DON'T LOOK NOW (1973)

The year is 1975…and…

I cut out and pasted movie advertisements in a spiral notebook during that transitional movie year all those many, many movie years ago. Looking at it now, much of the print from the faded pages has yellowed, but yes, I still have it! So I’ve decided this month to stroll down memory lane and comment on some of the film ads from my movie scrapbook.  I’ll also try to fit in a suitable 1001 movie entry at the end of each post since that is still the point of this blog.

1975 Movie Scrapbook (Post 9: Adults only)

1. The Cheerleaders

The infamous movie often talked about around the schoolyard of my middle school. The poop had it that it was about a cheerleader/cheerleaders who sabotage the opposing team by having sex with them and making them too tired to play! When I saw this at a midnight movie a few years later, this turned out to my surprise to be exactly what this was about! The 1975 ad intones, Come Huddle With the Cheerleaders. Everything You’ve heard about Cheerleaders Comes True! See Them Do It!
From my midnight movie experience I mostly remember a lot of drunk guys yelling Owww during the nude scenes.

2. The Happy Hooker

Another infamous sex movie of the 70’s based on the memoirs of Xaveria Hollander. I may have seen this movie, but I honestly don’t recall. I have read the book, but trust me; it was all in the name of research. The ad, which features just a picture of a shapely leg with a hundred dollar bill in her g-string screams Lynn Redgrave is a Delight! Risqué Fun.

3. The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

“1975 will be the year of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud,” said Tower Ticker of the Chicago Tribune. Well, not quite. It was the year of Jaws, actually. It did mark the first movie in which I ever saw a woman topless in a movie (Gotta love Margot Kidder and Cornelia Sharpe!) so it does mark a personal historical cinematic landmark

4. The Groove Tube

Yes, The Groove Tube was definitely a movie to see on the midnight circuit during the 70's. I have a feeling the films bawdy sketch humor that seemed pretty funny at the time may not date all that well, but the great movie poster of the gorilla with a TV on its head (satirizing the all-time great bad film Robot Monster) will stay with me for life.

5. If You Don’t Stop It You’ll Go Blind

The 70’s had a few of these R-rated sketch comedies, the best of which were Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and Kentucky Fried Movie* and I suppose I will throw The Groove Tube into that category. A Couple of others were Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses and  If You Don’t Stop It You’ll Go Blind.  The ad for this one features a cartoon of a man in a cape clearly exposing himself and then asks, Is it funnier than Blazing Saddles? You Bet Your CENSORED It is! 

I’m guessing probably not.

And today's 70's Adults Only movie experience is...

Don't Look Now

Seeing this for the first time in over twenty-five years, Don't Look Now remains a most intriguing yet reserved psychological thriller. There is a scene toward the end of the movie that made the audience I saw it with (back in the 80's) gasp and I wondered how it would work on me viewing this alone in my living room, fully aware of what was coming. Answer: I gasped again. It's still a great scene.

But today's entry is under Adults only. And staying with that theme, Don't Look Back has a famous erotic sex scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland that is so intense, that there has always been a rumor that the two of them are actually having sex on camera. Sutherland has denied it was real. I tend to believe him, because who would lie about NOT having sex with Julie Christie?

*This is my second blog in a row with a reference to Kentucky Fried Movie. I am still mentioning this for no reason in particular.