No long reviews, no boring analysis, just info and overviews about some rare titles that are not well-known in the U.S or other countries except its own. Starting with some French movies as it's my country of origin so info is easier to provide, but as many titles were co- produced with Italy and Spain, you'll find some of them too. Which doesn’t mean that I will feel restricted to these countries only; I will just do what I want as long as nobody stops me, ha ha! I suppose that if you find your way to Cinema de Bizarre, that's not by chance and I'll try not to bother you with stuff you've heard about everywhere countless times. Short, sharp, precise that's the way it must be.
If you think something's missing or have unanswered questions about some titles feel free to ask, I'll do my best to provide the best verified info from the sources I can find.
Have Fun!
CALMOS (1976): A Lost big budget Macho Extravaganza!
This film was never distributed yet in any form, no VHS or DVD, just because no one wants it to be seen. The Director and the actors are now all very famous and this shocking master piece is better to remain unknown. Shot in 1975, during "the Year of the Woman" celebrating women’s freedom and equality to men, Blier decided to outdo his earlier provocative box office hit "Going places", by making a huge farcical satire of women power. It was so criticized when it was released in 1976, and since then you can’t find it anywhere, Blier himself disowns the film. It's nonetheless a great film, with a dark sense of humor, and stops at nothing to exacerbate the fight of the sexes for power with startling images.
-See all the men walking threw the fields trying to escape women's influence.
-See armies of women with tanks capturing poor men.
-See women queuing naked to have a dose of sex with men tied to hospital beds forced to satisfy them one by one.
-See Men climbing inside a giant Vagina.
Great cast, great jokes, a real gem to discover.
Max Pecas (1925-2003)
Max Pecas is a French filmmaker that is considered to be one of the worst filmmakers (alongside Phillipe Clair) in his own country, but his countless sexy comedies are still running on TV so every generation has at least seen one of his films. He had a 30 year career, and managed to shoot movies continuously with tiny budgets, and even if he didn't make any great ones, he did it his own way without the help of big producers and deserves to be respected for that. There are three distinct periods in Pecas Filmography. The thriller period began in 1960, with the film "Le cercle vicieux" aka "The Vicious Circle". He also made films with Elke Sommers, not yet famous but she is naked as much as the censorship of this time would allow in "Daniela by Night" 1961, "Douce Violence" aka "Sweet ecstasy" 1962. After ten movies he started to put more and more sleaze and sex and less plot, and ended his thriller period with "Claude and Greta" 1969 about a psychotic lesbian couple with a minimal plot and even an X rated version, it was not long before he totally veered to the Pink side with:
The Porn period began with "I'm a nymphomaniac" 1970, followed by the exact opposite titled sequel "I'm frigid...Why?" 1971, these were followed by six other films in the same genre. Some sources have listed Max Pecas as the director of "Bananes Mecaniques" aka Clockwork Banana (1973) which is wrong, this is another erotic French film from director Jean François Davy (also featured on this site). Then when the popularity of the erotic films started to decline in France (due to a change in censorship rules that put porn French productions in the ghetto of special X rated theatres, which resulted in a severe loss of quality products.) He then began his last and most notorious era:
The sexy comedies period starting with "Marche pas sur mes lacets " aka "Don't walk on my shoelaces" 1977 initiated by the success of the U.S film "The Pom Pom Girls" 1976 that was a small hit in France under the title "Lache moi les Baskets" that can be translated as "Let My Sport Shoes Go" a French expression that means “Let me do what I want". This is in fact more similar to the Italian comedies as they contain the same kind of heavy humor, sexist, chauvinist, and racist jokes and of course many naked women. This was a strange world then where raping a woman is turned into a funny situation, where all men are pigs and women are hot and easy. Every character is stereotypical, pushed to the limit of stupidity, the gay guy, the overweight guy eating, and the black guy doing his voodoo thing of course. Now considered politically incorrect, these comedies had theatre releases nonetheless and some did not do so bad at the time considering the extra low budget, the actors limited acting skills and no publicity at all. Most of these films follow the adventures of Cricri and his friends.In the army (for three films), working in a tropical resort, and in the last 3 films of the series, similar characters, and their adventures in St Tropez, the French seaside Riviera.
In the middle of his "St Tropez " Trilogy, he shot what he wanted to be the movie for a new start, but unfortunately due to it's excessive violence, sexual and sadistic situations, it was classified X and signaled the end of his directorial career:"The Brigade of Death" 1985.
