Short Takes: ‘Sunburn’ (2018) ★★ 1/2

Put some sexy Europeans with complicated love lives around a swimming pool and I’m there: La piscine (a.k.a. The Swimming Pool), Swimming Pool (which is not a remake of La piscine), A Bigger Splash (which is) — I enjoyed them all. So, it was damn-near inevitable that I’d watch Vicente Alves do Ó’s 2018 film Sunburn (a.k.a. Golpe de Sol), which ups the ante by making its characters queer. Yes, please.

Four friends—Simão (Ricardo Barbosa, wearing Speedos for the majority of the film’s runtime), Vasco (Ricardo Pereira), Joana (Oceana Basílio) and Francisco (Nuno Pardal)—are spending a long weekend at Francisco’s secluded villa when they each receive a phone call from David, whom they haven’t seen in 10 years and whom a few hoped never to see again. When David invites himself over, his impending arrival turns what was supposed to be a relaxing weekend into a tense confrontation with their past decisions and encroaching middle age.

Though it would seem that it’s poised to rage out of control like the distant brush fires that surround Francisco’s villa, Sunburn spends much of its runtime merely smoldering, gradually revealing details about its characters and their history with David. Except, the movie never reveals as much as it holds back. In fact, for the first 20 minutes I wasn’t entirely clear on the characters’ relationship to each other. This is made more frustrating by intermittent voice overs from David himself that suggest the movie might take a much darker turn, but it’s just one more tease without a payoff.

Sunburn looks gorgeous, and writer-director do Ó manages to slip in a few pointed insights about aging and regret. That the characters’ sexuality (Simão and Vasco are gay; Francisco is bi, in a relationship with Joana) is treated matter-of-factly is also appreciated. But the movie is never as profound as it thinks it is and I never liked it as much as I hoped I would. It may be titled Sunburn, but this Portuguese drama is wearing SPF-50.

A Gay Man Watches Straight Porn #5: ‘A Woman’s Torment’

The cover art for Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray
rightly plays up A Woman’s Torment as a horror film
rather than a porno.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since I’ve reviewed any straight porn. Not that any of you are complaining. Judging by the analytics, y’all aren’t nearly as interested in porn as I thought you’d be. With that in mind, I thought I’d check out one of director Roberta Findlay’s fuck films since she wasn’t all that interested in porn, either.

Roberta’s 1977 movie A WOMAN’S TORMENT, which she also wrote and produced—all under the pseudonym Robert Norman—was inspired by Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, or so says the copy on the back of Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray of the film. Though this may be true, the film has more in common with the American horrors of Curtis (The Killing Kind) Harrington or Robert Vincent (Blood Mania) O’Neil, minus the overt eroticism.

The woman’s torment we see at the film’s opening is the more typical kind as the camera takes us into the Manhattan bedroom of Dr. Otis Vorel (a bewigged Jake Teague, who’s pretty great in this) and his much younger wife Estelle (Jennifer Jordan), in the middle of doing it. That a TV broadcast of a baseball game is playing while the couple bangs should give you an idea of how hot the sex is, but in case that’s too subtle there are Estelle’s cries for Otis to just “hold her.” But Otis just keeps pounding away.

A metaphorical representation of the eroticism
of Otis and Estelle’s coupling (Source: giphy)

Once Otis gets off, he’s genuinely perplexed by Estelle’s tearful complaints. “I just made love to you. Or am I hallucinating?” he asks. “Wrong, my friend,” Estelle snaps. “You just masturbated inside of me.” Otis then has the audacity to say: “I’m sorry you didn’t have an orgasm, but it’s not the end of the world.” And he’s supposed to be a psychiatrist.

There’s more to Estelle’s anger than unsatisfying sex. She’s certain her husband has no problem making other women come. Otis, however, is adamant that he’s never been unfaithful in all the years they’ve been married.

He’s lying, of course. He’s been carrying on an affair with Fran (Crystal Sync, also bewigged, billed as Harris Compton), whom he and Estelle see later that very night at a party hosted by Fran and her architect husband Don (Jeffrey Hurst, who got my bear senses tingling).

“Everything tastes better when it’s sittin’ on a Ritz.”

Look, it’s R. Bolla!

There’s one other resident in Fran and Don’s apartment, Fran’s stepsister Karen, primarily played by Tara Chung (I’ll elaborate later). Karen, however, is not attending the party, preferring to stay inside her darkened room, clutching a doll and a pair of large scissors. I’d say she’s got issues, but as someone who finds parties more stressful than job interviews, her avoiding Fran and Don’s didn’t strike me immediately as a red flag. Don, however, thinks Karen belongs in an institution and approaches Otis about providing his professional assessment. Otis is more interested in guzzling vodka and sneaking away to feel-up Don’s wife in the kitchen. Too bad for him Fran has decided that tonight’s the night to call it quits (“Affairs aren’t like a marriage—they end.”)

