off-screen) murder of Tom Iverson (last seen unconscious) by stunt coordinator Ziegler
• the death of Paula who was deliberately hit by the pontoon of a seaplane piloted by Ziegler
• the death of Ziegler in his crashed plane when he was trapped and drowned in the cockpit
• and the presumed death (after the film concluded) of injured Harry on the damaged boat

The Private Lesson (1975, It.) (aka Lezioni Private)

After her success in Baby Doll (1956), blonde Hollywood temptress Carroll Baker starred in this sordid Italian comedy from director Vittorio De Sisti. This foreign film was a coming-of-age tale for a young virginal piano student Alessandro Corsini (Rosalino Cellamare) who was instructed in the ways of love-making by his piano teacher Laura Formenti (Carroll Baker) in a small provincial Italian town.

[Note: The film was not to be confused with the morally-questionable, controversial and clumsily-made teen fantasy sex comedy Private Lessons (1981) with Sylvia Kristel (of Emmanuelle fame).]

The advertisements claimed:

"Alessandro has a thing or two to learn. Carroll Baker is the perfect teacher!"

Alessandro's self-assured latent homosexual friend Gabrielle spied upon Laura while she pleasured herself, and he took pictures which he used for blackmail purposes.

Later, next to her naked body as Gabrielle lit three matches, one after the other, he held each match close to her left breast, then her "ass" and then her pubic area, while he instructed Alessandro about the illuminated areas:

"The first to light up these beautiful tits that drive you crazy and turn you into a raving idiot in class.

The second match is for her back bumper or ass, not bad is it? The way it wiggles under her clothes to magnetize all your attention.

And the third match is to show you only what you've imagined. It represents the essence of everything you have desired, and the magic bush that draws you to its entrance. You think it's love, platonic or otherwise, a grand passion that makes you throb. And what do you think it is? It's flesh, and nothing else."

Laura's (Carroll Baker) Illuminated Areas by Three Matches

In the second-to-last scene, now that Gabrielle's blackmail scheme had been thwarted, Laura encouraged Alessandro to get undressed with her and have sex. He confessed his love to her, and she assured him:

"This evening will be special...(whispering in his ear) Let's get undressed.. Oh baby, how lovely, I want you. Don't be afraid. Oh, it's good, so very good. Gently, yes, oh you see, you're wonderful."

Alessandro's experience was instructive and fruitful, since he was romping in the next scene in a field of sunflowers with his classmate/girlfriend, Gabrielle's sister Emanuela Finzi (Leanora Fani). They laid together naked after having sex in a small clearing, and she mentioned how he was now confident - no longer awkward and unsure of himself like a little boy, as the film ended.

Alessandro With Emanuela

The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975)

This R-rated paranormal or supernatural horror-thriller by director J. Lee Thompson has always been heavily edited for its mid-70s style nudity and controversial content ("incest" thematic elements). The screenplay by Max Ehrlich was from his 1973 novel of the same name. The film's theme of a perverse fixation or obsessive interest in a woman echoed Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) and Brian de Palma's Obsession (1977).

It featured a tagline that almost gave away the entire plot:

Suppose you knew who you had been in your previous life. Where you had lived, whom you had loved, and how you had died. What then?

The contrived story was about the film's title character:

• Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin), an inquisitive young Univ. of California college professor

He was experiencing disturbing, prophetic nightmares or visions during dream-sleep. The film opened, under the title and credits, during a night-time scene. An unidentified nude lake swimmer came upon a woman in a motorboat. The man apologized for previous drunken and abusive behavior:

"Look, Marcia. I didn't mean what I said back there. And I'm sorry, baby, I mean it....Look, I was drunk. I didn't know what I was saying, what I was doing. I love you, Marcia, I always have."

As he got into the boat, she repeatedly and mercilessly bludgeoned him with her oar paddle, and he drowned and sank. Peter's sexy girlfriend Nora Hayes (Cornelia Sharpe) described his voice:

"There was this crazy voice coming out of your mouth....weird, deeper than yours, coarser."

He then told her what he had envisioned - he was being clobbered with a rowboat oar while swimming: "She was hitting me in the balls with a paddle" - and then Nora joked after glancing at his genitals: "Well, obviously, she didn't do you any harm."

Peter Proud with Girlfriend Nora Hayes (Cornelia Sharpe)

At the time, Peter didn't know that his repetitive dreams were actually flashbacks to 30 years earlier. Peter began to believe he was the incarnation of an adulterous, ex-decorated Marine war-hero named Jeffrey Curtis (Tony Stephano) who was found dead after a nude night-time swim on Crystal Lake near the Puritan Hotel (replaced by the Crystal Lodge), after leaving his clothes in the Curtis lakeside cottage. It was a well-known death case in the city - Jeff Curtis died on September 27th, 1946, and it was considered an accidental drowning. The newspaper headlines read: "Body of Banker's Son-in-Law Is Found At Bottom of Lake Wife Reported Him Missing."

He was first reported as missing by wife Marcia Buckley Curtis (Margot Kidder, pre-Superman) (who had a 3 month-old infant daughter). Although married to Marcia (the daughter of a wealthy bank president), it was an unhappy coupling. Jeff was having an affair with another young female, and his reputation was that he was a womanizing playboy - a charming "no-good son-of-a-bitch."

