1970S TRIPLE CLIMAX GRINDHOUSE TRIPLE FEATURE

1970S TRIPLE CLIMAX GRINDHOUSE TRIPLE FEATURE

I don’t know where the sleazebags at After Hours Cinema keep finding this filth, but God bless them for their tireless, smutty work.

Here, we get yet another value-for-money package of three obscure pornos from the 1970s, all crammed onto one well-authored and region-free DVD.

The fun kicks off with TWO HOURS ON A SUNDAY.

This one opens with a balding character named Phil, who looks like the personification of After Hours’ notorious sometime animated host Uncle Farts.

Phil is a screenwriter looking to sell his latest script. After all, his last one – "Billy the Kid meets Benny Hill" (!) – played in theatres for three years straight. As he speaks to his agent JB over the telephone trying to pitch his latest plot, he lapses into telling how he got the inspiration to write previous hits such as "The Wife Stealers" and "Suburbia Sexualis".

This reminiscing predictably leads into flashbacks, which inevitably make up the bulk of the virtually plotless 50-minute running time. We get to see how Phil’s first marriage ended when he walked in on wife Gloria fucking a friend, and how a trip to stay with friends in Pasadena ended in an orgy that he didn’t partake in because "it’s not the same if it’s not with someone you care about".

Events culminate with Phil’s account of how he met his current wife in a dancing bar. He takes a brunette cutie with a winning smile and a figure to match into a private boudoir ... but it’s not her that he really has his eye on …

This flashback, with its focus on performances and humour, makes for a satisfying finale to proceedings. The final twist, involving a career choice on Phil’s part, is at once amusing and presumably making a statement on the film’s anonymous director’s part.

SUNDAY is unusually well-lit and photographed for such a z-grade production. The women, too, are more attractive than seasoned explorers of America’s more obscure 70s porn will be accustomed to.

LOVE THY NEIGHBORS follows.

In it, the guy who played Phil turns up again, this time as Tony. We first meet him fucking his pretty wife Jane (who I think is the brunette dancer from SUNDAY). After spurting his load all over her stomach, he answers the telephone to his neighbour.

Tony and his missus are thereby invited over to the neighbours’ house that evening to watch a movie about "naked adultery". Another couple, Don and Alice, are also expected.

To cut a 45-minute story even shorter, the sextet wear party hats and blow whistles around the neighbours’ dinner table for a while. Their antics get louder and more frivolous, before eventually the promised party movie commences and, of course, an orgy unfolds in the living room. Partners swap, lesbian cunnilingus is indulged in, and Tony gets his oats in the bathroom.

The great thing about this to-the-point feature is that the excitement and revelry of all concerned seems entirely genuine. This is one porno shoot that really does appear to have been an absolute hoot: it’s fun to watch as a result.

As with SUNDAY, the women are fine, the lighting is more than adequate and the camerawork is better than average.

ROSE AND THE BEE closes the triple bill in style, opening to the sight of its title being scribbled in marker pen across female arse cheeks. Later, we get snippets of classical music during the fuck scenes (including a muzak reworking of ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’). Quality.

I found this one to be somewhat incomprehensible. What I think was happening was, a young fat bloke pays window-stop visits to his much hotter girlfriend and they start watching home movies made by her parents (for consistency, the Phil/Tony bloke plays her dad). What followed was effectively a lot of sex scenes with commentary from the fat lad and, curiously, his off-screen male pal. At least, I think that’s what was going on.

And so we get threesomes involving the most unlikely porn star ever (Phil, Tony, whatever he’s called here), dildo action, and more female bellies benefitting from the wonders of sperm showers.

It’s a messy 48-minute proposition, for certain. But it’s filled to the rafters with clammy, pasty-skinned sex and game performances.

These three films offer nothing ground-breaking or even remarkable, but do hark back favourably to an age when porn was shot on film by folk who, however misguidedly, wanted to incorporate the sex with artistic merits such as script, acting and crude aesthetics. These people genuinely thought it would be break into mainstream filmmaking.

I say "these people" as information on these titles is incredibly, typically scarce. There are no end credits and even things such as titles and music cues may well have been replaced by After Hours.

In summary, viewers should anticipate a lot of innocent fun of the hardcore variety. The sex is sweaty and the cumshots often gloopy, just as the acting is enthusiastically wooden and the scripts smell almost as cheesy as the actors’ bell-ends.

Consequently, these three films are so much more fun – and far sexier – than any of the internet porn of the last decade: you know, the unsavoury DIY stuff that’s effectively killed off the porn industry as a legitimate business. To this end, you can expect to enter a zone here that is free from fake boobs, shaven twats, facials or even anal.

What you get instead is a whole lot of natural, hairy women (even the odd bum-crack is hirsute), men who want to thank their lucky stars they’ve found females who will put their noses anywhere near those stinky looking bollocks, and a naïve energy that can’t help but rub off onto even the most casual viewer.

Each film comes window-boxed in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The back cover boasts these to be "brand new telecine(s) from the original film elements". That’s as maybe but, as is the norm with these releases, little remastering has taken place. Scratches, cigarette burns and vertical lines are abundant throughout the transfers. Colours are somewhat faded but blacks hold up well, and the detail on offer is never at fault.

Accept the flaws inherent in the age and wear of these no-budget 16mm quickies, and you’ll find plenty to like in these authentically grubby transfers.

English mono audio is fine across the board, notwithstanding the occasional moment of drop-out and a fair bit of background hiss here and there. It comes with the territory.

After Hours’ disc opens with an animated main menu which delights in playing one of the more jovial conversations from LOVE THEY NEIGHBORS, on rotation. From there, each film can be selected to view either individually or as a triple bill courtesy of the tried and trusted "Grind It! Play All" function. There are no scene-selection menus.

Considering the fact that three films already grace this disc, it’s understandable that the only extras on it are trailers for DIRTY DETECTIVE, GRINDHOUSE HOSTAGE 2, HILLBILLY SEX CLAN, HOW TO MAKE A SEX MOVIE, MAD SEX FAMILY and SLAVE OF PLEASURE.

Inside the keepcase packaging you’ll also find a coupon entitling customers to 30 minutes of free VOD adult smut.

Another great disc of three interesting finds from the ever dependable After Hours Cinema. Enjoy.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by After Hours Cinema
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
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