Max Pecas Films featured on this site:
Brigade of Death (1985) aka "Brigade des Moeurs". Influenced by the American action/thrillers of the 80's and also by many of the Italian productions of that time period, he decided to make his own police epic about a "Vice Squad" (brigade des Moeurs). An inspector sets out to avenge his sister's death, whom was killed by a vicious and sadistic villain.He tries to take control of organized crime by virtually killing everyone. You can find Pecas usual trademarks including over the top comic book characters and situations in a thin plot that are only an excuse to show naked girls being tortured and people killed in gruesome ways, circus inspired car stunts and many more. From the beginning you know that you're in for a wild ride, the onscreen title appears over a Brazilian prostitute in the street showing her privates, revealing that the sexy girl is in fact a transsexual. Full male frontal nudity (of a transsexual) in the first two minutes in 1985 was way too much, and this is just the beginning. For the first time Pecas includes violence in his film, and as usual, goes directly to the point. The lack of subtlety in his filmography is constant but works better in this one and gives you some really uncomfortable scenes, and you don’t even notice the bad acting and dialogue. This is far from a great classic, but it's fast paced and offers a lot of craziness, gore, tits, sleaze and action so what more do you want.
I'm a Nymphomaniac (1970) aka Je suis une Nymphomane, Libido: The Urge To Love, Forbidden Passions, The Sensuous Teenager.
Carole a serious girl from a wealthy family falls in a lift by accident and discover that she can't repress her sexual prowess anymore, which of course will lead her to many encounters with various rich depraved people and many sexual experiences. This was the beginning of Pecas in the porno genre, and is a charming little soft-core light drama, just an excuse to show people making love, shot in typical seventies style, a sex sequence is shot through kaleidoscope lens. This was successful enough to spawn a sequel (which was not) and lead Pecas to hardcore territories.
The Max Pecas Filmography:(From French sources, release dates may differ from IMDB which is not the Bible)
French title + literal translation + eng title
First period : Le Polar (Thriller)
Le cercle vicieux (1960) - The Vicious Cirlce - ?
Douce violence (1961) - Sweet Violence - Sweet Ecstasy
De quoi tu te mêles Daniela ? (1961) - Mind your own business, Daniela - Daniela by night
Cinq filles en furie (1963) - Five girls in Fury - Five Wild girls
La baie du désir (1964) - Desire Bay - Erotic touch of hot skin
L'espion est à l'affût (1966) - The spy is on the lookout - Heat of midnight
La peur et l'amour (1966) - Fear and Love - Torment
Une femme aux abois (1966) - A woman in desperate - Slave
La nuit la plus chaude (1967) - The hottest night - Night of the outrages/Night of the 3 lovers
La main noire (1967) - The Black hand - ?
Claude et Greta (1969) - ! - Anytime anywhere - Her and she and him
Second period : Le Porno (Porn)
Je suis une nymphomane (1970) - I'm a nymphomaniac - Forbidden Passion/Libido
Je suis frigide...pourquoi? (1971) - I'm frigid...Why? - Let me love you
Club privé pour couples avertis (1973) - Private club for informed couples - Private Club
Sexuellement votre (1974) - Sexually your's - Young Casanova
les milles et une perversions de Félicia (1975) - 1001 perversions of Felicia - Felicia
Luxure (1976) - Lust - Sweet taste of honey/Everybodys
Third period : Le Comique (Comedies)
Marche pas sur mes lacets (1977) - Don't walk on my shoelaces - French Lovers
Embraye bidasse ça fume (1978) - Engage the Clutch Soldier, it's smoking - ?
On est venu là pour s'éclater (1979) - We came Here to have fun - ?
Mieux vaut être riche et bien portant que fauché et mal foutu (1979)
Better be rich and Healthy than poor and ugly - Who's that splashing in the Mediterranean (never saw this title)
Belles, blondes et bronzées (1980) - Beautiful, Blondes and tanned - ?
On est pas sorti de l'auberge (1982) - We're not out of the inn yet (We're not out of the woods yet) - ?
Les branchés à Saint Tropez (1983) - The Hip guys goes to Saint Tropez - ?
Deux enfoirés à Saint Tropez (1984) - Two Fuckheads in Saint Tropez - ?
Brigade des mœurs (1985) - Vice Squad - Brigade of Death
On se calme et on boit frais à Saint Tropez (1986) - Let's calm down and get cool in Saint Tropez - ?
"Le Temps de la Libération" ('Freedom Time') "L'Age d'or du X" ('Heyday of Porno')
"L'Explosion de la Vidéo" ('The Videos Breakout')
"Les Nouvelles Tendances" ('The New Tendancies').
A documentary about the first century of pornographic cinema, including extracts from pornographic films and animated movies. In order to show the evolution of this genre, this documentary takes you from the first nude films to the cybernetic modern era. The film has a narrator voice all the way so you'll see non stop footage, extracts, trailers and interviews. As this documentary was made for a special X rated night it doesn't shy on hardcore, making it the best and most complete documentary I've seen on the subject. This is not to be confused with the recent documentary that has been released in France on DVD recently about the same subject from Canal +, which is only 50 min and although quite good too, just doesn't come close to this one. Unfortunately this documentary has never been released in any form yet, too bad as it is a very good overview with as much info you can provide in two hours, which is short considering the subject.
