A couple of synopses.

[pudgym]

Here was a surprise. While going through boxes on the back porch here looking for old [indoor] soccer artifacts; I also found some old, old smut videocassettes which haven't seen the light since 1993. {How did these get included with the soccer videocassettes?}
I'm going to show one of them this Saturday at the Twisted Spoke (on Ogden). It is another movie for which not much has been scribed here on Egafd.

"French Heat" [1975: France. Producer & Director: Henri Pierre Duval. Run Time: 60']
Featuring: Antoinette, Anne Devos {Narration: Carolyn Du Brando}
Jacques Sanders

Here is one of the first French smut movies which utilized U.S.A.-inspired bombast and exploitation. This is a 60-minute vignette feature. Who Henri Pierre Duval is is a pertinent query. The ?direction? of this is completely enigmatic. I believe what we actually have are seven old(er) silent European 8mm loops, of which a few are not explicit. They have been blown up. A female narrator was brought in. Stock footage of Paris was spliced in. The credits were padded with French-sounding names (21 performers!? -- not even close). Did it work? Was it screened in Parisian theaters? Probably. That it was exported to the U.S.A. ten years later (and other French pornos, including ones with Brigitte LaHaie, were not) suggests it did well.

This is an alluring movie on several levels. In these vignettes, we glimpse some performers which might have been considered scraping the bottom of the barrel.[i.e. We have some homely people in here.] I mentioned that some of them feature simulated sex (or utilized spliced-in hardcore inserts). Watch the camera angles. Note how they were shot to give the impression of explicit activity without actually being explicit.

The one vignette which may cause you to shake your head sideways is the first-person {you are the male having sex with the female} dive & swive scene. Yes, it had been done before the video era. As far as the narration and audio is concerned, it is ok. Some of the stock music is impressive; and some of the comments by C. Du Brando are of the jaw-dropping brand (A domme lesbian became that way due to being raped at age 14!? [We don't view.]).

Here is the other video. It is still available from a purveyor here in the U.S.A., under its a|k|a title. Note the run time. I believe it has been edited and reworked for its U.S.A. release. Its opening scene is completely separate from everything else in the movie, and has likely been included to make up time for what was cut. Its U.S.A. release date is 1997.

"Private Detective" {a|k|a "Terri & Rocco's Mysterie"} [1992: Italy | USA{LA}. No producer credit. Director: Silvio Bandinelli. Run Time: 82']
Featuring: Raven, Teri Weigel, Eva Orlowski
Joey Silvera, Rocco Siffredi, Tom Chapman, Tom Wostak, Fred J. Lincoln

This is a movie which was not released in the U.S.A. until 1997. A vignette, which has nothing else to do with the story, was spliced in as the first scene to pad the run time. Teri Weigel & Rocco Siffredi are broken out in the tltle, but they are not the stars of the movie. That would be Raven & Joey Silvera. They are private detectives investigating an organization which may deal in international art theft. Teri & Rocco are the wife, and a trusted employee of, Tom Chapman.

Raven meets Rocco. Of course, Rocco gets intimate with her. Halfway through, they are surprised by Teri. Rather than being upset, she opts to make this a threeway. Rocco anals Teri.

Eva Orlowski also works for the organization. She has somehow learned about Joey & Raven's investigation. She visits their hotel room, wanting to assist them. Joey is alone in the room at this time. He asks her some penetrating questions. He is inclined to let her do the dirty work instead of Raven.

This transumes into your plain "who can I trust?" plot. We have more fetish scenes, which may have been another reason for the delay in its U.S.A. release. Fabled explicit director Fred J. Lincoln has a good non-sex role in this movie.

[Chris Morris]

Hi
For those who would like French Heat, Goliath were selling it last year for about US10.00.
The synopsis is quite accurate and even a little kind

[mark shanon]

> Here is one of the first French smut movies which utilized
> U.S.A.-inspired bombast and exploitation. This is a
> 60-minute vignette feature. Who Henri Pierre Duval is is
> a pertinent query. The ?direction? of this is completely
> enigmatic. I believe what we actually have are seven old(er)
> silent European 8mm loops, of which a few are not
> explicit.


on the contrary, i think this movie (companion to at least other two: Gorge fran?aise (French Throat) and French fantasie (Fantasie fran?aise)) is actually a USA movie. Porn was legalized in france in 1975 and this looks like earlier material. further, the locale and the models (the kind of unknowns you would find in USA, not in France, where the early performers were a small and well-known circle) look like being americans. and they are seen always in interiors. the same goes for the other two movies.

the movie by Bandinelli, first rerelesed as "Masquerade" in the early '90's, has been re-released a few years ago in a more complete version with the title "Private Detective"

[alec]

I agree about French Heat, French Throat etc. for the reasons given and also look at the fake French on the credits, e.g. the term used for director - French mvoeis do not use the term 'directeur' - not the one 've seen anyway. The French exteriors were probably stock footage.

The Frenchness of these films is fake. They are examples of very early POV / gonzo films though, but there is a genuinely European example of POV / gonzo in a late 70s Tabu loop, whose name escapes me for the moment.

[mark shanon]

>They are examples of very early POV / gonzo films

what do you mean precisely?

[alec]

Gonzo videos are videos where the presence of the cameraman is acknowledged and where he (or she) takes part in the action. There are recent American series which have POV (Point of View) in the title, e.g Perverted Point of View. POV is an idea related to gonzo - I think where the performers hold the camera rather than having a cameramn who gets involved a little, but since I wouldn't dream of buying one of these, I'm not absolutely certain.

Many people think that gonzo videos were invented by John Stagliano (Buttman) but there are earlier examples.

There have been discussions on the bgafd forum, e.g. on the history of this genre



The Tabu loop I was thinking of is Rollstuhl-Opa und seine spritzige Familie .

[pudgym]

I have viewed a soft version of "Masquerade" (it played on Cinemax? on cable|satellite here in the mid-1990s). In the soft version, enough of a scene involving Joey Silvera & Teri Weigel survived (reverse cowgirl). My recollection of the scene was that it was explicit, but this footage was not showing it.
I cannot understand that if this scene had been edited down, yet remained in the soft release; when it came time for the hardcore release, this entire scene would be snipped, and the producers felt they needed to add the extraneous vignette at the start of the movie instead.
So I respectfully offer that "Private Detective" is not "Masquerade".

If I did not scribe that too clearly, I will try again here: I believe "French Heat" was a sterling (oops) example of copying American-style exploitation tactics to entice ticket-buyers to see what amounted to a repackaging of old under-the-counter loop films. And that was probably why it was exported to the U.S.A. when other more plot-driven movies (including many of Brigitte LaHaie's) were not.

[pudgym]

So - the impression I have gotten here is that "French Heat" is more probably some German 8mm loops blown up to 35mm and shipped to the U.S.A. under an exploitive title. !oops!