Softcore
Related: erotic movies - American erotica - European erotica - "Eurogirls" - simulated
Directors: Russ Meyer
Contrast: hardcore
Sylvia Kristel in
Emmanuelle (1974) - Just Jaeckin [Amazon.com]
Soundtrack to
The Schulmadchen Report/Schoolgirl Report (1970) - Gert Wilden & Orchestra
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Bilitis (1977) - David Hamilton [Amazon.com]
Definitions
- Being less explicit than hard-core material in depicting or describing sexual activity: soft-core pornography.
- Moderate: a soft-core sports fan.
Softcore is a form of erotica that is less explicit than hardcore material in depicting or describing sexual behaviour. In general, eroticism in softcore is simulated.
While both softcore and hardcore feature extensive nudity and sexual situations with the intention of arousing the viewer, the key difference between softcore and hardcore is that softcore does not include the following hardcore elements: an erect penis, shots of actual penetration (vaginal, anal and/or oral), and shots of ejaculation.
For some viewers, it is a matter of taste, and many softcore fans find hardcore just too grossly explicit.
Examples of American softcore include the films of Russ Meyer and the television series Red Shoe Diaries. In Europe softcore was a 1970s trend in cinema represented by Emmanuelle (1974) and David Hamilton's Bilitis (1977). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softcore [Nov 2005]
Simulated vs unsimulated
In the context of hardcore and softcore erotic movies, unsimulated means real sex acts which are filmed as is, while simulated means, that the act of lovemaking or other erotic behaviours is suggested, not performed in reality, thus: simulated. Most of the softcore erotica is simulated.see also: simulation - reality - erotica - pornography - film
Hardcore vs softcore
Sometimes a distinction is made between softcore pornography and hardcore pornography. The former generally refers to materials which feature nudity and some sexually suggestive scenes, while hard-core or X-rated pornography contains close-ups of genitalia and sexual activities. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography [Jun 2004]Emmanuelle (1974) - Just Jaeckin
Sylvia Kristel became an international star as a result of this French screen adaptation of Emmanuelle Argan's controversial book about the initiation of a diplomat's young wife into the world of sensuality. As the pretty wife of a French ambassador in Bangkok, Emmanuelle discovers a burning sexual passion she has previously repressed. Under the tutelage of the wise old Mario, and with her husband's complicity, Emmanuelle discovers the joys of eroticism and lets herself slide into pleasure. --From the Back Cover
Christina Lindberg
Christina Lindberg
image sourced here.
Dagmar Lassander
Dagmar Lassander
image sourced here.
see also: Femina Ridens (1969)
Lui
Lui no 205
image sourced here.
Svezia, Inferno E Paradiso / Sweden Heaven and Hell (1968)
Svezia, Inferno E Paradiso (1968) - Luigi Scattini (director) Piero Umiliani (music)[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Album Description
This soundtrack for the so-called „documentary" on the decay of morals in Sweden from 1968 is a long lost jewel of Easy Listening. Properly released for the first time ever it brings us 28 cute little songs called „Photo Models", „Topless Party" or „Beer , Vermouth & Gin" - plus the superhit „Mah Na’ Mah Na’" (as known from „Sesame Street" and many TV-ads). Oh yes - and the soundtrack also features Mr.Gato Barbieri on sax.
Edmund Purdom narrates a documentary about Sweden. It shows contraceptives for teen girls, lesbian nightclubs, wife swapping, porno movies, biker gangs, and Walpurgis Night celebrations. It also examines Swedens drug, drinking and high suicide problems. It featured the Swedish nonsense song "Mah-Na Mah-Na" later used on the "Sesame Street" Show. --http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063660 [May 2005]
Spermula (1976) - Charles Matton
image sourced here.
Dayle Haddon
image sourced here.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075251
Charles Matton photographs under the name Pascalini.
Charles Matton, cinéaste et peintre français, expose depuis 1960 et filme depuis 1967. Il vit et travaille à Paris.
