A LIFE IN DIRTY MOVIES (B-minus) - A portrait of sexploitation legend Joe Sarno, who along with his wife, Peggy, sought immortality as the Bergman of porn in the 1960s and '70s but who faded into obscurity upon the explosion of hardcore, videotape and the internet.
Sarno is a pathetic figure here. His younger wife (she's 70, he's in his late 80s) tends to his physical infirmities, their shaky finances, and his bid to return behind the camera. Her parents were well off and helped finance Sarno's later pictures. The mom, pushing 100, shows up here for an interview, and she still betrays remnants of disappointment at her daughter's choice to wed a pornographer.
Sarno's work was artsy and sophisticated compared with modern skin flicks. Wikipedia sums up his style well: "Sarno's work of the sexploitation period is typified by stark chiaroscuro lighting, long takes and rigorous staging. He was also well known for scenarios centering around issues of psycho-sexual anxiety and sexual identity development." Titles include Cheeverian "Sin in the Suburbs" and "The Swap and How They Make It." (Sarno eventually abandoned his high-brow pretensions and spent the '80s cranking out hardcore films under various pseudonyms.)
The psycho-sexual themes include family issues, bordering on the incestuous. The clips shown here are tasteful while offering a provocative glimpse of a lost era of skeevy underground cinema. The talking heads include film historians, former actors like Annie Sprinkle, admirer John Waters, as well as Sarno's former colleagues, more sad figures who still struggle with a world that changed 40 years ago.
Wiktor Ericsson (the Sarnos had a second home in Bergman's Sweden) is a serviceable director, but this is definitely a no-frills production. He is rescued here by the clips from Sarno's films, which definitely deserve revisiting.
THE TELEPHONE BOOK (1971) (B-minus) - A curiosity from 1971, this explicit and scatterbrained offering follows squeaky-voiced Alice (Sarah Kennedy, a Goldie Hawn 2.0 from late-era "Laugh-In") as she hunts down the John Smith who made an obscene call to her.
Alice encounters a series of folks, not just obscene callers, one kinkier than the other. Some mainstream actors participate. Barry Morse (Lt. Gerard from "The Fugitive") plays an aging porn star engaging in an orgy with a half-dozen women (as Andy Warhol regular Ultra Violet looks on with a whip at the ready). William Hickey ("Moonlighting") is a bed-ridden man suffering from chronic priapism. Roger Buell ("The Mothers-In-Law") plays an analyst who gets off on Alice's tales of other lovers. Jill Clayburgh is Alice's phone friend mostly seen in an eye mask.
It all plays like prurient farce. Alice's apartment has soft-core images on the walls, dirty magazines on the floors and a stars-and-stripes bedspread. She frequently frolics in the buff. One man shampoos her hair while she splashes in a bathtub. There is extensive frontal nudity (mostly female) throughout accompanied by raw language. The movie takes a detour in the final act as a man in a pig mask spins an extended psychedelic story, suggesting that Alice is indeed wandering around Wonderland.
This has elements of Russ Meyer, "Kentucky Fried Movie" and Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex." The climax, if you will, is an insane final 10 minutes of mostly animation that would make Terry Gilliam blush.
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