LOS ANGELES—With the Pussycat Theatres now just a page in the history books, Los Angeles' friendliest venue for erotic entertainment is ... Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre?
Beginning tonight and continuing tomorrow and next Wednesday, Cinefamily will be presenting "Sexperiments 2," whose centerpiece film will be The Exquisite Corpus, from acclaimed avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky, described as a "master manipulator of found celluloid." The Exquisite Corpus is a feature "composed of erotic and pornographic footage from the 1960s-1980s," which Cinefamily describes as "an ideal subject for a filmmaker devoted to the seductive properties of film itself, and a striptease in more ways than one." Also included will be a compilation of short films by "boundary-pushers" Peggy Ahwesh, Tom Palazzolo, Naomi Unman and Lewis Klahr, with a cameo by Tomi Ungerer, best known as a children's book illustrator, but who also authored about two dozen erotic adult books, including Fornicon, Babylon and Erotoscope. More info can be found here, and a trailer for "Sexperiments 2" here.
Then, beginning next Thursday, July 7, and running for the next week, will be the documentary Nuts (not to be confused with the 1987 Barbra Streisand hit). Though it contains no erotic footage, the film may still be of interest to adult entertainment scholars because of its subject: "Dr." John R. Brinkley, who was featured in the book Way Out World by "Long John" Nebel, arguably the weirdest and most engaging late-late night radio host of the 1950s and '60s.
According to the Cinefamily website, Brinkley, who came to prominence in 1918, was an "outlandish renegade surgeon who grew to astounding fame for his goat gland transplants in impotent men" which he claimed "were a miracle cure for 'sexual weakness.' Almost instantly under investigation from a then-fledgling American Medical Association, Brinkley would perform enough life-changing surgeries to build a booming medical empire, complete with his own patented serums, name brand hospitals and even radio stations"—and that doesn't even mention his run for governor of Kansas—twice! On July 7, Cinefamily will host an opening night party, with the guest of honor being the film's director, Penny Lane. A trailer for the film can be found here.
Cinefamily's foray into adult-friendly entertainment dates back almost exactly two years, when the theater sponsored "Sexperiments," an evening featuring the XXX-rated classics Café Flesh and Nightdreams, both directed by avant garde artist Rinse Dream and co-written by author Jerry Stahl (Perv: A Love Story; Plainclothes Naked; Happy Mutant Baby Pills)—and both appeared at the premiere to talk about the films and answer audience questions.
Then, in May of last year, Cinefamily offered a festival of early XXX movies, including Through the Looking Glass, starring Kim Pope, Nancy Dare, Terri Hall and Catharine Burgess as the "Alice" character; and Dracula Sucks (aka Lust At First Bite), starring Annette Haven, Kay Parker, Nancy Hoffman, Seka and Pat Manning, with co-stars Serena and Bill Margold on hand for a Q&A; as well as several soft(er)-core offerings. And then there's the more recent showing of the Japanese erotic animated film Belladonna of Sadness.
Finally, there was the theater's book release party for Feral House's latest volume Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris 1920-1946, a companion to the notorious pictorial classic Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Germany, with author Prof. Mel Gordon on hand to give background on those bits of history—and to show a collage of erotic film clips from the era, including color clips of nude dancers from the Casino de Paris (1927), a Black Mass performed in a Parisian brothel (1928); scenes from the world-famous Lido nightclub (1932), color 1927 footage from Parisian music halls, and a virtually unseen 1932 "documentary," This Nude World, created to be shown at American carnivals exploring nudity in Paris and Germany.
Oh; and for AVN's more fashion-conscious readers, on July 22, Cinefamily will be showing, on the big screen, Ken Russell's The Boy Friend, starring then-famous fashion model Twiggy, as well as Antonia Ellis, Christopher Gable and Tommy Tune—and that same evening, the presenters will also be throwing a "dress-up party," where they request that guests "[b]reak out your low-waisted chemise and sassy cloche hats to help us take the Roaring Twenties off the screen and out onto our back patio."
What can we say but ... Thank you, Cinefamily!
Cinefamily is located in the Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036.