En 1997, il a reçu pour le film Rembrandt le Grand prix du meilleur scénariste, avec sa femme, Sylvie Matton.
Rembrandt est son quatrième long métrage. --http://perso.wanadoo.fr/calounet/biographies/matton_biographie.htm [Apr 2005]
Corinne Clery
Corinne Clery, photo unidentified
Corinne Clery at the time of Story of O (1975)
Corinne Clery (born Corinna Piccolo, March 23, 1950 in Paris, France) is a French actress.
She started her career in the late sixties under the name Corinne Piccoli.
She first came to prominence in the controversial film Story of O (1975) (Histoire d'O) and is famous for being the Bond girl Corinne Dufour in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979). She also starred opposite other Bond alumni Barbara Bach and Richard Kiel in The Humanoid.
Most of the her movies, after Moonraker, were made in Italy. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Clery [Apr 2005]
Sexus (1964) - José Bénazéraf
still from Sexus (1964) - José Bénazéraf
image sourced here.
The original title [of Sexus] was La Plus Longue Nuit. They sold a lot of Henry Miller books on the basis of the movie, but I suspect that a lot of people went to the movie thinking it was the film version of that book. We had another José Bénazéraf movie, The Fourth Sex, and I've seen all his movies. He really has a feel for making an erotic movie. There's a degenerate streak in his films, which he lives. You literally can smell the film. It's a gift. And he has impeccable taste in choosing his girls. Sexus was a very strong picture at the time. We were a little worried about it because it had a couple of lesbian striptease acts. --Radley Metzger via http://www.vidmarc.demon.co.uk/mondo-erotico/metzger/interviews/aristo1.html [Apr 2005]
Elke Sommer
Elke Sommer, photocredit unidentified
sourced here.
Satanik (1968) - Piero Vivarelli
Satanik (1968) - Piero Vivarelli [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Satanik ("Killing" in the original Italian edition -- see "Publishing History" below) is a terrifying and diabolical master criminal. Totally without mercy, Satanik mostly goes after other criminals, usually to steal their loot or whatever they're after. His real identity remains unknown. No one knows who he is. Satanik uses a special brand of flesh-like masks he designed to make himself look like any of his targets. He also uses darts filled with Mjanico, the "green death", an Amazonian poison which kills its victims slowly and painfully.
Dana, photocredit unidentified
sourced here.
Satanik's only companion is his lover, the equally mysterious Dana, probably the only person in the world to know his secret identity. Dana ably assists Satanik in his criminal endeavors.
Satanik's nemesis is Inspector Mercier, a smart, relentless policeman who is always hot on his trail, but somehow loses every time.
Satanik's literary ancestor was Fantômas, the brain-child of French writers Marcel Allain (1885-1970) and Pierre Souvestre (1874-1914).
Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of thirty-two volumes written by the two collaborators, then a subsequent eleven volumes written by Allain alone after Souvestre's death.
Arch-criminal Fantômas is one of the most popular characters in the history of French pulp literature. His adversaries are determined policeman Juve (who may be Fantômas' brother?) and young journalist Jerôme Fandor, who eventually falls in love with Fantômas' own daughter. Another recurring character is the tragic figure of Fantômas' lover, Lady Beltham, who is constantly torn between her passion for the villain and her horror at his criminal schemes.
The character and the monstrously complicated plots designed by Allain & Souvestre were greatly admired by the French surrealists. --http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/satanik.htm [Apr 2005]
The Big Doll House (1971) - Jack Hill
Pam Grier in The Big Doll House (1971)
image sourced here.
"I will always remember when the franchise holder in New Orleans, a heavily Catholic city, told me that after he saw the numbers on Big Doll House Friday night, he lit a candle in church on Sunday to the film. He said he had never made a profit like that in his life - and he had been in the business forty years."- Roger Corman, How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime, p 182.
