BEYOND THE BUSTY STAGS

More 8mm madness from pervy 42nd Street Pete, in this latest 2-disc collection of nudie loops from the 1960s.

Disc 1 is where the bulk of the action is at, a feeble animated intro opening with risible dialogue ("It's a bird! It's a plane! It's supertits!") before introducing us to Pete on a spaceship's monitor.

After a brief explanation from Pete telling how he didn't want this to merely be "more of the same" - he looked for more interesting loops to showcase the incoming plethora of big boobs this time around - we waste no time in getting to a five-minute montage of some of the finest vintage girls that Pete could find. You've got to hand it to him, the guy's got taste.

Then we're into the first loop, the black-and-white "Battle of the Burlesque Queens". This highlights four women who enter a boxing ring and dance around to public domain music while stripping down to their knickers.

"Head Cheerleaders" is in colour, and presents us with two attractive redheads who get naked on a settee. They share a private joke together, drink a little and read magazines before indulging in a very unconvincing pillow fight. Afterwards, one of the girls lights up a cigarette (in the liner notes, Pete claims this action is responsible for the disc acquiring an "R" rating …).

Then we get "The Archer", more black-and-white naturist footage as a brunette scours the desert looking for somewhere to practice her archery skills. Despite the unfunny intro from Pete, he's right in pointing out the lead female's finely pruned bush. Very tidy.

"Bottoms Up" brings the colour back on to our screens, in which a brunette in stiletto heels starts to undress her unconscious blonde friend on a bed. When blondie awakes, the pair cavort atop each other before enjoying a pillow fight and, finally, a shower together. Nice backsides on both women, not to mention ample breasts too. What's sexy about this loop is how the women remain partially clothed, even when showering (and the close-up of the blonde lathering the brunette bottom is nice too).

"Switcheroo" is black-and-white footage of six ladies bathing nude around a pool, while "Alice's Sofa" offers the biggest breasts yet as the titular character loses her geeky spectacles to start rubbing herself sensually and reveal an extremely hairy bush. We even get a couple of zoom-shots revealing the girl's labia (it's as close to hardcore as we get in this collection).

"Wrong Side" witnesses a nerdy bespectacled white chap coax a hot black model out of her clothes for his camera. Very attractive, but this striptease goes on and on and on.

"Blonde On Both Ends" returns to the monochrome look for a short loop where the camera roves up and down a drop dead gorgeous model's body. The breasts on offer here are smaller, but perfectly developed nevertheless. Pete makes mention in the liner notes of the girl's gap-toothed smile, and he's right: it's curiously beguiling.

"Leather Fem Dom", also black-and-white, sees two Hispanic-types in an apartment getting it on, dominatrix style. Fetishists will appreciate the leather boots and skirt. Oddly, this darker toned loop is set to twee waltzy music and ends with a bizarre dance routine.

"Brandy Long" follows, a straight strip act boasting sexy stockings and a lovely rump. And the loops keep on coming …

Offering a continuing mixture of colour and black-and-white footage, all devoid of budget, plot or dialogue, the films are set to music added to them by Secret Key Motion Pictures. Some of it is repeated further in the programme, while at other points it seems like someone's been raiding a music library of their "ponderous bass guitar twiddling" files.

Of the remaining loops, it's all pretty much the same stuff on offer - softcore strips or catfights (look out for the women laughing in general) and the occasional added sound effect from Secret Key (bottom slaps, for instance).

"Big Red" wins my vote, a cute girl caressing herself on a settee in blue panties. It takes an age before she finally reveals what's inside them, but the teasing build-up - set to organ-led notes - is very erotic.

"Nude Spanking" and "Nude Wrestling" are perhaps self-explanatory, and yet neither is as interesting as the titles suggest. "Santa" wins the award for most bizarre loop, while "Nicki" benefits from a sexy brunette with small but nice breasts, who likes to suck her finger seductively.

It all ends on disc 1 with Pete introducing us to "Simulated Sex", a colour short in which a woman pretends to fellate a man in a chair, before stripping and straddling him.

Disc 2 brings Pete back on his spaceship monitor to introduce five more loops (presumably the ones that weren't good enough to make disc 1).

The first loop on offer is "Pat Hall", in which the gorgeous Pat strips in a chair.

Then we get "A Bat A Ball And A Beauty", a lame nudist feature with the central character playing tennis topless.

"Seven Ways To Love" is a high-contrast black-and-white effort, with a young couple showing off various shagging positions while never revealing anything that would constitute "hardcore". There's a lot of kissing going on. Aah.

"Nude Dancer" is a brief segment in which a big-nosed woman, er, dances in the nude.

Finally, "Nudist Desert Safari" opens with a text disclaimer denying it is exploitation and that it is simply a celebration of the human form. Fair enough - it didn't need to be so boring though, sinking into shit nudist swimming pool footage.

As with disc 1, none of these loops have dialogue - they do share some of the same public domain music from the loops on disc 1 though!

Across both discs, the loops are presented in anamorphic 1.78:1 transfers. Picture quality is undeniably ropy, with frequent vertical lines and specks. But that's part of these films' seedy attraction: you don't want them looking immaculate.

Both discs open with the same animated main menu page, and scene-selections are listed among the respective disc "extras".

The only other extras on offer are a link to Secret Key's catalogue (on disc 1), and disc 2's wealth of trailers (17 in total, including PSYCHO KICKBOXER, A FEAST OF FLESH and BREASTFORD WIVES.

Finally, we get the usual 8-page booklet with screen-grabs and expletive-heavy liner notes from Pete.

What we have here is an exhaustive collection of silent loops set to repetitive and occasionally grating instrumental music. Women appear on camera, strip off, and cavort around exposing their breasts and bushes for a while. But that's all that Pete promises - so, in this respect, he delivers. In spades. You certainly know what you're getting for your money…!

Review by Stuart Willis