Don confronts Fran about the affair after the party, which Fran inadvertently admits in her denial. Unlike Estelle, Don gets a charge out of Fran’s infidelity, saying he likes it when other men find her attractive. “Fran, you are a cock-stirring sight,” Don leers from the bed, adding: “Come here, wench. Let me make love to you.”

“All right,” Fran says resignedly. “Let’s get this over with.”

Don and Fran get it over with.

The couple then proceeds to get it over with, which is about as hot as it sounds. (In the interest of full disclosure, it wasn’t just that the couple’s sex was perfunctory that had diminished the scene's erotic appeal, but that Sync abstractly resembled the co-owner of a company I used to work for, a very pious woman who once used her position to mandate that “Xmas” not be used as an abbreviation for Christmas in file names because it made Jesus cry or something. Her husband—who bragged about owning 51% of the company to his wife’s 49%—was even worse: he followed the Gospel According to Fox News. So, because of this association with a past employer, Sync and Hurst’s scene first struck me as funny, until I began to picture my past employers making apathetic love, and then I began to cry, just like Jesus did when I labeled files “Xmas Card 2013”.)

Meanwhile, in the next room, Karen is packing her suitcase.

Oops, she forgot the scissors.

Karen takes off for Fran and Don’s beach house on Fire Island, sacrificing her suitcase to the tide before she’s even made it to the house’s front door. Once inside, she turns on every light in the house, then takes a shower, becoming aroused until hallucinations of a man attacking her with a knife kills her masturbatory mood and sends her running upstairs in a panic. Discovering Michael Gaunt (billed as Michael Grant) waiting for her only intensifies Karen’s terror.

Arguably more startling than Karen’s phantom attacker.

Karen immediately grabs a knife from the kitchen counter, but Gaunt convinces her he’s harmless. He’s just a line worker from the power company, there to make sure the electricity is still working after the prior night’s storm. He even builds a fire for her. As he talks (and talks and talks), Karen goes from frightened to horny and whips off her bathrobe. Gaunt protests, saying he’s never taken advantage of a lady in distress, but Karen, who’s been practically mute until now, taunts him into giving her what she craves (“Certainly a big stud like you isn’t afraid of a little girl like me.”) The lineman quickly acquiesces, giving Karen a thorough fingering, a scene that immediately brought Margaret Cho’s “Fat Pussy” to mind.  Karen isn’t as agreeable when Gaunt wants to fuck, however.

She let him nut first, at least.

Back in Manhattan, Fran and Don have Otis and Estelle over for afternoon cocktails, during which they discuss what to do with Karen. Fran, heretofore worried Karen receiving any mental health treatment would tarnish her family’s good name, grudgingly agrees to making an appointment with a specialist for her troubled stepsister. Then it’s time to gather ‘round the piano for a sing-along!

No, seriously.

Marlene Willoughby as Mrs. Grudkow

Meanwhile, Karen continues to be besieged by drop-in guests. First, there’s nosy neighbor Fanny Grudkow, who, despite appearances, is not a camp drag queen but adult film actress Marlene Willoughby. Willoughby’s comedic skills are commendable (favorite moment: Fanny empties sand from her shoe onto the coffee table, then scolds Karen for her poor housekeeping), and it’s not like the movie is totally devoid of humor, but the scene is out of place tonally. It’s akin to splicing a skit from The Carol Burnett Show into the middle of Last House on the Left.

After dispatching Fanny, Karen spends some alone time on the beach with her demons. While she’s out of the house, a pair of young lovers (Clea Carson and some anonymous dude who either looks like a sexier Ed Begley, Jr., or a homely Hugh Grant) decide to use her house as a fuck pad, because what’s breaking and entering when you’re horny? It’s at this point in the movie that audiences finally get treated to a more varied menu of sex acts in a single sex scene, rather than just one or two (the movie’s first blowjob doesn’t happen until nearly an hour in). That said, you may wish this movie never discovered cunnilingus, or a zoom lens. John Waters was right: hardcore pornography does look like open heart surgery.

Although it’s generally less bloody.

Weirdly, during all of Fran and Don’s discussions about Karen’s welfare, no one seems all that worried about her missing. Except, she’s not. It turns out the couple knows she’s at the beach house, and only become concerned when she doesn’t answer the phone. So, they urge their good friend Otis to go out to Fire Island to make a welfare check, of sorts.

