#pulse video

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Candice Candy (1976), dir. Pierre Unia.

Lips of Blood star Béatrice Harnois is in this rather fun Golden Age French flick.

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Today.

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R2-D2 makes an appearance in Claude Mulot’s La Femme Objet (1981).

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Il était une fois Marilyn Jess | Michel Caputo | 1987

In an early scene in the “docu-drama” Il était une fois… Marilyn Jess, French porn super-star Marilyn Jess lights a cigarette off a candelabra while being asked if there’s a difference between her on and off screen personas. She squints in an incredulous way and takes a drag from her cigarette. In that moment I imagined her asking: “would you ask Alain Delon this question?” As she exhales, she remains good-natured about it but explains that yes, there is a difference between the characters she plays in pornographic films and her normal off-screen life.

This sets the tone for the type of soft, condescending and often cringe-worthy questions Jess and her collaborators are faced with in this “docu-drama” about her career while on the set of her final film, a powdered-wig period flick whose title already escapes me.

The segments in between the interviews are padded with hardcore sequences for the production in question, and some seemingly shot specifically for this film, but I kind of love the disinterested energy by all involved as Jess and colleagues are being asked genuinely banal question after question. The overall vibe is: There’s nothing new or revolutionary going on. People are just trying to make a porno film. It’s work. Enough with your gross questions. Move along.

The dialogue between Jess and director Caputo is interesting because he directed her in a number of films prior to this (James Bande 00Sex 2) and is almost trying to persuade her to remain in the industry, as though, y’know, he might have something to gain from that. She signals AIDS as one of the main reasons for her retirement.

Released by Vinegar Syndrome and Pulse Video, Il était une fois… Marilyn Jess is one of several quasi-scripted “behind-the-scenes-of-a-porno-set” docu-dramas produced during porn’s golden age.

The ridiculous hagiography Exhausted: John C. Holmes, The Real Story (1981) is one of the earliest, and was released concurrently and coincidentally with Holmes’s involvement in the Wonderland Murders and its subsequent trial. It is such an unhinged document of a legendary pathological liar and sociopath in action that it barely needed to be over-dramatized when re-enacted in Boogie Nights (1997).

Behind the Scenes of an Adult Movie (1984), by veteran editor and director Joe Sherman, is meant to titillate along the lines of Il etait une fois, and includes scenes from Cal Vista movies (who produced the doc). Even though a video release of this film wouldn’t be located anywhere but the adult section, it could be interpreted as a PR piece aimed at defending the industry as it faced increased scrutiny during the Reagan years. The eloquent testimony of stars Veronica Hart, Samantha Fox and Herschel Savage helps with that.

Although released in 2002, The Prince of Porn looks at the notorious Phil Prince and the films he made for Avon Productions in early ‘80s Times Square. Produced by Avon editor Brian O’Hara, the 22-minute short offers a behind-the-scenes look at a no-budget porn set and is tied together by an interview with a rather animated Prince, who directed disturbing hardcore roughies like The Taming of Rebecca and The Story of Prunella.

And then there’s Juliet Bashore’s Kamikaze Hearts (1986), a docu-drama chronicling the near-operatic relationship between adult stars Sharon Mitchell and Tigr. It’s one of the rawest and most unflinching looks at the goings-on of a golden-age porn set; the misogyny and rights of the workers at hand; wrap parties haunted by literal ghosts in 1985 San Francisco. An absolutely important document. It’s the best of them, and in a class of its own. You can watch it on Criterion Channel.

What most of these have in common with Il était une fois… Marilyn Jess, is that while hagiographic, they highlight this strange, slow metamorphosis going on in the adult film industry as it transitioned out of the golden age and into uncharted waters.

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La femme-objet | Claude Mulot | 1981

Claude Mulot (credited here as Frédéric Lansac) directed some of my favourite horror films of the eurosleaze era (La rose écorchée being one) and here he concocts a modern-day science fiction convergence of “Frankenstein” and “Pygmalion.” The result is one of the most beautifully photographed films of the golden age of porn. Yes, that's a tall order.