The Twilight Girls (1957) - André Hunebelle
The Twilight Girls (1957) - André Hunebelle [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Radley Metzger: At that time, the question was survival. We really would do anything to get the film exhibited. But some states, like New York, were very strict. I think we helped knock the State Censorship Board out with The Twilight Girls. I got my old City College arrogance back: when they said, "It's a dirty picture," I said, "No, it isn't dirty." And they said, "Well, it's lousy." And I said, "That's like saying a rich man deserves more justice than a poor man. A bad picture should be shown just the same as a good picture." We were in the courts for two years over The Twilight Girls, but we finally won. And that was one of the last big cases the New York Board fought before it died. --Radley Metger interviewed by Richard Corliss in Film Comment, January 1973 via http://www.vidmarc.demon.co.uk/mondo-erotico/metzger/interviews/aristo1.html [Nov 2004]
see also: Radley Metzger - censorship - erotic movies
La Prisonnière (1968) - Henri-Georges Clouzot
La Prisonnière (1968) - Henri-Georges Clouzot [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Elisabeth Wiener in
La Prisonnière/Woman in Chains (1968) - Henri-Georges Clouzot
Josée, a beautiful young film editor, is working on a documentary that fascinates her. In the film, women who have been sexually dominated are interviewed. Each explains their gradual desire for more degradation as the abuse continues. Josee is shocked and intrigued by this and begins to desire something more from her relationship with her lover Gilbert. She meets Stan, a friend of Gilbert’s whom she discovers is an amateur photographer. One evening Stan shows Josee some of his artistic photos accidentally revealing a hidden side of his personality. One of the photos unintentionally displayed is of a young woman bound in chains. Josee is both repulsed and captivated by the image and pressures Stan to tell her everything about it. Stan concedes he is sexually gratified from sadomasochistic imagery and invites Josee to his next photo shoot. Josee’s curiosity soon transforms into desire as she enters a new world of sexual gratification, becoming a willing participant in this erotic game of domination.
From the director of the classic French thriller DIABOLIQUE (1955) comes this very obscure and erotically charged masterpiece. Set in a world of unusual art and sculpture, viewers are shown several artists at work. Josee’s lover Gilbert, is a sculptor who forms his art from clay, steel, and glass. Stan is a sculptor as well, choosing instead to use the female body for his creations. The film is an amazingly beautiful journey into the hidden desires of a woman, told with a very feminine point of view that spirals into the surreal. Strikingly photographed by Andréas Winding. Starring the beautiful Elisabeth Wiener as the sexually enlightened Josee. Also starring Laurent Terzieff, Bernard Fresson, Dany Carrel. Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Monique Lange, Marcel Moussy. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Robert Menegoz. --http://www.lfvw.com/prisonnieredvdr.html [Apr 2005]
Lucifera in fumetti
Lucifera
Russ Meyer actresses
Scene in " Vixen"
image sourced here.
Scene from "Lorna"
image sourced here.
The Key (1983) - Tinto Brass
image source unidentified
image sourced here.
The Key (1983) - Tinto Brass [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: Tinto Brass
The Girl From Rio (1969) - Jesus Franco
image sourced here.
The Girl From Rio (1969) - Jesus Franco [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: Jess Franco
Baba Yaga (1983) - Corrado Farina
image sourced here.
Baba Yaga (1973) - Corrado Farina [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
Legendary sex symbol Carroll Baker (BABY DOLL, THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH) stars as a mysterious sorceress with an undying hunger for sensual ecstasy and unspeakable torture. But when she casts a spell over a beautiful young fashion photographer (the gorgeous Isabelle De Funés), Milan’s most luscious models are sucked into a nightmare world of lesbian seduction and shocking sadism. Are these carnal crimes the result of one woman’s forbidden fantasies or is this the depraved curse of the devil witch known as BABA YAGA?