The Curtis Family: (Ann, Marcia, Jeff)	Jeffrey Curtis' Death in 1946
Ann Curtis (Jennifer O'Neill)	Marcia Buckley Curtis (Margot Kidder)

On a self-discovery journey - Nora accompanied Peter Proud back to the small Massachusetts town of Springfield, where Peter thought he used to live in a previous life. But soon, Nora became frustrated with him and left: "I hope you find what you're looking for." There, Peter became acquainted over tennis at the local country club with two members of the same family:

• Ann Curtis (Jennifer O'Neill, from Summer of '42 (1971)), recently-divorced, the now grown-up Curtis daughter
• Marcia Curtis (Margot Kidder), Ann's alcoholic, widowed mother

After Peter and Ann made love, they returned to her home where Marcia was passed out from drinking. Ann told Peter that her mother was depressed: "She can't forget him. She gets so unhappy." Marcia gradually figured out or believed, based on Peter's mannerisms, voice and similarities to her deceased husband (once she witnessed how Peter took on the voice of the dead husband) that ex-husband Jeff Curtis had come back. She was also disturbed to think that Peter Proud was the reincarnation of her deceased husband - and he had semi-incestuously fallen in love with his own 'daughter.' Even Peter admitted: "Maybe she was my daughter in some previous life, but she isn't now."

Peter vowed that he had decided to end his recurring Lake nightmare by going out to the lake to "get rid of that last dream once and for all."

In the film's most talked-about and censored scene, Marcia recalled being violently raped in the Curtis cottage by her murdered adulterous ex-husband Jeff Curtis while she was masturbating in the bathtub. She accused him of having multiple affairs - even while she was giving birth to Ann: "You brought them here to our house. You made love to them in our bed when I was having Ann in the hospital." He forced himself upon her: "You want it, don't you, Marcia?...Rape, baby, rape. I'm gonna screw you." She yelled at him ("I hate you"), and called him a "rotten, stinkin' bastard." She asked: "Tell me, Jeff. Why did you do this to me?" He responded: "Because you bore me. You bitch. I can't stand the sight of you." As he left her, he said he was going swimming to "wash off your stink." This was the momentous night that she murdered him on the lake.

Then, Marcia confronted Peter face to face in his hotel room - she accused him of vengefully coming back to haunt her and confront her with the murder 30 years earlier:

Marcia: "Who are you? You're not Peter Proud. You're somebody else. You're not even human. You're some kind of monster. Why are you after me?...Trying to get at me through Ann. Well, just leave her alone, you bastard. Just leave us alone. Leave ME alone. Just leave me alone. How? How did you know? How did you know what we said out there on the lake? How did you know?"
Peter: "'Cause I was there!"

In the sudden conclusion to the film, Peter was swimming in the lake, when the deranged Marcia emerged from the fog in a small motorboat, believing that he was the reincarnated Jeff. She asked: "Why didn't you stay where you were, Jeff? Why did you come back? You shouldn't have come back to torment me." She pulled a gun on him - and spoke to Peter as if he was her ex-husband.

When she turned the gun toward herself, Peter begged her not to hurt herself. He swam toward her to grab the gun, but it went off. He was killed - and his body slowly sank to the bottom of the lake. Marcia had re-enacted the night of her husband's death 30 years earlier!

The last image was a zoom-in and freeze-frame on the face of Peter, submerged under the water, as the credits rolled.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, UK/US)

Director Jim Sharman's cult film was an adaptation of the 1973 British musical. Upon its initial test showings, it bombed and was shelved. It didn't really take off as a phenomenon until it was featured as a 'midnight movie' at Greenwich Village's Waverly Theater on April 1, 1976.

It was a mixed genre film (science-fiction, comedy, musical, and horror), but mostly a parody of B-horror movies of the 1960s. It was a groundbreaking film for its themes of transvestism, homosexuality, bisexuality, cannibalism, voyeurism, adultery, and incest.

The film also popularized and promoted alternative sexuality, cross-dressing, promiscuity, and rebellious behavior.

Its main character was the sexually-obsessed, outlandish and openly-bisexual transvestite Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry): who sang in "Sweet Transvestite" ("I'm just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania"). The other two main characters were a strait-laced, All-American engaged couple who stumbled upon his castle:

• Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon)
• Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick)

Dr. Frank N. Furter's androgynous sexuality was exemplified by the outrageous and suggestive dual seduction scenes of the two separated fiancees. In a lighted tent, there were two seductions: first - a heterosexual coupling with Janet filmed in reddish light, and then a second homosexual pairing with Brad in bluish light.

Dr. Frank N. Furter's Androgynous Sexuality
Heterosexual Coupling with Janet	Homosexual Pairing with Brad

Frank also re-animated a Frankenstein-esque human - an attractive new muscle-bound, blonde beefcake playmate sex toy named Rocky (Peter Hinwood).

Janet and Rocky - "Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me"

After witnessing the advances of Frank on Brad, Janet took sexual revenge and seduced Rocky (witnessed from a bedroom monitor) while singing "Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me" in her bra and panties - "...I've got an itch to scratch. I need assistance. Touch-a touch-a touch-a touch me. I wanna be dirty. Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me, creature of the night."

By film's end after using his alien technology (a SonicTransducer and Medusa), the mad Frank-N-Furter had transformed a number of the characters, including Brad, Janet, Columbia (Nell Campbell), wheelchaired Dr. Scott (Jonathan Adams) and Rocky, into living stone statues - and singing and dancing versions of himself. After being reanimated, all of the characters were now decadent like Frank - costumed in stiletto high-heels, fishnet stockings, boas and tight black corsets on stage, performing in a cabaret show. All of them dove into a swimming pool, a la Busby Berkeley style, singing and making love to each other:

"Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh. Erotic nightmares beyond any measure....Don't dream it. Be it. Don't dream it. Be it...."