One could easily miss all of this, though. While the synth-driven score pumps away unrelentingly from the very beginning, Richard Allan plays a screenwriter with an insatiable appetite for women. One after the other. Non-stop for a good 30 minutes. It borders on tedious and had me looking at the time, wondering how much more of this I was going to endure. Then he goes all Dr. Frankenstein and creates a robot who will never tire of his whims — a male fantasy trope seen before, seen after. And this is where the film takes a wild turn.

The absolutely splendid Marilyn Jess, in a non-speaking role, plays the titular femme-objet, Kim. There’s a powerful energy on display when she discovers autonomy and free will, like Elsa Lanchester’s Bride rejecting both monster and mad scientists in James Whale’s classic film.

But not only is the creation no longer the creator’s remote-controlled plaything, the tables have turned altogether. « Je suis devenu un homme-objet » narrates Allan in the film’s final moments.

The synth-heavy score by Jean-Claude Nachon, which features some rad prog moments, is mostly dialing it straight out of “Radioactivity”-era Kraftwerk. It elevates the film into the stratosphere. Pulse Video pressed a 180g vinyl of the soundtrack, and dear reader, I would have already ordered it were it not sold out on the Mélusine site.

La femme-objet made a star of Marilyn Jess (who reminds me of silent star Mary Nolan), assuming the crown left by Brigitte Lahaie as the latter did more mainstream work. The Pulse Video bluray features a lengthy modern interview with Jess and assistant-director Didier Philipe-Gérard, as well as nearly an hour of trailers for films by Mulot and his pornographic nom-de-porn, Frédéric Lansac (which was a character in La rose écorchée).

Oh yeah. R2D2. According to Jess, Mulot was a big Star Wars fan. So a radio-controlled R2D2 is in this. A lot.

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I have a lot of movies to watch (almost done the Russ Meyer 4Ks).

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Steenbeck Love. L’enlèvement des sabines (1977), dir. Pierre Unia.

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Lingeries fines et perverses | Jean-Francois Davy | 1984

Le deuxième long-métrage qui accompagne le coffret Il était une fois Marilyn Jess est du genre film-dans-un-film, où une-journée-sur-un-plateau-X. Dans ce cas, Jean-François Davy réappropri des scènes du film soft La femme en spirale. Hélène Shirley joue la réalisatrice de pubs commerciales populaire qui est pigée par Alban Ceray pour finir son film X.

Ce genre de scénario était assez commun, un collage d’éléments qui offre une durée rentable comme long métrage. Et on y retrouve Marilyn Jess, Olinka Hardiman et d’autres luminaires de l'âge d’or du X francais. On passe beaucoup de temps non seulement sur le plateau, mais on est immergé par des cartouches de pellicules et un Steenbeck où Shirley tente de monter son premier film X.

Ce qui démarque Lingeries fines et perverses est un montage plutôt expérimental, à la saveur nouvelle-vague, où Shirley scénarise le film dans sa tête, dans ses phantasmes, avec des images kaléidoscopique (oui, imaginez 5-6 Marilyn Jess à l’écran, une aubaine), des moments vidéoclips assez chargées, et une bande sonore qui oscille entre du disco et Vivaldi. C’est un film qui ose mettre de côté une recette assez fastidieuse et nous offre alors quelque chose d’original.

La collection Il était une fois Marilyn Jess offre d’autres extras assez unique, dont deux chansons enregistrées par Jess (meh), des entrevues rétrospectives, et la vidéo Acteurs X Vol. 2, une production amateur animée par Jess, où des gens auditionnent pour un film X. Rien de remarquable, mais à la fin, Jess nous présente Céline, une femme trans, et elle l’acceuille de facon très chaleureuse, et non fétichizé. « Bon, bravo » dit Jess, qui met Céline à l’aise. C’est un moment qu'on n'aurait pas vu du côté américain de l’époque, surtout lors des années ‘80.