''Secrets of Sex'', released in the US as ''Tales of the Bizarre'' and ''Bizarre'', is a 1970 British
multi-genre
A hybrid genre is a literary or film genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Hybrid genre works are also referred to as cross-genre, multi-genre, mixed genre, or fusion genre. Some hybrid genres have acquired thei ...
sexploitation
A sexploitation film (or sex-exploitation film) is a class of independently produced, Low-budget film, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition o ...
anthology film
An anthology film (also known as an omnibus film or a portmanteau film) is a single film consisting of three or more shorter films, each complete in itself and distinguished from the other, though frequently tied together by a single theme, premise ...
, directed by
Antony Balch and narrated by
Valentine Dyall
Valentine Dyall (7 May 1908 – 24 June 1985) was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series '' Appointment with Fear'' ...
.
It was written by Martin Locke, John Eliot,
Maureen Owen
Maureen Owen (born July 6, 1943) is an American poet, editor, and biographer.
Life
Born in Graceville, Minnesota, Owen was raised on her family’s farm and later on California’s horseracing tracks where her parents were horse trainers. She tr ...
,
Elliott Stein
Elliott Stein (December 5, 1928 – November 7, 2012) was an American film critic, historian, programmer, and scriptwriter.
In the 1950s, he managed ''Janus'', a literary review in Paris, and was a film critic there from 1960 to 1970. He also wr ...
and Balch.
Plot
The film comprises a set of episodes, each featuring recurring sexual themes depicting the battle of the sexes, and introduced by an Egyptian
mummy
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and Organ (biology), organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to Chemical substance, chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the ...
voiced by
Valentine Dyall
Valentine Dyall (7 May 1908 – 24 June 1985) was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series '' Appointment with Fear'' ...
.
Cast
*
Valentine Dyall
Valentine Dyall (7 May 1908 – 24 June 1985) was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series '' Appointment with Fear'' ...
as the mummy (narration)
*
Richard Schulman as the judge
*
Janet Spearman as the judge's wife
*
Dorothy Grumbar as the photographer
*
Anthony Rowlands as the model
*
Norma Eden as the photographer's assistant
* George Herbert as the steward
*
Kenneth Benda
Charles Kenneth Anton Benda (3 June 1902 – 26 July 1978) was an English actor often on television. He appeared in British television series ''No Hiding Place'', ''The Saint (TV series), The Saint'', ''The Avengers (TV series), The Avengers'', ' ...
as Sacha Seremona
*
Yvonne Quenet as Mary-Clare
* Reid Anderson as Dr. Rilke
*
Sylvia Delamere as the nurse
*
Cathy Howard as the cat burglar
*
Mike Briton as the burgled man
*
Maria Frost as Lindy Leigh
* Peter Carlisle as Colonel X
* Steve Preston as Philpott
*
Graham Burrows as the military attache
*
Sue Bond
Sue Bond (born 9 May 1945) is a British actress, cabaret singer and comedian, best remembered for her appearances on ''The Benny Hill Show'' in the early 1970s. She appeared with Benny Hill for three years between 1970 and 1973, making her on ...
as the call girl
*
Laurelle Streeter as the lady in the greenhouse
*
Bob E. Raymond as the lady in the greenhouse's new valet
*
Mike Patten as 1st flicker flashback boy
* Raymond George as 2nd flicker flashback boy
*
Karrie Lambert as 1st flicker flashback lady
*
Joyce Leigh Crossley as 2nd flicker flashback lady
*
Nicola Austin
Nicola may refer to:
People
* Nicola (name), including a list of people with the given name or, less commonly, the surname
**Nicola (artist) or Nicoleta Alexandru, singer who represented Romania at the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest
* Nicola people, ...
as the flicker flashback girl
*
Elliott Stein
Elliott Stein (December 5, 1928 – November 7, 2012) was an American film critic, historian, programmer, and scriptwriter.
In the 1950s, he managed ''Janus'', a literary review in Paris, and was a film critic there from 1960 to 1970. He also wr ...
as the strange young man / the mummy
Production
After directing the Burroughs-influenced shorts ''Towers Open Fire'' (1963) and ''The Cut Ups'' (1967), Balch approached producer Richard Gordon in 1968 to direct an anthology film running just over an hour and entitled ''Multiplication''.
Five writers are credited with the screenplay; several others, including
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices.
He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...
and
Ian Cullen
George Ian Cullen (20 October 1939 – 12 November 2019) was a British actor.
Cullen first became interested in acting when appearing in a pantomime aged four (late 1943). He trained at RADA with a scholarship when he was 16.
An early televis ...
(writer of ''
Cruel Passion
''Cruel Passion'' (also known as ''Justine'') is a 1977 film starring Koo Stark, Martin Potter, Lydia Lisle, and Katherine Kath. It was directed by Chris Boger and based on the 1791 novel '' Justine'' by the Marquis de Sade.
Plot
Justine is a ...