George Eastman (THE GRIM REAPER) co-stars in this provocative EuroShocker (also known as DEVIL WITCH and KISS ME KILL ME) written and directed by Corrado Farina and based on the notorious S&M comic Valentina by Guido Crepax. Blue Underground is now proud to present BABA YAGA restored from pristine vault materials and packed with eye-popping Extras, including never-before-seen erotic outtakes from the Italian Censors archives as well as the director’s own private collection. --via Amazon.com
Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga (Polish Baba Jaga, Slovene jaga baba, Russian [...]) in Slavic mythology is the wild woman, the dark lady and mistress of magic. She is also seen as a forest spirit, leading hosts of spirits. The word baba in most Slavic languages means an older or married woman of lower social class.
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga [Apr 2005]
Nerosubianco (1969) - Tinto Brass
Soundtrack LP cover of Nerosubianco (1969) - Tinto Brass
image sourced here.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to the cult 1968 avant-garde movie from Tinto Brass. Freedom was formed in the late summer of 1967 by two ex-Procol Harum members, Ray Royer and Bobby Harrison. Before Freedom had even had time to prove their worth by composing a single measure of music, Brass commissioned them to write fourteen songs for Nerosubianco. According to enthusiasts of psychedelic rock, these are the only songs by Freedom that were any good and they are now considered among the cream of the crop of the genre. A minor classic of late-sixties psychedelia. --http://www.moviegrooves.com/shop/nerosubianco.htm [Apr 2005]
Still from Nerosubianco (1969) - Tinto Brass
image sourced here.
Film
This is where the creators of MTV got all their ideas. But nothing I’ve ever seen on MTV comes close to the mastery of this original from the late 1960s.
After Heart in His Mouth, producer Dino De Laurentiis offered Brass a chance to make a smaller and even more daring film. Brass chose to update a script he had written in early 1964 immediately after completing Chi lavora è perduto. He had apparently become enamored of the avant-garde filmmakers and decided to one-up them all. He again hired his friend, cartoonist Guido Crepax, to draw the storyboards and to create graphics. Shooting began in October 1967 and the result, NEROSUBIANCO, which premièred at the Cannes festival in May 1968, was a carefully wrought and meticulously structured orgy of free-association. To help explain what is or isn’t going on, disembodied voices occasionally break through saying, in both Italian and English, “Qualcosa come un sogno” - “Something like a dream.” A song goes further: “Didn’t you know that your misty eyes haven’t seen? They’ve been telling lies in dreams.” Anticipating Brass’s later works, the visuals, and even more so the voice-overs, are bluntly sexual-more blunt than even we today are accustomed to experiencing. --http://www.geocities.com/busterktn/tinto4.html [Apr 2005]
...Author of such works as Ca Ira, L’Urlo, Drop Out and La Vacanza, Tinto Brass—second only to Carmelo Bene in eccentricity of style—here employs a non-narrative cut-up technique involving all manner of editing devices, freeze-frames and negative effects, in a film shot on location in London by an obviously resourceful cameraman. One suspects that it must have been pretty incoherent in its original form, but as presented here with extensive cuts, it is an incomprehensible shambles, neither sexy enough for the exploitation market nor fashionable enough for art houses....—John Gillett via Monthly Film Bulletin, November 1973, p 230:
A fellow in Sweden then sent me a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a severely censored Italian broadcast of NEROSUBIANCO, and I was mesmerized. Predictably, I watched it about twice a day every day for the next week. In spite of its slight narrative and its few long takes, and despite its use of less than 25 cameras per take, it’s the closest thing I have ever seen to the movie I had wanted to make: scrambled, rapid-fire, free-association imagery and editing, often coming close to mimicking the human thought process. I re-read the reviews, and I wanted to find the critics who wrote them so that I could throttle them. How could they not recognize that this was perhaps the most revolutionary movie of all time? And perhaps the most exciting? Regardless of poor promotion and bad reviews, how did this movie fail to find an audience? Why didn’t the counterculture embrace it as their cinematic banner? Various scholars cite the works of Kenneth Anger, Bruce Conner, and other experimental filmmakers as the direct ancestors of MTV. No no no no no! They write such things only because they have never seen NEROSUBIANCO, which was the true grandparent of the phenomenon. The film’s production manager, artist-poet-photographer-filmmaker-videomaker Nick Saxton, went on to pioneer the music-video phenomenon. I have not seen his works, but I would be genuinely surprised if they bear much resemblance to the pitiful garbage that MTV and other such stations have been insulting us with for two decades now. --http://www.geocities.com/busterktn/tinto8f.html [Jul 2004]
see also: Nick Saxton's imdb profile here.
see also: Nerosubianco's imdb profile here.