The Pool Orgy

The show was capped by an energetic performance of most of the cast - "Wild and Untamed Thing."

Salo (1975, It./Fr.) (aka 120 Days of Sodom, or Salò o Le 120 Giornate di Sodoma)

Salò was directed by the notorious Italian poet, novelist, painter and film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered before it was released. His work, an art house film based on Marquis de Sade's notorious 120 Days of Sodom, depicted atrocities, cruel sexual perversions, and carnal debaucheries. The shocking, disgusting and disturbing film about the dark and atrocious side of humanity began with perverted acts of degradation, sexual and physical torture, carnal debaucheries, and atrocities -- toward the youth. These perverted acts were committed by WW2 Fascists in the short-lived, lakeside republic of Salo in Nazi-controlled Northern Italy over a few days.

The four ruling fascist male officials (with four similar females) in a secluded chateau near Marzabotto totally controlled, abused, tortured, enslaved, psychologically humiliated, and victimized an anonymous group of about 30 young and attractive peasant teenagers (both male and female). The youths was rounded up and seized in the town, and then driven to the secluded chateau - to be stripped and inspected over a period of a few days. One lecherous official commented upon a stripped young female: "A delicious little ass. Never seen one firmer. A pair of little breasts, to revive a dying man." They were instructed that every day would include these acts: "intermingling, entwining and copulating incestuously, committing adultery and sodomy."

Pasolini's film connected fascist rulership to extremes of sexual deviation inflicted upon the imprisoned youth ("Weak, chained creatures, destined for our pleasure"). The extreme exercise of power was supposed to symbolize the evil of fascism itself. The imprisoned youth were warned they were "beyond the reach of any legality." One girl committed suicide early on by slitting her own throat to escape the humiliations and brutalities.

The film's many contested scenes immediately ran into censorship problems and utter disgust. Its four chapters clearly delineated the reason for the aroused outrage:

• "Antechamber of Hell"
• "Circle of Obsessions"
• "Circle of Shit"
• "Circle of Blood"

Breakfast in the dining hall was served by naked girls - one of whom was tripped and raped from behind, after which another male was penetrated anally. Soon after, the entire group engaged in a mock "wedding feast." A couple (hapless blonde Renata and Sergio), accompanied by dozens of naked flower-bearing bridesmaids and bridesmen, participated in a ring ceremony, often interrupted by unprovoked gropings of the nudes. The two were first encouraged to fondle each other and show their affection, but denied consummation, and then were anally raped by the libertines (and in addition, there was an instance of three-way intercourse from behind).

The Mock "Wedding Feast"

In "Circle of Shit" - a segment obsessed with anal bodily functions and infamous for scenes of coprophagia, one hapless blonde girl Renata was forced to eat fresh human excrement with a spoon. She was urged on by a male who had freshly defecated on the floor: "Come, little one, it's ready. On your knees. Courage. Go on, eat! Take this spoon. Eat!" Afterwards, during a second mock "wedding feast," a large urn of cooked human excrement was served to the guests on platters as an "intoxicating dish." Another young girl was commanded to stand above a man and urinate into his open mouth.

In another notorious scene, the youths were stripped, collared, leashed, and forced to act like dogs begging for pieces of meat (one girl bit into a piece of food laced with nails).

Enforced Victimization and Degradation for Peasant Youth, Even Murder

A contest was held to judge the "loveliest ass in the villa" - the naked youths were arranged in a circle on the floor in the dark, bent over with their behinds facing upwards and inspected by flashlight during the judging, as the men commented: "The differences between boys and girls are enormous...let's try to be objective." Franco was picked as the male with the best buttocks - and offered death as a prize.

In the final chapter "Circle of Blood," it began with a group wedding ceremony in which three cross-dressed older men were coupled with a male youth and then engaged in homosexual kissing and sodomy in the bedroom on their 'wedding night,' in a master/slave relationship.

As punishment for breaking the rules, male youth Ezio was executed, along with his black maid/slave girl, for illegally making normal love together. The teens were further tortured for their "misdeeds" - bound by their wrists and sitting in a tub of excrement, one girl cried out: "God, why did you abandon us?"

Further Tortures
Eye Gouging	Scalping	Nipple Branding

As the film ended, further tortures - excruciatingly-difficult to watch - were conducted in the outdoor courtyard (and seen through binoculars) included penis and breast nipple-burning, tongue cutting, strangulation by hanging, eye-gouging, scalping, and male nipple branding.

The Sensuous Nurse (1975, It.) (aka L'Infermiera)

This Italian erotic comedy farce from director Nello Rossati featured the nudity of two popular Bond girls:

• Ursula Andress (from Dr. No (1962))
• Luciana Paluzzi (from Thunderball (1965))

It told of a wealthy, aging widower named Count Leonida Bottacin (Mario Pisu) who had suffered a near-fatal heart attack while having sex with a younger female, the wife of a grave-digger. The lecher was making three visits a week to the cemetery - and to the bedroom of the undertaker's wife for sex, after the death of his own wife.

His lusty weakness for sex, as a way to have the "tough old bird" die off with a second heart attack, was encouraged by his scheming nephew Benito Varotto (Duilio Del Prete), one of the greedy heirs, who arranged for the hire of a sensuous full-time nurse named Anna (Ursula Andress), his Swiss ex-girlfriend. The malevolent group, led by Leonida's nephew Benito, included:

• Italia (Marina Confalone), Benito’s wife, with a teenaged son named Adone (Stefano Sabelli) from a previous marriage
• Jole Scarpa (Luciana Paluzzi), Leonida's sister-in-law
• Gustavo (Daniele Vargas), Leonida's brother-in-law
• Tosca Floria Zanin (Carla Romanelli), the Varottos' sexy maid

The group of heirs wanted to speed Leonida's death in order to take over his winery and sell it to American investor Mr. Kitch (Jack Palance).

