Cult Epics | Buy at Amazon | Review by Sinferno
Though it might seem contrary to the feminist movement and biological simplicity, there has been quite an evolution in erotic cinema over the years. American Nudes, the new boxed set from Cult Epic Cinema hopes to achieve a trifecta in bringing you an education the hard way by exposing you to the history of adult cinema; giving you three decades worth of naked women floundering about in what they hope will be a look back at vintage age naughty pictures. Does it work? It did surprise and otherwise delight me, but not in the way I had hoped. I will break it down by decade and disk.
Volume 1: 1940-1950
The first thing the viewer will notice about this film is the disk offers no minute counter. I find it curious for a product such as this that uses history/time recollection as it's primary selling feature would make it so difficult to track it's progress on a modern playback device. Of course this omission surely has more than everything to do with the fact that it is transferred from the original black and white 16mm reels from this decade and it shows. Quality is medium. The disk is always viewable just as there is always some visible damage to the print in every frame. I suppose to the collector of such prurient fare this makes it all the more authentic. As for the casual user/ professional self abuser it was geared for, I am afraid the first disk suffers from a case of "You had to be there" to fully enjoy it. *sighs* Such is the nature with all erotica I suppose.
Let us start with the women themselves, they are truly unlike anything you have ever seen before, all gifted with that , classical, doe eyed, come hither look of Marylin Monroe with the bodily dimensions of the chesty pin-up girls painted on the nose art of American bombers from the same era. With the complete lack of breast augmentation, tattoos and strange piercings it was like staring into a strange oracle of eroticism, as if the Playboy channel somehow got the History channel pregnant and you were viewing its strange offspring firsthand through the flat glass maternity window of your T.V. screen.
And speaking of the "Playboy Channel" this is perhaps the best term I could use to describe the action, especially the UNRATED limitations thereof. 65 minutes of short black and vignettes featuring women slowly gyrating; rolling around on flat surfaces in various stages of undress. Often times they would play with props, but not in the way that most of you porn purveyors are hoping. They basically would distract themselves with some random items in the scene and play with it for the duration of the clip; every possible thing in the room in fact, except for themselves. Kind of frustrating, that. It makes me pity my grandfather and every other man who "came of age" in the forties. It's no wonder there was a World War. If these short films are indicative of what actually went on in the American bedrooms of the forties I would sign up and invade/liberate a foreign country too or die trying. Hell, just sitting through this disk makes this reviewer want to join the Army and help liberate Iraq. The women are so much more scantily dressed over there and less conservative than they appear in this film.
Still there were a couple surprises, one the complete lack of pubic hair, I had always assumed that the further I went back in time the more the women would appear that they had Rick James in a scissor lock. Not true, the women are neatly trimmed and shaven. Of course this was probably to keep things as less explicit as possible, much as in Japanese animation where breasts are fine but pubic hair is banned outright (you have to admire such moral conviction from the people who gave us bukkake).
The other surprise was the fact that the jazz soundtrack was really happening. Because all the films are silent, the music carried the day even when the realization that every naked actress depicted herein is now around a hundred years old tended to sadden me. Even so, I can imagine that most people don't derive much pleasure from watching vintage stag flicks coupled with the exact musical score to every Peanuts cartoon ever made, but for me it was the very epitome of good grief.
Volume 2: 1950-1960
This is pretty much the exact same collection of movies as the first decade except for the following caveats. One, the film is much dirtier than the previous volume, and by that I am not talking about the erotic/aerobic unrated dry humping which still continues through the length of this disk. I am talking about the quality of the film itself which seems to have so many scratches, that many of the scenes seem to take place in during sort of faint rainstorm. One might wonder why the newer volume might actually be in poorer shape than its predecessor, but I am assuming it was a storage issue, (As it always is with old tape). The lack of elapsed time is back, but as if to make the situation completely worse than the last volume, the individual chapters have no titles either, just a series of selectable blanks. It's little user friendly nuances such as this, which all but ensure;guarantee you will never attempt to view this twice. Finally, while the women are admittedly attractive they still do nothing but interact with their environment rolling around listlessly while the camera focuses on various areas of their body. There are a couple girl on girl scenes but these are literal translations of such where one girl in bedclothes sits astride another scantily clad woman, schoolyard bully style fake slapping her and pulling her hair all set to the usual music of the Vince Guilardi Trio from the former title. (Seriously, if there was a soundtrack album I would buy it.)