Dr. Otis, checking Karen’s welfare.

In case we need any further proof that Otis is a shitty psychiatrist, the doctor judges Karen to be perfectly sane because that pussy is crazy good. Then, in a tone of voice used by men who call waitresses “toots,” the doctor tells Karen to make some coffee while he takes a shower. Instead, Karen rips a power cord from a lamp and joins Otis in the bathroom administer some shock therapy. Oh, Fran’s not going to be happy when she discovers all these bodies. What will become of her family name then?

A Drive-in Horror with Cumshots

Roberta Findlay, billed as Anna Riva,
starred in the dreary 1966 sexploitation
movie Take Me Naked, directed
 by her husband Michael.

Roberta Findlay’s film career dates back to the early 1960s, starting with the 1964 film The Body of a Female—made by her then-fiancée Michael Findlay and his friends John and Lem Amero—in which she starred as the titular body, as well as working as a lighting technician. After she and Michael married the couple collaborated on numerous roughies, including the infamous Flesh trilogy (though Roberta later denied having much involvement in those movies) and my personal favorite, A Thousand Pleasures. By 1970 Roberta had experience in almost every aspect of filmmaking, including directing, cinematography, screenwriting, editing, lighting and composing (she was studying to be a classical pianist when she and Michael met). However, she never talks of being interested in film as a creative outlet. She wasn’t an artist; she was just looking to get paid.

Yet, A Woman’s Torment, with its witty and surprisingly nuanced script, artful cinematography (excepting traumatizing close-ups of pussy eating), better-than-average acting, plus Walter Sear’s effective sound design, shows she might have been more ambitious than she let on. It’s not just a better-than-expected adult movie, considering it’s from the same woman who helmed the execrable Prime Evil, it might also rank as one of Roberta’s best films, period. It’s less a fuck flick with a body count than it is a drive-in horror with cumshots.

The movie’s quality is even more impressive when you consider that the lead, Tara Chung, ran off with a gaffer midway through shooting. (I wonder if Roberta’s production company made the mistake of paying Chung up front?) Luckily, Chung left behind her wig (yeah, she wore one, too), so Roberta, ever resourceful, donned it for some pick-up shots, and for the most part you can’t tell when she’s standing in for her AWOL actress.

Usually.

Chung may have been an unreliable employee, but she is quite good in the role of Karen, effectively conveying her character’s troubled mental state. She’s also the most enthusiastic sexual performer in the cast, though to be fair to her co-stars, Karen is the only character written as being overwhelmed by her desires. And while we’re on the subject of A Woman’s Torment as erotica, let’s just say Roberta’s indifference to the genre shows. The R-rated cut of the film included on the Vinegar Syndrome disk is actually preferable to the original X-rated version as the hardcore scenes have all the fiery heat of a contractual obligation. An erotic masterpiece this ain’t.

I was also surprised by the feminist themes in A Woman’s Torment—surprised because, though Roberta’s life and career qualify her as a feminist pioneer, she is adamantly not a feminist. If you listen to the interview she gave The Rialto Report podcast, you’ll learn she’s the opposite (she bluntly states that she hates women and children). But maybe that’s why she could so deftly write Otis’s sexism: Roberta herself is a misogynist. In that light, maybe she intended Estelle to come off as a selfish bitch rather than a woman demanding the same sexual satisfaction as a man. Either way, “You just masturbated inside of me” is still an awesome line. 

The wigs of Torment.

Short Takes: ‘Operation Hyacinth’ (2021) ★★★★

A heterosexual police officer goes undercover in the gay community to solve a string of murders targeting homosexuals, and soon finds himself pushing himself further and further to not blow his cover (so to speak). No, they didn’t remake William Friedkin’s 1980 film Cruising; this is the set-up for the much more recent, and much more dour Operation Hyacinth (a.k.a. Hiacynt), director Piotr Domalewski’s 2021 film currently streaming on Netflix.

Though I flippantly compared it to Cruising, Operation Hyacinth has more in common with the paranoid political thrillers of the 1970s—like a homoerotic version of The Parallax View, or Three Days of the Condor if Jan Michael-Vincent were cast in the Faye Dunaway role (you’re welcome.)

