NEW YORK—Radley Metzger, one of the early pioneers of the modern adult cinema, died at his home in Manhattan on March 31 from as-yet undisclosed causes. He was 88 years old.
Radley Metzger was born in the Bronx in 1929, the year of the stock market crash, and according to adult film historian Ashley West, his Jewish parents were very hard-hit by the Great Depression. Aside from being raised in poverty, Metzger suffered from severe allergies, which caused him to take refuge in the big air-conditioned movie theaters in his neighborhood, a favorite of which was The Audubon. It was only in air-conditioning that he could feel comfortable and breathe normally. This was the genesis of Metzger's love of movies, and he would see three or four of them a day, often skipping school to do so.
"I've never seen anybody with the encyclopedic knowledge of film that he had," West, creator of the adult industry history site The Rialto Report, said. "He would go see everything, and he had an insatiable appetite for film."
After high school, Metzger entered Columbia University, majoring in literature, but he never graduated, instead signing up for military service in the Air Force at the start of World War II, having heard of an opportunity to work on American propaganda films there.
Having learned film editing in the Air Force, Metzger began his civilian career editing trailers for foreign art film distributor Janus Films, where he edited the American versions of films by such well-known directors as Francois Truffaut, Jean Renoir (for whom he also did sound rerecording and dubbing for the U.S. release of Can Can) and Ingmar Bergman.
"Bergman saw the trailer that Radley had cut for his film Through A Glass Darkly, and actually sent him a personal note saying that he thought that the trailer was better cut than the film," West noted.
West also revealed that Metzger had hired then-unknown performer Georgina Spelvin to shoot "about five minutes of two girls having sex, with some naked breasts and some girl-on-girl action," and inserted it into his American edit of 1957 French film The Twilight Girls—and that wasn't the only foreign film he "enhanced."
"Oh, my; another great talent off to that great theater/sound stage in the sky!" said Spelvin upon hearing of Metzger's death. "Radley was a genius at getting great performances from everyone with whom he worked. He always seemed to hit the right note: cajoling, demanding, seeming to ignore when in fact he was always completely on top of every situation. I wish I could have had more chances to bend to his subtle will. He was never one to keep up with his reviews, so I doubt he'll notice this one. If, however, you're checking these out, Rad, please know I adore you and am looking forward to our next meeting, when and where and however that comes about."
Metzger was much better known for such non-hardcore classics as Therese and Isabelle (1968), starring Danish actress Essy Persson, who had already gained a bit of fame in the U.S. with early (1965) Danish sexploitation pic I, A Woman. Metzger edited the film for U.S. distribution, and credited it as the film "that was going to change not only my company's life but the course of independent film distribution in America." I, A Woman apparently inspired Metzger to put more sexual situations into his films, leading to such classics as Camille 2000 (based on the Alexander Dumas novel The Lady of the Camelias) and The Lickerish Quartet, a story about a wealthy couple and their son who watch a sexy movie, then discover its lead actress performing in a local circus and invite her home to feature in each's personal fantasy. All three of these titles were filmed in Europe, as was his next film, Little Mother, an early send-up of the life of Eva "Evita" Peron, the wife of South American dictator Juan Peron.
"Radley had a European production manager who was a very trusted lieutenant of his, and the guy would assemble a crew in Rome for Lickerish Quartet or in France for Therese and Isabelle, or in Germany for Carmen Baby," West stated. "Radley would literally lock up himself and his crew, some of whom worked for him continually, and cast the film there and then, and shoot it in a fairly brief period of time, and then would return to the U.S. with all the footage he'd shot and edit it here."
The "company" whose life I, A Woman had changed was Audubon Films, which Metzger had founded with longtime partner Ava Leighton—"Perhaps the single most important person in his life," according to West—and Audubon "became a pioneer in the production and distribution of his, and others', erotic films."
"Audubon basically brought over these sexy foreign films, where standards were a little bit less in terms of what you could show," West said. "Radley would go to all the film festivals and arrange for showings of these films. He knew what he could sell back in the U.S., and also, he learned very early on that he there was a very fine line regarding what he could show in the U.S. and what he couldn't, so whereas many filmmakers in those days got into legal problems, Radley always managed to stay just ahead of what was causing trouble, yet always delivering on people's desire to see the most explicit thing they could see, which in those days wasn't very explicit."
Metzger's first "official" hardcore movie was The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann, which he directed under the name "Henry Paris," Henry being Metzger's middle name and Paris a tribute to a professional comrade who helped his early career—and he'd shot several of his features in Europe. However, even before Pamela, his works often touched on sexuality in one way or another, beginning with 1964's Dictionary of Sex, a compilation of sexy material from at least six mainstream European films.
Metzger's next film was another sexual potboiler, Score, which West notes was "an adaptation of a stage play, which he shot in Yugoslavia."