Radley Metzger’s ‘Elegant Arousal’: Cultural Value, Eroticism and Sexploitation
Radley Meztger Collection Volume 2 (Little Mother / The Dirty Girls / Score) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Lickerish Quartet (1970) - Radley Metzger [Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]
image sourced here. [Mar 2005]
Immoral Tales (1974) - Walerian Borowczyk
Erzsébeth Bathory segment from Contes Immoraux (Immoral Tales) (1974) - Walerian Borowczyk
image sourced here. [Mar 2005]
Immoral Tales (1974) - Walerian Borowczyk [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: Erzebet Bathory - Walerian Borowczyk
Shiver of the Vampires (1970) - Jean Rollin
Original poster by Druillet.
Image sourced here.
Shiver of the Vampires (1970) - Jean Rollin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: Jean Rollin - erotic horror - seventies
Bacchanales Sexuelles (1974) - Jean Rollin
Bacchanales Sexuelles (1974) - Jean Rollin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
I recently watched Bacchanales Sexuelles, my first Jean Rollin movie. For those of you who don't know about his work, he's a Frenchman, now sixty-five, who's best-known for his cult horror movies of the sixties and seventies. He has also made porn, both hard and soft. You can find out more about his work on his own website. I urge you to click on the "interviews" button on the left panel -- it's a well-done, long q&a.
Bacchanales Sexuelles (also known as Fly Me the French Way) was made in 1974 and it has the loopy, stoned sexiness of many other films of that time, such as Sweet Movie by Dusan Makavejev, or some of Walerian Borowczyk's movies. It's kind of about a free-wheeling young woman (Joelle Coeur) who takes over her reporter cousin's apartment only to become caught up with a mysterious S&M secret society. It's a silly, mindless romp -- but it has its own outrageousness too.
The plot isn't your usual porn plot -- it meanders around in a dada-like way, with a logic that's only based in pleasure. It's a very different viewing experience than contemporary porn is. If you compare it to a soft core movie by, say, Zalman King -- whose work I'm fond of -- the latter seems slick. If you compare Rollin's movie to a contemporary Vivid porn video, the Vivid video looks glaring and hard-driving, and anonymous in its settings.
Rollin's movie is -- to use a Norman O. Brown phrase from the seventies -- "polymorphously perverse." It's sexually anarchistic. Rollin is his own man when it comes to directing, known for his odd choice of shots and angles. I found his editing and staging strangely engaging. He puts the camera where it pleases him, so that the logic of the shot-flow feels surreal, in the same way that Erik Satie's harmonies or Jean Cocteau's movies do. Making allowance for the fact that this is consciously trash, of course. But it's trash in that French, sophisticated-primitive way. (I imagine Tarantino would go wild for Rollin's work.)
And what a seventies experience it was to watch the movie, which portrays a world not just of '70s fashions and colors, but of untoned and unpierced young bodies, unwaxed crotches, and enthusiastic young performers clearly in love with the idea of being sexually and physically free on camera. Rollin seems to like standing back and letting the action take on its own life, even during the orgy scene at the film's climax.
I watched the film imagining that Jean Rollin was someone I'd enjoy knowing. I like his arty-trashy, low-budget spirit. And I liked the way he really seems to like women, and women's bodies. He seems to like the variety of them, for one thing. The actresses he uses, like Joelle Coeur, are often luscious and beautful, but Rollin seems to enjoy it if in some of the film's shots they look ungainly. You see wobbly flesh and knock knees, and you find yourself enjoying both.