Robert (Tomasz Zietek) is a young officer on Warsaw’s police force in 1985, when Poland was still a communist country and being an out homosexual meant having a target on your back (not that it’s much better today). At the beginning of the film Robert and his boorish partner Wojtek (Tomasz Schuchardt) are investigating the murders of two gay men. The murders are quickly pinned on a pimp who crossed paths with both victims. Robert, however, isn’t convinced they got the right guy. He appeals to the captain (Marek Kalita) to leave the case open for further investigation. The captain—also Robert’s father—tells him to take the win and move on. Robert instead elects to conduct a more thorough investigation on his own.

It’s during a raid of a notorious Warsaw tearoom—part of the real “Operation Hyacinth”—that Robert meets Arek, one of the fleeing “suspects.” When young art student mistakenly assumes Robert is also running from the police and not chasing him, Robert lets the assumption stand and begins cultivating Arek as an informant. That Arek quickly develops feelings for Robert is no surprise (Zietek does rock that mustache), and Robert exploits that attraction. But as the movie progresses, Robert—who’s engaged and regularly hooks up with his fiancée Helinka (Adrianna Chlebicka)—begins to regard Arek as more than just an informant.

Though Operation Hyacinth is primarily a police procedural, the movie’s setting makes the gay romance just as tense. Robert not only runs the risk of his identity being found out by Arek, but the risk of being outed to his colleagues and family is even greater. A scene of Robert and Arek narrowly avoiding discovery by Robert’s father are just as suspenseful as when Robert is almost discovered by the suspected killer he’s investigating.

Operation Hyacinth reassured me that not everything on Netflix sucks, as well as reminded me that 365 Days is not representative of Polish cinema. It also provides me an opportunity to show readers that I can give a movie more than three stars. Thriller fans, be they LGBTQ or straights who don’t shudder at the sight of two dudes doing it, should consider giving this one a watch. Just be warned that it gets pretty grim. As much as I liked it, I couldn’t help wishing it, too, had a WTF interrogation scene like Cruising, just to lighten the mood.

Short Takes: ‘The Female Bunch’ (1971) ★★

Poor Sandy (Nesa Renet). First, she’s left at the altar by her fiancé, and then the third-rate country singer she’s been boning on the rebound dumps her for that redhead who’s always sitting in the front row. What’s a girl to do? Swallow a bunch of sleeping pills, of course. She’s revived just in time by her girlfriend, Vegas go-go dancer Libby (Regina Carrol). Libby convinces Sandy that the best way to escape her man troubles isn’t with pills but by joining The Female Bunch, a group of young women living on a ranch where no men are allowed (an exception is made for Lon Chaney Jr., but he’s harmless, which is more than can be said for some of the real-life residents of the ranch location). To join, Sandy must allow herself to be buried alive for a few minutes, which is scary but still easier than joining the Kappas.

The ranch is run by Grace (Jennifer Bishop), a whip-wielding heroin addict. Sure, Grace may be a bitch, but she does take the girls along on drug runs to Mexico, allowing them to fuck the men at the bar while she meets with her connection. One of those men at the bar is Bill (Russ Tamblyn, better known today as Amber’s dad), who makes the mistake of accepting an invitation to visit one of the girls at the ranch, getting branded on his forehead for his trouble. He didn’t even get off first! Bill makes an even bigger mistake when he comes back for revenge. With shit getting real, Sandy reconsiders her membership to this gang of sexy, horseback riding criminals, but escaping might result in her getting buried for good.

The Female Bunch was directed by Al Adamson, so it goes without saying that it’s bad (Al had some help from John Cardos, but Cardos’ involvement doesn’t affect the movie’s quality one way or the other). That said, it’s not one of Adamson’s worst. Sure, the storytelling is sloppy and there’s only a passing concern for continuity and keeping shots in focus, but The Female Bunch manages to scrape by on sheer enthusiasm alone. Few of the females in this bunch can act, but that doesn’t stop them from biting into their bad-girl roles.

One of the females in that bunch who deserves special mention is trans actress Aleshia Brevard (billed as A’lesha Lee), who plays Sadie. Aleshia is generally overlooked by reviewers, most dwelling on how sad it is that this was Chaney’s last film. Hard to believe, given that once you see Brevard it’s pretty hard to forget her. Not only does Aleshia stand a foot taller than her co-stars, gaining extra height from big, flaming red bouffant (only Adamson's wife Regina Carrol’s hair is bigger), her performance is bigger, too. The way she channels her drag queen roots in portraying Sadie had me wishing she’d been made leader of The Female Bunch instead of Bishop. It would certainly be a more interesting movie if she had.

