Tuesday

Cry Your Purple Heart Out

1976

from the vault of obscurity

This is a primitive soft-core sex comedy which I don't remember at all. Although the cars and billboards on screen indicate that 1976 is the right year for the film, it must have been anachronistic then. It seems more like the bad films that we used to watch in college dorms and grindhouse theaters in the sixties. There's not even much nudity, so it really plays out like a porn film without the actual porn. By the time 1976 had rolled around, the sexual revolution in both society and cinema had pushed this short of no-budget tease film to occasional appearances as four A.M. features in all-night drive-in marathons. Sometimes we hardcore drive-in aficionados would run into a film like this several times under different names, but it didn't matter that much, because we weren't going to a drive-in marathon based on the name of the fourth feature or fifth feature. Even if we were, the whole shootin' match only cost about a buck, and we would have never asked for a refund on that basis.

On other words, this no-budget production is from the very bottom of the barrel. Everything about it is clumsy and amateurish. Per IMDb, the writer/director never wrote or directed anything else. For most of the actors, this film is their only IMDb credit. The only notable exceptions are Arlana Blue, who appeared in several porn films under many different names, and Richard Young, a semi-familiar face as a bit player on the TV shows of that era.

Here's what Code Red films wrote about this movie on their blog (edited slightly to remove references to another film on the same DVD):

"CODE RED has uncovered a rare motion picture shot in New York, thought to be completely lost. HOW TO SCORE WITH GIRLS is a wild comedy about some groovy GI's on a crazy night in the big city on a mission to get some hot chicks! Originally released as CRY YOUR PURPLE HEART OUT, the film was soon re-released by NMD Pictures under the HOW TO SCORE WITH GIRLS title. The filmmaker, Ogden Lowell, told us that only eight 35mm prints of the film were ever struck and that the negative is no longer at Technicolor and is basically lost. CODE RED searched high and low and was unable to find any of the eight 35mm prints anywhere. Ogden did still happen to have a 3/4 inch tape master made in 1980, so thankfully the film is not completely lost. Although the best materials for this film are no longer available, we feel this very rare film still deserves to be seen, even in its only surviving elements. Do not buy the DVD if you are expecting a high quality remastered transfer. We do think it is a wildly entertaining exploitation film of a bygone era, and we truly hope that discerning fans can still enjoy it regardless of the less-than-stellar surviving master materials used. Thanks for understanding."

In other words, this is a bad copy of a bad film.

And bad it is. This film would have been considered lame even in 1966, let alone 1976. But that very fact almost makes it interesting to watch, at least for a few moments. If you were around then, you've probably forgotten about stuff like this, and a brief look will make you smile ironically, in grim remembrance of an age which was not quite so gilded as we have tried to portray it to our descendants, and even to ourselves. If you are too young to remember that era, watching this for a few minutes will be a valuable reality check, because neither your elders nor the cultural history books will mention the existence of dreck like this in the underbelly of the mid- seventies.

Even the nudity is disappointing. There is no frontal lower-body nudity at all. In fact, there are long stretches of the film without any type of nudity. If not for the one good nude/sex scene with Arlana Blue, there would be only about five seconds of nudity in the entire film, as you'll see below.

 

Cougars, Inc

2011

In a modern take on Risky Business, an impoverished student turns to pimping in order to stay in his expensive school. The contemporary twist is that he rakes in the dough by selling the services of his dorky friends to lonely Cougars. Because we all know that gorgeous women in their 30s and early 40s have to pay high school nerds to fuck them.

Anyway, the flimsy premise might have formed the basic of a screwball exploitation comedy, except that this film takes itself seriously, which is to say it tries to offer moral lessons, it doesn't offer much exploitation fare, and it isn't funny. That kinda lets the air out of the old tires, doesn't it?

In other words it's more crap. The pool of competent actors is deeper now than it was in 1966, and filmmaking techniques have improved considerably in the past 35 years, so Cougars, Inc is slicker and much more professional crap than Cry Your Purple Heart Out. But it's still crap. It's too bad that screenwriting hasn't kept pace with technology.

I did watch it all the way through (no tribute to my good sense), but Zorg had already done some videos by the time I finished, so I was mercifully spared that ordeal. Lord willing, I will never have to think of this film again. Here's Zorg's 720p vids:

 

HD upgrades

Here's Kate Winslet in Mildred Pierce, episode 2 (my vid, 3rd party captures below)

And these 3rd party videos:

Here's Saskia Reeves in Women in Love (see below)

Here's Rosamund Pike in Women in Love (see below)

Here's Olivia Grant in Women in Love (see below)

 

 

  • * Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

  • * White asterisk: expanded format.

  • * Blue asterisk: not mine.

  • No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

Lair of the White Worm

(1988)

Amanda Donohoe film clips (captures below)

 

 
 

 

Today's strip: Alma Lo Moro

 

 

 

 
 

The Postcard Bandit

(2003 - TV)

1080p film clips of Tasma Walton

The collages are below:

 

 

Film Clips

Aruna Shields in The Last Neanderthal (2010; see below)

Adelaide Leroux in Cigarettes et bas nylons (2010)

Tamsin Egerton in Keeping Mum in 1080p (2005)

Cameron Diaz and Eliane Chappuis in Gangs of New York in 1080p (2002)

Julia Stemberger in Der Koenig von St Pauli in 720p (1998 mini-series, e4; see below)

Andrea Bloom in Sambolico (1996)

Bulle Ogier in La vallee in 720p (1972)

 

 

Pics

Britney Spears, showing part of her butt to a San Francisco audience last week

Laura Wiggins on this week's Shameless

Rosamund Pike, now a hot topic of conversation because of Women in Love,  did a bit of nudity in something called Fugitive Pieces (2007)

 

Christina Applegate in Anchorman (2004)

A rare nipple from Kate Bosworth in The Rules of Attraction (2002)

Theresa Weyman in The Rules of Attraction (2002)

Morgan Fairchild in The Seduction (1981)