Vintage Erotica & Nikkatsu Naughties
Way, way back in the early to mid-2000’s I reviewed a series of now out of print erotic film anthologies released by Cult Epics, and I decided to give the old reviews a slight tweak, ported them over from the archives, and review the final (thus far) volume in the series.
Titled Vintage Erotica, volumes for Anno 1920, Anno 1930, Anno 1940, and Anno 1950 showcased rare French adult loops, whereas Anno 1960 included American smut, but the last release, Anno 1970, is all-colour, (pretty much) all-German adult films, spanning loops and short films, some with a semblance of plot and German dub tracks (which, if you understand Deutsch, are hysterical).
The last volume is especially amusing, since films lacking surviving or available audio were outfitted with excellent stock music tracks which certainly sound like porn music, done in lounge, rock, disco, and French cafe styles.
Also included in this ‘erotic’ wave is another Nikkatsu Roman Porno, Nurse Diary: Beast Afternoon / aka Nurse Diary 3 / aka Kangofu nikki: kemonojimita gogo (1982), directed by Naosuke Kurosawa who tried too hard to stick with an overly convoluted plot. You can imagine him pulling out hair as the Nikkatsu executives kept repeating “62 minutes MAXIMUM!” and he had to prune down his scenario or rough cut into something shorter, more incoherent, and spastic.
Beast is surprisingly inoffensive (by RP standards), perhaps because the story of a magic gizmo that enables sex scientists to see, record, and experience the erotic dreams of patients is so ridiculous, as are some of the angles and POV’s devised by Kurosawa.
Impulse Pictures & Synapse Films released Beast last fall, and it seems the steady wave of RP titles has been tapered, perhaps a sign the DVD series didn’t click as well as expected.
Coming next: espionage and adventure tales from Twilight Time (Carol Reed and Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana) and VCI in a re-issue of their RKO double-bill (Escape to Burma + Appointment in Honduras).
Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com
Category: EDITOR'S BLOG
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