I read Aleshia’s first autobiography when it came out in 2001 (she published a follow-up shortly before her death in 2015) and was excited to finally see her in action. She may not have gotten many good roles (The Love God? and The Man with Bogart’s Face are two of Aleshia’s bigger films), but I’d like to think her work in exploitation films helped pave the way so trans actors like Laverne Cox could get more significant parts today. Though Aleshia is no longer with us, her website is still active and worth a visit for the photos alone.

Double Takes: 'Madame Claude' (1977) ★★ 1/2 / (2021) ★★★

Before the Mayflower Madam, and well before the Hollywood Madam, there was Madame Claude, who in her 1960s and ’70s heyday reportedly supplied women for John F. Kennedy and the Shah of Iran. All three women got their stories told in made-for-TV movies, but only Madame Claude (real name Fernande Grudet) merited a feature.

Unfortunately for Grudet, that theatrical film, 1977’s Madame Claude, was directed by Just Jaeckin, the same man who gave the world Emmanuelle. While Jaeckin does provide some biographical details about the Parisienne madam (excellently portrayed by Françoise Fabian), such as her acting as a police informant in exchange for police protection, he primarily uses her as a framing device for setting up a series of softcore sex scenes. The movie seems more focused on the character David Evans (Murray Head, post-Sunday Bloody Sunday and pre-“One Night in Bangkok”), a sleazy photographer being used by police to get incriminating snapshots of Mme. Claude’s girls with their clients. Another story thread focuses on Elizabeth (a better-than-usual Dayle Haddon), the madam’s newest recruit who is alternately too headstrong to tolerate the controlling madam’s bullshit, yet too naïve to realize she’ll never be more than a whore to her clients. The movie also features Robert Webber as a JFK stand-in and Klaus Kinski as a hedonistic business tycoon (don’t worry, neither of them get naked).

As one might expect from fashion photographer-turned-erotic filmmaker Jaeckin, Madame Claude looks great and it has a few spirited sex scenes, but the movie’s tone is all over the place, bouncing from frothy sex romp to sexy drama to political thriller. The movie is further hampered by its disjointed narrative, which is often hard to follow. Only Fabian’s performance as the steely Claude gives the movie any real dramatic weight. Jaeckin may have been going for something a little more substantial than his previous softcore outings, but ultimately the movie is less Klute with a French accent and more akin to The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington remade as a French drama.

Madame Claude did spawn a 1981sequel, Madame Claude 2, directed by François Mimet, though its a.k.a., Intimate Moments, is more fitting as it has even less to do with the infamous madam than the first movie. It’s pure Skinemax trash. No, Mme. Grudet didn’t get a proper biopic until Sylvie Verheyde’s Madame Claude landed on Netflix last year.

Verheyde’s film is more serious—way more—than exploitative, and its story is structured more like a traditional biopic, making it easier to follow than Jaeckin’s film, though viewers still need to be fast on their feet to keep up with some of the political machinations. The titular madame is played by Karole Rocher, and while her acting is fine, I thought her portrayal reduced Mme. Claude to little more than a neurotic bitch—you know, the kind you see in almost every other French melodrama. (I don’t know if this portrayal is more accurate, but it's certainly less interesting.) Fabian’s performance showed a woman who was always in control, while Rocher’s madam is frequently throwing tantrums and breaking shit like she’s on The Real Housewives of Marais. She’s also colder than any street pimp. After one of her girls returns from a date all bruised and bloody, the madam blithely tells her, “It’s nothing. A nice shower, a good night’s sleep, and that’s the end of it.”

Unlike Jaeckin’s film, which never looks like it’s taking place in a time other than the mid-’70s, Verheyde’s Madame Claude pays more attention to period detail. Still, there are anachronisms, primarily with the character Sidonie (Garrance Marillier), who is sort of this movie’s Elizabeth, if Elizabeth was a wealthy girl with daddy issues. Sidonie is always smoking 120s, even in the scenes set in the late 1960s, when that length of cigarette wasn’t introduced until the early ’70s. Worse, Sidonie’s look never, ever changes. Whether it’s the 1960s or 1990s, Sidonie always looks like a 20-something woman with the exact same hairstyle. This oversight is pretty fucking glaring considering that the movie takes great pains to make sure 1990s-era Mme. Claude looks like she’s in her 70s. The movie also can’t escape its cheapness, with much of it being shot on cramped sets, giving it an overall claustrophobic feel. Madame Claude 2021 may be leagues above Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss, but it’s still a made-for-TV movie.

For all its flaws, I think Verheyde’s movie is the better biopic, which is why I’m giving it a half-star more. However, I think Jaeckin’s brand of highbrow Eurotrash is the more interesting watch.