DVD: Vintage Erotica – Anno 1970

March 24, 2017 | By

Film: Good

Transfer:  Very Good

Extras: Good

Label:  Cult Epics

Region: 0 (NTSC)

Released:  2014

Genre:  Erotica / Adult

Synopsis: A collection of vintage seventies German adult film loops & shorts.

Special Features:  2 Bonus U.S. adult loops.

 


Review:

Cult Epics’ sixth entry in their adult loop series features more that 2+ hours of smut, largely culled from German sources. Some of the 12 Euro-centric shorts feature dialogue and oral foley effects, but most of the titles are accompanied by vintage stock / porn music which adds both authenticity and heightens the quaintness of films that offered 70s audiences graphic, full-colour footage before home video rendered loops obsolete.

The curated collection does have a specific flow, moving from mass-gatherings to group pursuits, and later standard porn fare in which strangers engage in spontaneous whoopee and wholly non-narrative scenarios.

“Love-In” features Bavarian hippies assembling for lunch, drinking beer and gnawing on communal salami sticks before disrobing and mass-copulating in a forest clearing. The lounge-scored short is bookended with shots of a Love-In sign that’s carried to the picnic field.

“Der Strich” may also have originated from the same filmmakers, using a street sign to stamp the film with a title card and launch its rudimentary story of cars easing down a forest road peppered with prostitutes. A quartet of johns and streetwalkers gather in a hideous 70s bedroom and go through the standard motions before the camera cuts back to the rural red light street for a final shot.

“Café de Paris” has a woman ‘stumbling’ upon friend at a street café before the women leave with a porn-mustachioed stud, undoubtedly irresistible due to his half-open shirt, gold chains, and verdant chest hair. A waiter carrying drinks pops out from the café and tracks them down to pay for the beer tab, but instead of paying in cash, he’s whisked him off to a hotel room and given payment in fleshy romping. “Susses Dessert” features a similar story in which a boyfriend picks up his babe from the airport and hooks up with friends at a lakeside restaurant. Still peckish after lunch, the quartet retreat to another hideous apartment and have assorted dessert.

“Das Bumsquartett am Swimmingpool” features a quartet fornicating in a dimly lit indoor pool, whereas the epic-length “Rums-Skandal im Nachtlokal” comes with optical titles and features the back & forth of dinner theatre master thespians drifting from stage scenarios to curtained private booth sessions with upscale patrons. The stage scenarios blow through naughty schoolgirl and doctor examination skits, with the audience cheering and applauding after each set. Like all of the aforementioned shorts, there’s a perfectly matched selection of music – this time it’s a mix of disco-lounge / Saturday Night Fever soundalikes – but for this film there may have been a mixed soundtrack at one point. Cutaways often feature short quips between performers, and the skits have dialogue exchanges.

“Abartige Begierden” is similarly affected with its missing soundtrack replaced by disco-orchestral stock music, and starts with two girlfriends chatting over ice cream before a nude poolside dip, where the pair decides to enliven their afternoon by contacting a Want Ad in a Weekend smut magazine. The pair bike to the older man’s upscale pad, and are bullied into a slightly Sadean scenario of a couple boffing while other girl’s obliged to watch from under a glass table where she’s tethered. The man barks orders and chastises the girls who realize he’s a jerk, but feel compelled to go through with his peculiar S&M needs just to quicken an end to their bad choice. It’s a strange short because it completely lacks the heady glee of the rest: everyone is unhappy primarily because the john yells and admonishes his partners instead of inviting and complimenting.

It’s also evident “Begierden” was shot in someone’s upscale apartment in a modern setting: it’s a spacious pad with (slightly) tasteful furniture and décor, and although the filmmakers never reveal names or addresses, in one shot it’s easy to see details of the owner’s vacation photos and pet pooch, mounted in a framed collage.

“Tealove” is the DVD collection’s longest and most overt attempt to bring some narrative to the sex loop genre. A tea gathering among friends expands into peephole voyeurism of girl-girl and boy-girl activities, whereas “Hochwurden Spritzt Mal Wieder” – the DVD’s silliest entry – features two women, a priest, and a banana in a train cabin, and a ‘Was it all a dream or reality?’ twist finale. The women become jealous of each other when one’s receiving more ‘internal mooshee sprinkling’ than the other, and the priest’s dialogue is officious and filled with statements of approval, wonderment, bafflement, and a stern determination to transform the women’s exhibition of prurient excess into a higher moral celebration of the body. Or something like that.

The brief “Untitled” was filmed at a southern European seaside resort and features a short narrative in which two women return to the pub from where they were ousted by the owner because he didn’t like girl-girl manifestations in the fine establishment’s private room.

“Die Strand Fotograf” features hysterical post-sync dialogue between a bickering couple on a beach trip. When the hubbie sees a a wandering sex kitten, he follows her with his camera into the woods, and fulfills the needs of his new partner, and soon after, his ever-complaining wife. The camerawork is very loopy – lots of circular, rotating movements – and the slight under-cranking gives the short a slapstick feel – whereas “Bumsscheibe” is a faux news report in which an anchorman’s efforts to report ‘erotic news’ are interrupted with technical gaffes and sex vignettes with whiny, complaining participants.

A few films feature slo-mo footage – a blow-job is prolonged in “Tealove,” and a weird drooling / dribbling / jiggling in “Café de Paris” comes off as impromptu rather than planned, as though someone discovered the camera’s overcranking feature halfway through production.

The quality of the loops is very variable, as certain film stocks of the era were known to start losing colour over time, rendering once vibrant images to reddish, orange, or bluish-hues. Cult Epics’ transfer’s are uniformly solid, making the best of these archival prints, and the stock music stems from clean, digital sources, preserving the nuances of these vintage stereo tracks.

Two bonus shorts sporting stock rock-styled music stem from the U.S., and are in better technical shape (if not a little too Kodachrome blue & red). “Untitled #1” has three women opening their Xmas presents and testing out their new toys, and “Untitled #2” has a stud with the fattest muttonchops known to humanity being pleasured by two girls.

Whereas the European shorts pack an unending quantity of clinical details – maybe the end-goal was to photograph the most eruptions within the standard 10-15 mins. loop running time – the U.S. samples are more tame, fixating on the nuances of lone pairings instead of constantly rotating couples, repositionings, and massive ramming. Because all of the dubbed shorts are in German and lack any subtitles, a little knowledge of the language will add to the enjoyment of the shorts’ ridiculous mini-scenarios and the bickering, whining performers who either never get a chance, don’t get enough, and / or want their turn amid constantly flowing fluids, glistening private parts, and a banana that either felt very loved, or wished it was back in the fruit bowl.

Cult Epics’ Vintage Erotica series is comprised of Anno 1920, Anno 1930, Anno 1940, Anno 1950, Anno 1960 , and Anno 1970.

 

 

© 2017 Mark R. Hasan

 


External References:
Editor’s Blog
 
Vendor Search Links:
Amazon.ca —  Amazon.com —  Amazon.co.uk

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Category: Blu-ray / DVD Film Review

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