Ultimately I know my disappointment with this volume is relative. I wasn't expecting the adult version of "Citizen Kane" from this set, but the forty second black and white porno movie scene from the recent Black Dahlia movie set in 1947 aroused me more (God, did it ever) than anything in this entire 65 minute disk and it did so, without breaking an R rating. Even allowing for cultural change and societies continual moral liberation/degradation, this movie compares to modern adult erotica in the same way that women's underwear ads from the turn of the century compare to last years Sports illustrated Swimsuit issue. Though it served a purpose for its era, I can't imagine why the casual viewer of today would want either of these two movies unless they wanted to use them to entice their grandfather into a circle jerk. Hey, different strokes for different folks, I always say.
Volume 3: 1960-1970
This one threw me a curve. When the first two features on this disk were girl on girl scenes with two women who writhed around slowly; spastically like a couple poisoned rats, all some without getting completely naked or really touching themselves or each other I was ready to ad this volume to the hermetically sealed circular bin where I had relegated the other two disks in this series, you know to preserve/recycle them for posterities sake. But then the third scene came on, a touching tale of physical love between a young butterfaced girl with Jack o' lantern orthodontic work and another androgynous young person who I could only tell was a girl, when its clothes came off minutes later. And then guess what, ladies and gentlemen, they actually had some sort of of sexual relations! Actual human motions manifested through the application of tender kisses, loving caresses and the insertion of plastic genitalia. And while the aesthetics of the first scene were poor, and the actresses were reminiscent of the two lost Brady Bunch daughters you never heard about, the important thing is I finally understood what the point of the box set was. The point is this. There is something transcendent, primal and insoluble about watching other people screw that reaches across the barriers of time and technology to provide some sort of basic human delight for all (adult) audiences of all (adult) ages. There is still no minute counter, but for the first time, you won't care!
Sure there were other subtle nuances, such as the use of mostly color film. The fact that the jazz soundtrack was replaced with equally appealing funk back beats seemed only apropos. And finally, the little XXX rating on this film is akin to a Good Housekeeping seal of approval to you the adult video purchaser that people will be laid, love will be made and seed will be sprayed. But this does raise the question of why they would see fit to packages two unrated films with a triple XXX one. And while the porn industry didn't actually take off until the Deep Throat 70's I for one assume there had to be some full penetration caught on film from those eras for the simple sociological fact that we as a species didn't die out in the forties. By their very paternal and familial title our grandparents were breeding, a lot for that matter, churning out ten child families that they could barely feed during the Great Depression. Only by matching the depth, level and degree of the on screen copulations, fornications and ejaculations in an objective arena free from the restraint of all censorship can we actually enjoy the subtle differences between the play of consenting adults from different eras. To make two films in this series unrated, while including one XXX work is beyond the sins of revisionism, it's fucking with history!
| Yucko/Neato Factor: Waiting two hours for penetration might be an acceptable investment in time for a third date, but in a three volume time capsule of sex, it is grounds for a break up ( I don't want to see it again). |
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| Production Values: The only thing saving it here is the soundtrack which was so much more than just the disposable "music to wank to" that it was intended to be. The music was the one facet of the films that actually captured the progression of time (or the disk itself). |
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| Realism: A weak two. If flamboyant gesture filled dances performed by scantily clad women who smile falsely and point spastically at nothing are erotic to you, you are better off spanking it to the Price is Right. |
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| Value for Price: $39.95 for this? No. |
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| Plot: If by plot you mean theme I judge it on the ability to capture an accurate, vivid picture of sexuality through the ages. Due to the aforementioned incongruent rating system which makes a true comparison between decades impossible I say it is best watched through the eyes of an elderly person and by that I mean one who has been blinded by cataracts and can only hear the sweet happening soundtrack. |
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