#beyond de sade

[watching-pictures-move]

Beyond De Sade (Mitchell & Mitchell, 1979)

[watching-pictures-move]

Beyond De Sade (Mitchell & Mitchell, 1979)

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #43 | Beyond De Sade (Mitchell & Mitchell, 1979)

When you call your movie Beyond De Sade, one would expect that your movie would at least get to De Sade, if not go past it. This movie does no such thing. The majority of the action here is entirely vanilla, with only the introduction of a frighteningly large set of anal beads providing anything resembling kink. Our star Marilyn Chambers explains "You can't act with a fist up your butt" in a cutaway interview before we see it being used in slow motion. To paraphrase Lionel Hutz, this is as egregious a case of false advertising as The Neverending Story.

The movie is basically a half hour sexual performance by Chambers, first doing a solo act and then being joined by two female co-stars. (One of them is played by Erica Boyer, credited under a different name, in what IMDb cites as her porn debut. I didn't recognize her, as she looks quite a bit different from the sleeker, bleach blonde look she would later adopt.) The action takes place in a dark room with a bed in the middle, with Chambers and her co-stars gyrating around the space before hopping on the bed. A group of masked men watch from the shadows, who occasionally reach out to cop a feel when Chambers gets close, the reflections from the wristwatches and their flashlights puncturing the dark void of the room. This has some aesthetic similarities with Behind the Green Door, the landmark adult film that was the debut of both Chambers and the Mitchell brothers, as the earlier movie was similarly shrouded in darkness and full of disconnected images (in that case, close-ups of hairy private parts). I found this one a bit more enjoyable as it at least sketches out a bit of spatial coherence with respect to its setting, and the camera is usually pulled back enough (even when going for zooms) so that you can tell what the hell you're looking at.

All three performers briefly twirl around in flowy dresses (Chambers in red, the others in white) when they first appear. These moments arguably provide the highlights of the film if you are like me and like seeing flowy dresses shot in shadowy environments. For everybody else watching, the fucking is probably the highlight. From what I've seen of her work, Chambers is probably not a great actress, but is certainly a very energetic performer, and if you're watching this movie for those reasons, you'll probably enjoy her work here. Personally, I greatly preferred her in Insatiable, which doesn't have a lot on its mind but is much nicer to look at and actually finds an atmosphere to match her vivacity. This one does hold some non-prurient interest in the interview segments that punctuate the proceedings, where Chambers explains what she gets out of this line of work. I enjoyed these moments, even if they were few and far in between.