'' (1977) and husband of Yvonne Quenet) also claimed to have worked on the script. After the script was rewritten to bring the film up to feature length and the budget doubled (£32,000) filming took place over 14 weeks in 1969.
Many of the actresses who appear nude in the film, such as Cathy Howard and Maria Frost, were topless models who had begun to get minor acting roles in British sex and horror films of the period. Frost, who plays Lindy Leigh in the film, was so horrified she'd been given a major role in the film that she reportedly told Balch "I'm a model, I can't act." She had previously appeared in the two
Harrison Marks
George Harrison Marks (6 August 1926 – 27 June 1997) was an English glamour photography, glamour photographer and director of nudist, and later, pornographic films.
Personal life
Born in Tottenham, Middlesex in 1926 to a Jewish family, Marks ...
shorts ''Maria'' and ''Scouts Honour''.
The dinosaur sculptures that feature in the "Strange Young Man" segment are the famous
Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals in the London borough of Bromley's Crystal Palace Park. Commissioned in 1852 to accompany the Crystal Palace after its move from the Great Exhi ...
.
Commenting on the film in an unpublished 1975 interview, Balch claimed "this is a very uneven film, but three episodes and a single shot, are good. I liked the ones with the photographer, Elliot Stein, and the Lady in the Greenhouse. The episode of the monster baby is a bore, but the single shot of it, at the end is brilliant."
Release
Released in February 1970, it was a huge success in the UK, running for six months at the Jacey Cinema in
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End of London, West End in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with Piccadilly. In this context, a ''List of road junctions in the Unite ...
alone, during which time it recouped its entire production cost. The film remained in circulation in the UK throughout the 1970s, sometimes appearing in a half hour edited version that played on the second half of double-bills.
Censorship history
The film was substantially cut for the British cinema release in 1970, with censor
John Trevelyan removing around six minutes from the film, while reportedly muttering "nasty stuff". Heavily cut was the "Spanish horse/Female photographer" sequence, together with assorted orgy and sex scenes, a bathroom striptease sequence and shots of strippers being pelted with tomatoes, while shots of men in bed together in the "Bedroom Beauties of 1929" sequence were removed entirely.
Writing in ''
The Monthly Film Bulletin
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' Jan Dawson remarked of the cuts: "paradoxically, the bowdlerized version of the film moves closer to pornography than the version from which its audience is being protected. ... it's sad that censorship should function against its own long term purpose and re-enforce the man-in-the-mac's sexual furtiveness by denying him the chance to view sex irreverently."
The film was briefly released uncut in America under the name ''Bizarre'' by
New Line Cinema
New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...
, before being withdrawn and re-released in 1972 as ''Tales of the Bizarre'', a drastically re-edited version that deleted around 17 minutes from the film. The 1980 UK video release on the Iver Film Services label is uncut, as are the 2005 American DVD and the 2009 British DVD.
Critical reception
''Monthly Film Bulletin'' wrote: "
exploitation sex film informed throughout by the refreshing view that sex is less often fun than funny ... (the stories) create a hilarious effect because of the discrepancy between their own unflinching seriousness and the ludicrousness of the pet theories they expound."
''
Sight and Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...
'' wrote: "One has to make allowances for the tiny budget, inexperienced cast and the inexorable effect of time on what was once considered raunchily risqué, but the feature debut of legendary distributor/exhibitor/
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major Postmodern literature, postmodern author who influen ...
collaborator Antony Balch is so far ahead of the dismal 1970s British softcore norm that it's hard to credit it's from the same milieu. Spellbindingly bonkers from its opening scene, which establishes an ancient mummy as the onscreen narrator (with Valentine Dyall's sonorous voice), it's a series of vignettes by turns sexy, horrific and/or flat-out demented, with nods to comic-strip spy thrillers and silent slapstick, and memorably perverse touches like the meal of bloodily rare steak and lychees enjoyed by a couple of torture fetishists during a break in their photo session."
In ''
Cinefantasique'', John R. Duvoli called the film "superior to the run-of-the-mill sex cheapie and worthy of attention," writing: "Not all the episodes work that well. Director Antony Balch, a thirty-two year old former experimental filmmaker (''Towers Open Fire'' etc.) in his first feature, seems more adept at building his tales than bringing them to a satisfactory conclusion. ... Special mention goes to DeWolfe's music score and David McDonald's photography. Valentine Dyall, who achieved fame as radio's wartime "Man in Black" is our narrator, and his resounding voice is put to good use. Acting standouts are Mr. Stein, Maria Frost and Cathy Howard."
Home media
In 2005, the film was released as a special edition DVD by
Synapse Films
Synapse Films is an American DVD and Blu-ray label, founded in 1997 and specializes in cult horror, science fiction and exploitation films. It is considered a boutique DVD label.
History
Synapse Films was owned and operated by Don May, Jr. an ...
under its American title, ''Bizarre''. In January 2010, the film, under its original title, was finally released on DVD in the UK by Odeon Entertainment, featuring new sleeve-notes by author Simon Sheridan.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Secrets Of Sex
1969 films
British sex comedy films
1960s English-language films
1960s British films