"The film contained mildly explicit sequences but wasn't successful—at least not as successful as the new hardcore films that had started to play in competing theaters," West wrote in a press release regarding Metzger's death. "It marked a sea change in Radley’s career: 'Suddenly nobody cared about what we’d been doing. The rules had changed. We resisted X-rated movies. We felt we were way above that sort of thing. Finally we succumbed and decided to do an X-rated feature.'" (West also reports that Metzger never liked looking at his films after they were done, and would often sneak out during showings of them, returning at the end to answer questions.)
That feature was the first Henry Paris film, 1974's The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann, starring Barbara Bourbon as a hypersexual married woman whose husband has hired private eye Eric Edwards to follow and report on her sexual liaisons, which he films with an early helmetcam. According to West, the film was shot in six days in Manhattan, including one scene in the famous Plaza hotel, where Metzger and his crew sneaked the cameras and lights into a guest room under blankets "guerilla style" without the staff's knowledge—but as West noted, "In some respects nothing had changed [from Metzger's earlier works]: all the elements, such as his fascination with the ennui of the sophisticated, were still there." (AVN reviewed the movie here.)
Metzger's/Paris' next film was 1975's Naked Came The Stranger, whose title mirrored the then-popular "confession" novel penned in 1969 by "Penelope Ashe"—actually a collection of 24 journalists under the editorship of Newsday reporter Mike McGrady, who had set out to prove that "any book could succeed if enough sex was thrown in." Metzger bought the rights to the book and adapted it to his own unique style. As AVN noted in its review, "The story concerns Long Island-based drive-time radio hosts Gilly and Billy Blake, played by top stars Darby Lloyd Rains and Levi Richards. Their life together seems friendly enough if humdrum, but unbeknownst to Darby—at least until she tries to wake up his cock one morning and he mumbles her name—Levi's got a babe on the side: The baby-talking Phyllis, his office assistant, played by Mary Stuart." The full review can be read here.
But Metzger's/Paris' best known films were yet to come: The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976), a sexual send-up of the musical My Fair Lady, which itself was taken from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. The film, which received AVN's highest rating, stars Jamie Gillis as a wealthy sex researcher who makes a bet that he can take a trampy, Parisian street whore (Constance Money, in her XXX debut) and turn her into an exquisite, $1,000-a-night society callgirl, and win the Golden Rod Girl award at an annual, high-society party/orgy. He sets to work, transforming the woman from a loose-lipped, twangy-voiced, dumpy waif into a glamorous, sensual sex goddess. A full review of the movie can be found here. Metzger held a special premiere for the film at New York's famous Four Seasons restaurant/hotel, which was attended by New York Times film critics Molly Haskell and her husband Andrew Saris and several others.
Another major Metzger/Paris opus was 1977's Barbara Broadcast, whose title character, played by Annette Haven, has been expelled from her native Puerto Rico for sex crimes and, as the movie opens, has come to the U.S. and written about them, bringing her fame and fortune—and lots of sex. (The full review can be read here.) One of the most fascinating things about Barbara Broadcast, however, was its setting: the lobby of the Royal Manhattan Hotel—now the Milford Plaza—in midtown Manhattan, which was stocked with dining tables upon which a multitude of sex acts took place, just a few feet from late-night passersby on New York City sidewalks.
"Actually, the hotel was going out of business," West informed, "and he negotiated with them to go in after-hours, so it was all locked up and he paid them to allow him to shoot from eight o'clock at night until eight in the morning, for two consecutive nights. And he shot one of the most famous scenes of all time, the kitchen scene with Wade Nichols and C.J. Laing, where C.J. Laing urinates into a bowl, that was shot in the kitchen of the same hotel, as was another scene shot in one of the hotel's rooms. So it was done cheaply, but it looked like an expensive, very special location."
"He was an auteur in that he did everything himself," West said. "He tightly controlled the editing process as well as the shooting process, and the casting, he did all of it himself, but he did hire good people in each of the key roles who had a real point of view themselves. He spent a lot of time and money on things like the locations and furniture and things like chandeliers and lights and those sorts of things so that his films looked fantastic. His famous line is, 'Who wants to see people have sex in Queens when you can see them have sex in Rome or Paris?'"
In fact, Metzger's attention to detail can hardly be overstated. With a natural flair for art direction, each of his movies is a visual feast both artistically and sexually, probably best represented by Misty Beethoven and Barbara Broadcast, at least as far as XXX productions, and Camille 2000 and Lickerish Quartet have also been praised by critics for their look as well as their plot and acting.
The final star-filled Metzger/Paris offering was 1978's Maraschino Cherry, featuring Gloria Leonard in the title role as a top-drawer Manhattan madam who tries to teach her younger sister (Jenny Baxter) the (sexual) ropes. Metzger retired the Paris nom de porn after this film (except for a 1981 comp titled The World of Henry Paris), and went on to film 1987's The Cat and the Canary, a mainstream murder mystery/horror comedy starring Honor Blackman, best known for her roles in TV's The Avengers and the James Bond film Goldfinger.