Anna's Bedroom Striptease for Young Adone

Anna was commissioned to seduce Leonida to death, although the plan backfired when she fell in love with the dying Count. Anna married Leonida - and hoped to prevent his death by having a celibate relationship. However, when he insisted on love-making during his honeymoon, it was too much for his heart and he passed away after a second heart attack. As he died yelling out "Pussy, pussy," the camera went out of focus. Anna benefited by inheriting his fortune, and spent some of it on a lavish funeral.

Shampoo (1975)

Director Hal Ashby's romantic comedy sex farce about the sex lives of rich, narcissistic individuals in Beverly Hills, CA; it was set during a 24-hour time period surrounding November 4th, 1968 when Richard Nixon was elected the President. It was a satirical look at the social and sexual mores of the late 1960s, as exemplified by the main characters.

It told about studly, naive, 34 year-old playboyish LA (Beverly Hills) hair-dresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) who feared commitment and was suspected to be gay, but engaged in simultaneous, round-robin heterosexual affairs with three women (actor Beatty's role reportedly mirrored his own Tinseltown exploits):

• Jill (Goldie Hawn), George's current dumb girlfriend, a pert model and aspiring actress; Jill was best friends with Jackie, who had not told Lester about her previous relationship with George; Jill was also dating film director Johnny Pope (Tony Bill) who was considering her for a role in his next movie filming in Egypt
• Felicia Karpf (Lee Grant), self-centered, and opportunistic, married to George's potential financier Lester (Jack Warden)
• Jackie Shawn (Julie Christie), George's foul-mouthed ex-girlfriend/lover and the current mistress of cuckolded Lester

George Roundy's "Shampoo" Females
Jill (Goldie Hawn)	Jackie (Julie Christie)	Felicia (Lee Grant)

George's objective was to open his own hair salon, but lacked a credit rating and financial references and the bank refused to offer him a loan. The convergence of characters and issues arose when George sought to obtain financial bankrolling-backing from Lester. Felicia supported George's business venture, while implying that George (her lover on the side) was homosexual to avoid bringing suspicion upon herself.

In one scene after George cut Jackie's hair in Lester's steamy bathroom, George proceeded to have sex with Jackie on the floor, when they were interrupted by Lester. To fool him, they pretended to be doing her hair and told him to close the door and not let the steam out.

George Caught Having Sex With Jackie in Her Steamy Bathroom After Cutting Her Hair

Next was Lester's seductive, resentful, Lolita-esque 17-year old teenaged daughter Lorna (Carrie Fisher) who wanted to avenge her cheating mother Felicia through sex with her hairdresser; in a startling scene while George was waiting for Felicia to arrive for her appointment in the kitchen, she asked a series of personal questions, and then offered him a very forward proposition: "You're my mother's hairdresser...Are you gay?...Are you queer?...Have you ever made it with a guy?...Do you wanna f--k?" After going to bed with Lorna, Felicia arrived home and the exhausted George was immediately forced to have sex with her too.

In the film's central highpoint, Lester (who believed that George was gay) allowed him to escort his wife Jackie to a 1968 Nixon-Republican Party election-night victory dinner at The Bistro restaurant. George found himself in the company of a gorgeous-looking Jill (with her date Johnny Pope) and Felicia. The drunken Jackie groped between George's legs under the table - and when executive Sid Roth (William Castle) offered to get her anything she liked, she pointed to George sitting next to her and boldly confessed her true sexual intentions: "Whatever I'd like?...Well, most of all, I'd like to suck his c--k!"; her blurted out desirous statement caused George to do a spit-take and almost choke on his glass of water.

Later in the evening, when all the main characters proceeded to a hip and posh counterculture party at a private Beverly Hills mansion with lots of booze and drugs, Lester and Jill (with her date) stumbled upon an unidentified couple in a boathouse during the party. George was in the midst of having sexual intercourse with Jackie in the dark. Lester gave his first amused and admiring reaction (without knowing their identities): "That's what I call f--kin'! Am I right, or am I right?" But then, when the refrigerator door slowly opened, it illuminated and spotlighted Jackie and George in the act. Lester was shocked and left. Outraged by the sight, Jill tossed a lawn chair through the double doors before storming off, as George was forced to ask a blatantly-innocent question of an enraged Jill: "Honey, where have you been? We've been looking everywhere for you."

Lester: "That's what I call f--kin'!"

George Having Sex With Jackie in the Boathouse

Later, George excused his rampant sexual proclivities with so many women (he had sex with Lester's wife, mistress and daughter!) when he told Lester about how women were most often concerned about how they were being used by men:

"How am I gonna tell you what they got against you. I mean, Christ, they're women aren't they? You ever listen to women talk, man? Do ya? 'Cause I do till it's runnin' outta my ears! I mean, I'm on my feet all day long listenin' to women talk, and they only talk about one thing: how some guy f--ked 'em over. That's all that's on their minds. That's all I ever hear about! Don't you know that?...Let's face it. We're always trying to nail 'em and they know it. They don't like it. They like it and they don't like it, it's got nothin' to do with you, Lester. It just happened."

By film's end, George's world had fallen apart when all his various secretive liaisons were revealed, when he was shown to be incapable of love, and he deserved to be abandoned.

