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In 1963, MONDO CANE became a huge international sensation even garnering an Academy Award for Best Song. A collaboration betwee
In JABBERWALK (THIS IS AMERICA) 1976 the Italians take a humorous look at American social mores, circa 1975. Electroshock junk food aversion therapy, a drive in church and a porno awards ceremony are highlights. As is a visit to a dildo factory guided by it's owner, a greasy mustachioed used car salesman type. Essential viewing. The French rarely stepped into the mondo arena, but the X rated SEX O'CLOCK USA 1976 more than makes up for it with vagina mold sculptures and nude gold body painting. They cover much of the same territory as JABBERWALK, even visiting the same L.A. dildo factory and it's oily proprietor. A major focus is on the underground NYC sex scenes from S/M parlors to a nostalgic look at The Golden Age of the Gay Leathermen. Whips, chains, and enemas galore!
Many years after making MONDO CANE, Jacopetti and Prosperi teamed up again for the notorious FAREWELL UNCLE TOM (ADIOS, TIO TOM) 1971. Not really a documentary, the premise finds filmmakers documenting the slave trade in the American South. Truly one of the most outrageous films you'll ever see,
In the first year or two of the '70s, before all-out XXX action could be shown, many sexploiters produced phoney educational documentaries about sex known as 'white coaters' because the action was often presented by 'actors' posing as doctors in full medical garb. Under this guise, they were able to graphically depict various acts. Sweden's LANGUAGE OF LOVE 1969 was the first and most earnest of it's kind. BTW, this was the flick De Niro takes his date to in TAXI DRIVER 1976. "Dirty. Beautiful. Artistic. Trashy. Obscene. Erotic." So bellows our narrator looking like a low rent game show host in EROTOGRAPHY (A HISTORY OF PORNOGRAPHY THROUGH THE AGES) 1971 where he walks us through a make shift museum of what looks like pages torn from an erotic art library book. Many were like travelogues investigating European countries amorous ways like PORNOGRAPHY IN DENMARK 1970. Following the lead of these pseudo sexual pics focusing on Sweden and Denmark, came SEX FREEDOM IN GERMANY 1970 an expose of Teutonic kinks. Sexologists the Kronhausers chime in on the debate between what is erotic art and what is pornography. We are shown a still outrageous peformance piece by controversial shock artist Otto Muehl. On Christmas Day 1969 at an art school Muehl’s troupe performed Oh Tannenbaum. A Happening with a Christmas Tree, pissing, live sex and the killing of a pig. It caused quite a stir locally. We visit Anima, a kraut-rock duo consisting of a nude woman head to toe in black body paint, free forming on a drumming and a kookie guy jamming out with various clanky noisemakers. Next a hippie commune eat, wear and make out with food. A connection between sports cars and sex is made. We see a hippie 16mm orgy freakout smoker in the making. With a rock score by Apocalypse. IS THERE SEX AFTER DEATH? 1971 parodies these sex ed mondos with man-on-the-street interviews and faked scenes at an experimental sex clinic. Written, directed and hosted by the famous prankster Alan Bell. Britian's NAUGHTY! 1971entertaining explores the differences between the Victorian Era and the Sexual Revolution.
After the huge success of WOODSTOCK 1970 many Hollywood studios scrambled to release more rockumentaries. MEDICINEBALL CARAVAN 1970 was a contrived effort on the part of Warner Brothers, who flipped
THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE 1973 is a hilarious feature that warns of impending world domination by insects. The be . |
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n Italian directors Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, it was an unprecedented collection of footage depicting taboo behavior from around the world. Shock after shock, real and staged, filled the screen appealing to voyeurs of the Now Generation. Mexican cops dressing up like hookers -- cut to backwards footage of a pig's journey in a German slaughterhouse, and so on. For years from all over the world countless freak shows followed. By the late '60s, the Mondo Movie was a firmly established, money making genre. Many were sexy travelogues like SWEDEN HEAVEN AND HELL 1969. Some were phoney exposes of the alluring world of the occult like WITCHCRAFT '70 (ANGELI BIANCHE...ANGELI NERI) 1969. Rolling into the '70s, mondos were getting progressively grimmer. More often they reveled in the specter of gruesome death. The infamous, much copied FACES OF DEATH 1978 is the nadir of this trend. Germany took a peek at strange behavior in the East with SHOCKING ASIA (ASIA PERVERSA) 1974 an often gruesome travelogue bouncing us from India to Japan and all points in between featuring the genre's standard pompous and condescending narration. We start at a Hindu ceremony where the faithful walk on fire and pierce themselves. Next up, odd culinary habits are on display as we see bats and snakes skinned for the hungry Hong Kong consumer. In Thailand, we witness an excruciatingly graphic documentation of a sex change operation. This scene reportably sent 42nd St crowds screaming for their mamas. Later we check out the more amusing, intriguing quirks of Japanese society. Japanese phallus parad
e. Japanese Love Hotels with mirrors, love swings, live video capturing the action for narcissistic thrills. From the land of the rising sun, we see Japanese underground S/M performance art with large plastic bubbles and a Japanese cult of goosestepping Nazi worshippers in full Third Reich regalia. The Temple of Health where thousands of Japanese men frantically flail around in a huge waterway. Woman and midget wrestling are shown as examples of “mass vulgarity.” Amazing, horrific figurines of torture and mutilation like folks being sawed in half. “pain is but the birth of superhuman natures.” A sex museum with model displays of Leda and Swan, sex torture, more huge phalluses, animal copulation, Nazi genital electrocution devices, nude woman on water wheels, lotsa didlos, and a sculpture college of sex parts. Another German-produced mondo JOURNEY INTO THE BEYOND 1975 exposes the then popular psychic phenomena fad with psychic surgery, bent spoons, ectoplasm spewing and various occult hokum with narration by John Carradine. What maybe the only narrative film to follow the mondo road all the way to end was AUTOPSY (AUTOPSIA) 1973. This Spanish oddity starts off with actual My Lai massacre footage intercut with fake scenes of a reporter pondering the devastation around him. Back home in Spain, he interviews a Krishna, a daredevil, a bullfighter, a scientist and a philosopher about their thoughts on death. He wants to document an autopsy to force people to face their own mortality. He feels everybody's "living life like a holiday," keeping death, pain and war distant from their consciousness. To photograph the procedure he brings a goof ball friend, who gets queasy and gives the flick some "comic" relief. Brains and guts are graphically shown, as doctors cut up a real corpse. Between these gruesome scenes, are fictional flashbacks set up to look like moments from this actual dead g
uy's life in which an actor portrays him as a famous soccer player. In the end, the dorky shutter bug winds up freaking out in a discotheque, seeing autopsy footage flashing in the strobe lights. This is a revelation for him making him feel truly alive for the first time in his life! What the FUCK!