"The first three Henry Paris films were self-contained films where he had a script and he went out and shot the footage," West stated. "But what he did with each of those films was, he shot additional scenes using the same actors, but which he kept back for himself. When he finished those first three films, he came up with the idea of using that extra footage in two more films, and those were Barbara Broadcast and Maraschino Cherry. He did shoot additional scenes, but he reused some of the scenes that he shot before, and he even used one of the scenes from Misty Beethoven in Barbara Broadcast."
However, Metzger wasn't done with XXX. According to West, "He told me how he’d returned to X-rated films incognito years after making the five hardcore Henry Paris films. The 'missing' films were The Tale of Tiffany Lust (1979) and Aphrodesia’s Diary [aka The Princess and the Call Girl] (1984). Neither were credited to him as he feared at the time they would compromise his efforts to establish a mainstream career. He slowly opened up about them, saying that French backers had financed them and he’d made them for the money. Now, over thirty years later, it seemed he may be finally willing to accept authorship."
Adult actress Veronica Hart, who now goes by her real name Jane Hamilton, was only in one of Metzger's movies, but she remembers him well.
"Radley Metzger was an amazing filmmaker who made the adult industry look good—literally," she told AVN. "My friend and chosen sister, Gloria Leonard, first appeared in his classic film The Opening of Misty Beethoven. Imagine what an experience that must have been, filming over a period of six weeks in Europe. What a way to break into the business! I was lucky enough to work with Radley in The Tale of Tiffany Lust. Many years later, Russell Hampshire of VCA gave me the impossible task of remaking two of Radley's classics. How can you possibly improve on his work? You can't—so I turned Misty into a musical with Maxwell Hart's writing of the script and music, and Romeo Lovell's music production. Barbara Broadcast Too followed Radley's Barbara Broadcast with an update of Barbara (Chloe) as a writer instead of a reporter. I was supposed to bookend some clips and do voice-overs for Radley in a video compilation which unfortunately never happened. I have so much respect and admiration for his work and that he helped bring erotic foreign movies to America before making his own. Another legend passes..."
According to West, he and Metzger had recently been talking about filming two scripts that Metzger had been working on, but the project never got beyond the discussion stage before Metzger's death.
"He was very keen on making a full comeback, which at the age of 86, when we started talking about it, until his passing, is remarkable," West said. "If there's one thing which people perhaps forget about his work is that he was a businessman. Yes, he was an artist and his films are wonderful, but he never forgot that they had to make money, while many artists just want to make their films irrespective of whether the studio they're making them for goes bankrupt or loses money on them. Radley knew, at the end of the day, his success with one film would enable him to stay in business for the next film, because he owned the rights to each of his films, and if he had a flop, he was out of business."
West will be writing several pieces over the next week at The Rialto Report about his memories of Metzger, with whom he had lunch on a weekly basis, and about whom he said, "[L]et’s not mince words. Radley was the reason for the Rialto Report. It wouldn’t exist without him. He was the alpha and omega of the industry for us."
For example, West recounts an incident that occurred during one of those lunches at Manhattan's Palace Diner:
"Sometimes Radley’s failing hearing meant that he would discuss his films rather loudly, which could be unnerving when talking about the mechanics of how he directed a particular sex scene.
"On one occasion, a fellow diner overheard our conversation, and sent over a note to us saying that he was honored to be in a restaurant at the same time as 'such a legendary filmmaker' whom he’d long idolized. He insisted on paying for our food.
"I still have the scribbled message. It goes on:
"For years I have followed your career and appreciated the artistry that you brought to the field of X-rated films. You took risks and you were brave. I know I will look back and remember today with great happiness. I will be able to proudly say, 'I remember the day I ate in the same diner as Gerard Damiano.'
"Radley stood up, went over to the fan, and thanked him for liking his films."
"We laughed all the way down Park Avenue."
Metzger had long felt that his reputation had been tarnished by his having done hardcore, but in later years, he was finally recognized by both the art world and scholars for his incredible (and incredibly beautiful) work.
"Metzger’s work has received numerous awards, honored in retrospectives, most recently at the Lincoln Center in New York, and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)," West wrote, concluding his press release with, "He is survived by his daughter, nephew and nieces. A private funeral service will be held by the family. An announcement regarding a public memorial will be made at a later date."
Metzger was also a guest at the 21st Annual Telluride Film Festival, where a special program on pornography had been put together by porn scholars Profs. Linda Williams and Constance Penley. Metzger was on stage for several programs, including a Q&A period during which Metzger was asked about the future of porn.
"For many people, the most erotic age was the Victorian period, because there were so many potentials," he predicted. "And perhaps if that comes again, which I think it will, we'll see a rise in eroticism."
A return to a Victorian view of sex? Metzger may have lived long enough to see an attempt to do just that!
Pictured, l-r: Radley Metzger and Andy Warhol; photo courtesy of The Rialto Report.
UPDATE: The New York Times has covered Metzger's demise here.