The final sequence was of morally-shallow, bleak miserable and hedonistic George with Jackie atop a Hollywood/Beverly Hills bluff. George proposed to Jackie, but it was already too late. George learned that Lester had left Felicia and was planning to divorce her, and had already proposed to Jackie. George realized to his dismay that he had lost Jackie to Lester. After she left him, he looked down from a distance and saw them drove away on a trip to Acapulco. She had decided that Lester's offer of security and financial well-being was more important to her than George's irresponsible behavior and promise of sexual fulfillment.

Shivers (1975, Can.) (aka They Came From Within, The Parasite Murders)

Canadian writer/director David Cronenberg's scandalous R-rated film was his feature film debut and first commercial success. However, the film shocked audiences and the Canadian government (which looked upon it as hideous, pornographic, and nasty). It was criticized for lurid depictions of gore and sex, delving into multiple taboos such as pedophilia, incest, rape, infanticide, cannibalism and homosexuality. Cronenberg definitely equated sex with disease in the film.

The erotic horror film was about a group of Montreal high-rise apartment occupants on a sex and violence spree after being infected by parasites. The film's parasites stood as a critical metaphor railing against the swinging sexual lifestyles of the 70s, concluding with the threat of infection for the entire city of Montreal.

In an early scene, promiscuous teenaged mistress Annabelle Brown (Cathy Graham) was in the apartment of deviant pedophile and research scientist Professor Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein), who was conducting unorthodox experiments on her (as his guinea pig) - to create a special breed of parasites to replace diseased organs. He had implanted a combination VD and aphrodisiacal organism within her ("a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will hopefully turn the world into one beautiful, mindless orgy").

Prof. Hobbes (Fred Doederlein) with Annabelle (Cathy Graham)

However, the virus went out of control among residents of their apartment building. To rid her of the sexually-voracious implant, he chased her around his living room, subdued, and then strangled her. She was laid out on a table where her clothes were stripped off, her mouth was taped, and her entire torso was slit open with a scalpel. After prying open the cut line, he poured steaming acid into the cavity. Then with remorse, Hobbes committed suicide by slashing his own throat with the scalpel and falling to the floor.

The film continued with the major problem for a sterile, state-of-the-art, high-rise apartment building named Starliner Towers - red-colored, bloody, invasive worm-like (or phallic-like, similar to grotesque male genitalia) parasites that were rapidly spreading. The parasites incubated in one's stomach, emerged from one's mouth, attached to one's face, and would ultimately turn infected victims into flesh-devouring, crazed sex maniacs and zombie-like fetishists.

The most infamous scene was of repressed lesbian tenant Betts (Barbara Steele) taking a bath with one of the red wormy parasites coming up out of the drain and crawling between her legs into her vagina, violating her, and bloodying the water as it infected her and she splashed around. Afterwards, the infected Betts seductively whispered repeatedly to her female victim neighbor Janine Tudor (Susan Petrie) seated on the couch: "Make love to me" and "Let's kiss" and passed the parasite onto her when they kissed.

Miss Forsythe (Lynn Lowry), the nurse of the Starliner's resident physician Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), relayed her "disturbing" and creepy dream about how she had made love with an elderly, strange dying man, and how everything in life was sexual and erotic:

"...he tells me that everything is erotic, that everything is sexual, you know what I mean? He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. That disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other, that even dying is an act of eroticism, that talking is sexual, that breathing is sexual, that even to physically exist is sexual."

She then opened her mouth to reveal her own parasitic infection. Other inhabitants of the Starliner were making love in the hallways, and the entire complex was overtaken with copulation.

In the final scene, the protagonist Roger St. Luc, finally succumbed to being overpowered and surrounded by the parasitic forces in the apartment's indoor swimming pool complex. He was pushed clothed into the pool to engage in the orgy, where he was kissed by his infected nurse Miss Forsythe while surrounded by a group of infected inhabitants.

Smile (1975)

Director Michael Ritchie's satirical comedic-drama on beauty pageants, an ensemble film of many characters, came at the same time, during the post-Watergate era, as Robert Altman's similar Nashville (1975), yet both were somewhat overwhelmed and overshadowed by the summer release of Spielberg's Jaws (1975).

The poster's tagline described the annual event:

"Raised on hamburgers and soda pop. She's got a winning smile that's hard to top. A credit to her family, the ideal teen. She's America's daughter, she's a beauty queen."

Another tagline was more blunt:

"An American Dream, Peaches and Cream...maybe she'll go all the way."

The Young American Miss pageant, a semi-final round for 33 county finalists, was being held in Santa Rosa, California over a four day period, sponsored by the local Jaycees, and held in the local Veterans' Memorial Auditorium. The girls were continually urged to "Just be yourselves and keep smiling" and choreographed to perform for talent segments (for example, baton twirling, saxophone and accordion playing) and gown competitions. One contestant's talent was folding clothes into a suitcase!