Rollin also has that French love of women as sexual instigators. They seem to give the impression of being onscreen not to please a man but for their own reasons. There's a moment when Joelle Coeur walks towards a guy -- it's in the morning, and he has just made breakfast for her, but she's feeling wicked and horny. And she smears a little jam or chocolate on herself. It's all her moment. You don't usually see this kind of performance from a woman in soft or hardcore. It's what made the early Jenna Jameson performances such an inspiration to so many women; she seemed to be having her own good time, on her own terms.
I had an enjoyably scattershot set of reactions to the movie. The movie itself was very unfocused; it was like having a couple of glasses of wine and letting yourself go, or like being in the presence of someone who's very stoned and telling you an amusing story that doesn't quite make sense. But that's what I found pleasant about it -- it was outrageous and amiable; it wasn't a pile-driver of a movie. I watched a recent hardcore American porn movie soon after, and it left me slightly nauseated. The camera was so intrusive that watching the film was about as erotic as watching a dental procedure. Bacchanales Sexuelles, though it didn't work on me aggressively, kind of got to me. I'm looking forward to checking out Jean Rollin's horror movies too. --http://www.pollyfrost.com/archives/000061.html#000061 [Mar 2005]
see also: Jean Rollin - erotic horror - seventies
Essy Persson (1941 - )
Essy Persson (1941 - ), photocredit unknown
Essy Persson (1941 - ), photocredit unknown
Essy Persson (1941 - ), photocredit unknown
Jag - en kvinna/I, A Woman (1965) - Mac Ahlberg
Therese (Essy Persson) and Isabelle (Anna Gael) in
Therese und Isabell (1968) - Radley Metzger [Amazon.com]
(© 1998 First Run Features. All rights reserved.)
image sourced here.
see also: Radley Metzger - Sweden - Mac Alberg
Case of the Bloody Iris (1972) - Giuliano Carnimeo
see also: Edwige Fenech - Italian horror
Castle of Blood/La Danza Macabra (1964) - Antonio Margheriti
Danza Macabre (1964) - Antonio Margheriti as Anthony Dawson
image sourced here.
Castle of Blood/La Danza Macabra (1964) - Antonio Margheriti [Amazon.com]
When American author Edgar Allan Poe visits London, he is approached by British journalist Alan Foster, who becomes the target of a peculiar wager. Not believing Poe's assertion that all of his macabre stories have been based on actual experience, Foster accepts a bet from Poe and his friend Sir Thomas Blackwood that he cannot spend an entire night in the Blackwood's haunted castle. Once installed in the abandoned castle, Foster discovers that he is not alone, as he is approached by various beautiful women and handsome men, and a doctor of metaphysics -- who explains that they are all lost souls damned to replay the stories of their demises on the anniversary of their deaths! --description via amazon.com [May 2004]
see also: 1964 - Italian horror
Elle
Elle cover
image sourced here.
Franca Licastro
Franca Licastro
image sourced here.
King magazine
Rivista per soli uomini degli anni 60 e 70.
image sourced here.
Lisa Gastoni
Le comte porno et ses filles (1970) - Gunter Hendel
image sourced here.
Lisa Gastoni in Scandalo (1976) - Salvatore Samperi
image sourced here.
Inside Deep Note: Music of 1970's Adult Cinema (2003-2003) - Various Artists
Inside Deep Note: Music of 1970's Adult Cinema (2002) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Inside Deep Note: Music of 1970's Adult Cinema (2003) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Album Description Subtitled - Music of 1970s Adult Cinema. Containing over one hour of sweaty grooves, wah-wah guitars, analog synths, funky horns, and deeply satisfying instrumental delights nicely spiced with entertaining dialogue, Inside Deep Note is beautifully packaged in a deluxe digipak with 16-page full-color booklet containing detailed liner notes and tons of classic (nude) photos. Grammofon. 2003. via Amazon.com
see also: soundtrack - groove
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