the very definition of what makes '70s cinema so unique. This lavish look at the Southern slave trade doesn't shy away from any of the grotesque details involved in this practice. In fact, it revels in it's sleazier aspects. At the end, the action shifts from the mid-1800's plantations to Miami '71 as a pissed-off Black militant reads the Nat Turner Diaries watching some dorko honkys frolic on the beach. His fantasies of killing middle class Americans mix with re-enactments of Turner's bloody rampage against his slave masters. Outrageous! 
the bill for a state-to-state tour of mediocre rock bands and zonked hippies. Of course the dark opposite to the "three days of peace, love, and music" hit was GIMME SHELTER 1970. A haunting document of that notorious Rolling Stones concert at Altamont where the Hell's Angels beat up the crowd and stabbed a man to death. The vibes of pure evil are very tangible and they radiate off the screen. The counterculture cut-up DYNAMITE CHICKEN 1970 features hilarious, quick comments by a young Richard Pryor. A wild McLuhan-inspired jumble of words, sounds, jokes, faces, some of the flicks segments include John and Yoko's Bed In honeymoon, a visit to Burger King, Tuli Kupferburg as a riot policeman, Mr. Mike, and a fake LBJ. Ever imagine what life was like at the Spahn Ranch? MANSON 1972 takes you there, into the crazy world of the hypnotic one and his followers. Amazingly, it was nominated for an Oscar as Best Feature Length Documentary of 1972! More lost souls of the creepy world of hippie worship are to be found in ALIENS FROM PLANET EARTH 1977. Narrated by Donovan, who also does the cosmic-folk soundtrack, it examines cults that developed around various gurus in the early '70s. One particularly odd cult leader shown was Brother Yod. He lead a group of dopey hippie kids in Southern Cal who all wear white robes and chant to the groups druggy prog-rock. Yod crashed and later "died" while hang-gliding. According to the Yod children, he landed on a small deserted island, severely injured bleeding broken bones everywhere. It is said, he didn't want to go to a hospital and the group chanted around his beaten body for days as he slowly expired. For a look into the sleazy, pathetic phenomenon of 70's guru worship, THE LORD OF THE UNIVERSE 1974 covers Guru Mara Ji and the stunning array of losers, burnouts, and flakes who worshipped him. From Jesus Freak-types to miserable housewives, all gave up everything and naively followed this shallow, inarticulate, greasy, fat-faced, Hawaiian Punch-drinking teenage messiah. The doc's main focus is on his cults big gathering at what he claims is the holiest place on earth - The Houston Astrodome! Entertainment for this "the most significant event in the history of the universe" consisted of the guru's brother crooning in a cornea-damaging, sequined outfit and a cheezy rock band doing a Vegas-y cover of "Satisfaction." His cult was quite fanatical, as evidenced when a Yippie-like freak throws a pie in Mahara Ji's face. The guru's zombies beat the prankster so badly, he had to have a 4 inch plate put in his skull. One drone quips, "If I was there, I'd have slit his throat on the spot
." The last word is left to Abbie Hoffman, whose sarcastic commentary is heard throughout, "If this guy is God, he's the God the United States of America deserves." 
autiful, eerie microscopic photography documents the everyday working world of the insect. It depicts an incredibly violent battle between red and black ants tearing each other to pieces. An actor portrays the entomologist "Dr. Hellstrom" providing the overwrought narration detailing how our days are numbered as these superior beings will soon conquer earth. Real fun. Judging from the soundtrack and photos THE NAKED APE 1973 looks like a curious, amusing mess. This Playboy magazine adaptation of the Desmond Morris pop anthropology best seller stars Johnny Crawford, childstar of TV's The Rifleman, as a college student facing the draft. He also has the hots for Victoria Principal, a girl from his "sexual behavior of the modern ape" class. Both have nude scenes. Popping up between the live action, there's animation by Chuck Swenson (200 MOTELS) illustrating the evolution of man. At one point a confused Neanderthal couple run around downtown Chicago and get cited for public nudity. A critical and financial disaster, this was Hef's last foray into moviemaking..gif)