The event coordinators and the young girls competing for the title were the main characters in the parody:

The main Pageant Leaders:

• "Big Bob" Freelander (Bruce Dern), the always-cheerful head judge, and a fast-talking used car dealer of gas-guzzling RVs; his voyeuristic, sex-obsessed son "Little Bob" Freelander (Eric Shea), intent on selling illicit photos, was caught snapping Polaroids of contestants disrobing in their dressing room, and was required - with his father - to see a psychiatrist for his deviancy; a nude snapshot was confiscated by police, was clipped to a cop's car visor, and became the backdrop for the end credits
• Brenda DiCarlo (Barbara Feldon), the pageant's cool Executive Director and a former Young American Miss in 1966, who was married to unstable, suicidal and neglected Andy (Nicholas Pryor), a heavy drinker and owner of a trophy shop, who frustratingly shot his wife in the shoulder in their home near the end of the pageant; the second night of the pageant, "Big Bob" took Andy to his local lodge "Exhausted Rooster" Ceremony (for men who reached the age of 35) where he was required to kiss the butt end of a raw plucked chicken
• Tommy French (Michael Kidd), a cynical, egotistical, and rough-edged Hollywood choreographer, who eventually agreed to take $500 out of his own salary of $2,000 to keep the runway ramp for the contestants so they wouldn't injure themselves

Polaroids of the Undressing Contestant Karen (Melanie Griffith)

The Main Young American Miss Contestants, many of whom were in their debut film and went on to larger careers, included:

• Robin Gibson (Joan Prather) - Miss Antelope Valley, flute player, honest, level-headed and the most sane of the girls
• Shirley (Denise Nickerson) - Miss San Diego
• Karen Love (Melanie Griffith) - Miss Simi Valley
• Connie Thompson (Colleen Camp) - Miss Imperial County
• Doria Houston (Annette O'Toole) - Miss Anaheim, shrewd, a veteran contestant with spunky advice about how to compete, named 4th runner-up
• Maria (Maria O'Brien) - Miss Salinas, who used her Mexican-American heritage to score points with repeated offerings of her guacamole dip, and who twirled batons with sparklers (sabotaged by competitive girls)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

This satirical, cautionary feminist sci-fi thriller by director Bryan Forbes opened with new Stepford, Connecticut suburban wives Joanna Eberhart and Bobbie Markowe (Katharine Ross and Paula Prentiss) noting suspiciously that their seemingly-perfect neighbor housewives only cleaned house, were non-argumentative and always smiling, and bowed to their husband's needs. The housewives all appeared to be perfect homemaker robots (who wore flowery dresses, pushed shopping carts in the supermarket while listening to Muzak, and cooked gourmet meals) in order to please their husbands.

The first shock came when Joanna suspected that her friend Bobbie had been transformed into a 'perfect' housewife when Bobbie began to act robotically in the kitchen while serving coffee. Joanna deliberately cut her own finger with a sharp bread knife ("Look, I bleed...when I cut myself, I bleed").

Then, to test Bobbie's humanity, she stabbed her in the lower abdominal/genital area, while asking: "Do you bleed?" Bobbie calmly and cleanly pulled out the knife and asked twice: "How could you do a thing like that?" as she cleaned the bloodless blade.

The stabbing caused her android friend to go berserk, drop coffee cups and grounds, and repetitively ask the same questions due to malfunctioning, severed robotic wiring. ("I was just going to give you coffee. How could you do a thing like that? I thought we were friends!") The newly-made android Bobbie twirled and acted monotonously, as Joanna ran from the frightening scene.

In another startling scene toward the film's conclusion, Joanna was told the motive for transforming the town's wives by mastermind Dale "Diz" Coba (Patrick O'Neal):

"Why? Because we can. Found a way of doing it, and it's just perfect. It's perfect for us and perfect for you. You're a very good subject, perhaps the best we've had. You were brighter than most...See, think of it the other way around. Wouldn't you like some perfect stud waiting for you around the house? Praising you? Servicing you? Whispering how your sagging flesh was beautiful, no matter how you looked?...Well, that's all there is. So why don't we get it over. You know, you hurried us a little. We weren't quite ready for you, if you want to know the truth."

When Joanna fled, she came upon a mock-up of her own bedroom - and after a slow pan to the right, saw her own, semi-completed, robot-duplicate or replica, peacefully combing her hair in front of a tri-part mirror. When it turned, Joanna was shocked into paralysis when she witnessed her own smiling robotic double with sunken, soul-less, black and empty eyes. Small-breasted Joanna noticed the large breast implants on the android.

Robotic Joanna Clone Ready to Strangle the Real Joanna

The Joanna-duplicate wrapped a long cord around her hands as she approached to strangle the real-life Joanna to death by garrotting - as Coba watched from the doorway. The movie frame abruptly went black.

The film ended with all of the flowery-dress-wearing (with large sun-hats), android wives pushing their shopping carts in the local supermarket, including roboticized clone Joanna - as they greeted each other with only a simple hi or hello.

Story of O (1975, Fr./W.Germ./Can.) (aka Histoire d'O)

Soft-core erotic film director Just Jaeckin's ("Emmanuelle") classic but disturbing sex-art tale of erotica was based on the 1954 novel by pen-named Pauline Reage (the source of the film's voice-overs), actually French author Anne Desclos.

This film was the first of a three-part series of S&M epics about the title character. The first film, a notorious NC-17 soft-focus film about female submission, was banned for many years for its stylistic depiction of depersonalizing female sexual humiliation, defiling abuse and objectification.

Story of O (1975, Fr./W.Ger./Can.) (aka Histoire d'O)	Story of O (1975, Fr./W.Ger./Can.) (aka Histoire d'O), d. Just Jaeckin See description below
Fruits of Passion (1981, Fr./Jp.) (aka Les Fruits de la Passion) O (Isabelle Illiers)	Fruits of Passion (1981, Fr./Jp.) (aka Les Fruits de la Passion), d. Shuji Terayama Based on the novel Return to Roissy (the Chateau), also by Pauline Riege Starred Isabelle Illiers (as enslaved wife O) and actor Klaus Kinski as wealthy businessman Sir Stephen (O's husband) in a story set in Hong Kong (Shanghai?) in the late 1920s. Again, O was subjected to sexual domination and humiliation in a bordello (the House of Flowers), with the addition of a love triangle plot regarding Sir Stephan's other lover, a scheming French blonde named Nathalie (Arielle Dombasle).
Histoire d'O: chapitre II (1984, Fr.) (aka Story of O, part II) O (Sandra Wey)	Histoire d'O: chapitre II (1984, Fr.) (aka Story of O, part II), d. Éric Rochat A sequel, starring Sandra Wey as the title character. She played opposite Texas businessman Sir James Pembroke II (Manuel de Blas) and his wife Carol (Carole James). O was the owner of a European estate, who was commissioned to catch or provoke Pembroke (and his family members) into committing scandalous acts.

A young French Parisian fashion photographer only named O (Corinne Clery) was pampered and trained in bondage, discipline and sado-masochism at a bizarre, isolated country retreat, Chateau de Roissy. She was brought there by her jaded boyfriend Rene (Udo Kier) to be subjected to the sexual power games and fantasies of others, and to consent and submit to domination. She was also instructed:

"You mustn't keep your legs together, it's forbidden."

She was required to always be sexually available and submissive, to please her boyfriend.

In the film's most noted scenes as she advanced in her 'training', she was groped, sodomized, forced to perform oral sex, blindfolded and whipped (with visible lacerations), gang-banged by multiple partners, bound and collared, chained and branded.

When she returned to Paris, she was traded from Rene to domineering and graying Sir Stephen (Anthony Steel), and her second round of training was more severe.

SuperVIXENS (1975)

Exploitation film-maker Russ Meyer needed a comeback film after the failures of two studio releases (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and the too-serious The Seven Minutes (1971)) and Blacksnake (1973)).

The film's premise was that a young male protagonist was continually being sexually harrassed by six sexually-voracious, giant-busted women named Super... ("SIX of the world's most BOUNTIFUL women!"). This was an opportunity for all the trademark Meyer themes and images to come into play. This exceptionally violent and soft-core action thriller was taglined:

"TOO MUCH...for one movie!...feast on it!"

This film was the second installment of a three-part series of VIXEN series of films (from 1968 to 1979) - incorporating Meyer's tried-and true formula for success.

VIXEN! (1968)	This over-the-top, definitive Russ Meyer ("King of the Nudies") - a soft-core sexploitation skin-flick, was typical of his independent underground films with aggressive, big-breasted starlets. It was the first of Meyer's films with VIXEN in the title It was a highly profitable, low-budget film that was one of the first US films to receive the newly-formed MPAA's 'X' rating, for its many sex scenes Dark-haired brunette Erica Gavin was featured as the sexually-voracious, racist, bisexual title character Vixen Palmer
SuperVIXENS (1975)	The second of Meyer's 'Vixen' films (see description here)
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-VIXENS (1979)	Independent film-maker and producer Russ Meyer's ("King Leer") last theatrical feature film was this vulgar and crude adult comedy (co-written with critic Roger Ebert - with pseudonym R. Hyde). It was a cartoonish parody of Beneath the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Its tagline was: "Six Chicks in search of a Cluck!...and so hilariously funny!" The lewd and unbelievable film was mostly a series of exaggerated soft-core vignettes. The main star was Francesca "Kitten" Natividad (the director's wife).

It opened with gas station attendant and young stud Clint Ramsey (Charles Pitts) at work speaking to his super-buxom wife Angel Turner (Shari Eubanks) on the phone, while flirting with a busty customer, SuperLorna (Christy Hartburg), who requested paper towels. The client was dissatisfied after being rejected and she sped off.

When Clint returned home, he engaged in a vicious argument with Angel as they were having sex. She accused him of cheating on her beforehand, causing him to be impotent with her. Outside, she damaged his truck with a large rock and axe before he retaliated by beating her. A patrolman-cop Harry Sledge (Charles Napier) was called to the scene to protect her as the injured Angel was taken away in an ambulance. To drown his sorrows, Clint went to a bar where he was entertained by bar-maid SuperHaji (Haji).

After recuperating, Angel invited Sledge over to her place, where she started to perform a sexy dance in front of him in a low V-cut red dress. Soon, they were having sex, but he was unable to perform. She mocked and insulted him:

"You're not ready with my beautiful body? You got a lotta nerve, buster, telling me you're not ready. All of those muscles except the one that really counts."

She angrily shouted: "Get out of my bed, you phony," as she slapped his butt. After he dressed, he replied: "Ah well, that's the way it goes, baby. Some day you up, some day you down." She doused him with her drink when he calmly suggested the next day for sex. She called him a "limp faggot" and threatened: "Beat it, you jackoff, before I call the cops. Ha! That's a funny one, isn't it? Me calling the pigs on the pig." He punched her in the abdomen for being a "sassy...foul-mouthed bitch."

After a short squabble, he slapped her across the face and ordered her back into the bedroom ("Get your ass in the bedroom and see what's comin' up next"). She locked herself in the bathroom, and then behind the safety of the door, she ordered him to leave, but continued to mock his lack of manhood, calling him: "old shriveled up Harry. Old prune prick Harry." What followed next was the unappealing murder of Angel by the deranged, sadistic and mean cop. Incensed, he repeatedly stabbed the door with a long kitchen knife, then broke it down - and the impaled knife struck Angel when the door fell on top of her. He dragged her to the half-filled bathtub, where he brutally assaulted her by stomping on her, and then electrocuted her with an electric radio ("Quite a turn-on yourself!").

Harry Sledge's Murder of Angel in Bathtub

Then, Sledge decided to frame Clint for the murder. Clint had to flee from his gas station job, and as he hitch-hiked across the country, he was sexually-harassed by more voluptuous nymphomaniacs:

• SuperCherry (Colleen Brennan, aka Sharon Kelly) - she was driving along with her liberal male partner Cal (John Lazar) when she urged him to pick up Clint thumbing a ride; she then bragged to Clint: "I came in the shower this mornin'. Yeah, I came without even touching myself? Just the hot water beatin' on my body...I dig masturbation, I mean, but I've discovered a really groovy way, like underneath my left breast..."; she encouraged Clint to fondle her breast: ("Here, feel!"), and then reached inside Clint's jeans, but he rejected her advances ("I appreciate the hospitality, the ride I mean, but...") - and exited the car
• SuperSoul (Uschi Digard), a farmer's German-speaking, Austrian mail-order bride was his next female attacker; she attempted to 'rape' Clint at night, and then forced sex on him in the barn's hayloft before being discovered by the farmer
• SuperEula (Deborah McGuire), a motel owner's deaf-mute daughter, African-American, propositioned Clint in the desert after a dune buggy ride
• SuperVixen (Shari Eubanks in a dual role); Angel was sweetly reincarnated and working at a roadside diner

In the end, SuperVixen and Clint's common enemy Harry was in pursuit, and threatened to explode a stick on dynamite between SuperVixen's spread-eagled legs: ("This'll be the biggest and last bang you'll ever have") and also up Clint's butt, but then Harry was accidentally blown up himself.

SuperAngel exclaimed: "Leapin' Lizards!" and then atop a pile of rock, shouted out with her arms and legs extended: "That's All Folks!" Her last sexually-satisfied words after a nude desert romp with Clint were: "I'm coming!"

Women Behind Bars (1975, W. Germ.) (aka Frauengefängnis 3, or Des Diamants Pour L'Enfer)

Spanish independent film director Jess Franco's notorious, low-budget W-I-P ("Women in Prison") exploitation film was controversially banned in many locales for its full frontal nudity, two torture scenes, and lesbian sex (it was missing the requisite shower-room scene usually seen in these kinds of films, however).

[Note: It was made the same year as director Franco's sleazy Barbed Wire Dolls (1975), and came a few years before his Ilsa: The Wicked Warden (1977).]

The film opened in an unnamed Central American country with the heist of a millionaire's insured, uncut diamonds from a Chinese junk. Afterwards, gang-leader Perry Mendoza shot his two white-masked accomplices on a beach, and then he was shot dead at the Flamingo nightclub-bar by his double-crossing, brunette partner-girlfriend Shirley Fields (Lina Romay, the director's wife). She turned herself into authorities - jealously claiming he was cheating with a "mulatto slut" and it was a "crime of passion" - she was sent to prison for six years.

Shirley's (Lina Romay) Genital Torture Sequence

The S. France jail was an unusual place - basically without bars, and the female inmates wore short black trenchcoats and at night slept on cots in the nude because of the hot humidity. The sleazy, predatory warden Colonel Carlo de Bries (Ronald Weiss), who had a palatial villa close to the warehouse-like prison, suspected the new inmate knew of the missing diamonds' whereabouts. Insurance investigator Milton Warren (Roger Darton) and accomplice-hitman Bill (director Jesus Franco) were also trying to have Shirley lead them to the diamonds.

The warden offered up his blonde stoolie inmate-lover ("the boss' bunny-rabbit") Martine (Martine Stedil) as Shirley's cellmate to become her lesbian lover in exchange for information. The sadistic warden (who had already ordered a naked whipping of another disciplined cellmate for cat-fighting, with her bloody breasts seen in close-up) tortured Shirley with three powerful jolts of electricity delivered Gestapo-style to her genitals through wires, and then isolated her for disobedience and insubordination. When she was returned to the common sleeping quarters, she strangled Martine to death in the middle of the night.

And then at the start of the film's bizarre plot twists, she was shown to be the new mistress of the warden (Colonel Carlo) in his villa, telling him: "The trouble is that men only want me as a cute little thing that they can go to bed with" before kissing him, and then double-crossing him by pulling a gun on him (in front of her naked breasts) as part of her escape plan. Outside the gate, her accomplice Bill shot and killed the warden, and then the two met up with Milton in his hotel room. She claimed she had never seen the diamonds, much less hidden them, although Bill didn't believe her and repeatedly slapped her face to confess - they told her:

"The game is up, you must realize. Tell us politely where you put the diamonds."

Bill offered her a deal: "Either tell us where the rocks are and get 10%, or keep on lying and I'll really work you over." After she agreed to lead Bill to the Flamingo to retrieve the 'rocks,' the box with the diamonds was still revealed to be empty. She admitted that partner-in-crime Warren had the box with the diamonds:

"He was the one who substituted the boxes....The Chinese junk was in port in Kingston. Somehow, Warren got onboard and switched the two cases...I just met Warren a few weeks before that. I really fell for him. That was when he suggested the whole thing. Surprised, aren't you?"

She shot Jim dead, and then received a phone call from her partner Warren. She assured him: "He won't be bothering you." They were planning on taking a plane flight together that afternoon to Vera Cruz, and she added: "Don't worry about me, darling. See you soon." In voice-over, Warren expressed how surprised he was with the success of their heist, and the prospects of their future together:

"By selling the diamonds in Mexico, we'll be able to live comfortably for the rest of our lives. Neither Shirley or I have any previous criminal record. It is true we've committed murder, but who are the victims - people who deserve to die. If you ever come to Mexico and you happen to visit Vera Cruz, you may notice a little white house on the hill... that's where we live. But please, don't tell anyone."