Year: 1971
Bond Actor: Sean Connery (Age: 41)
Bond Country of Origin: Scotland
Women Slept With: 1
Villain’s Evil Scheme: To use a laser made of diamonds to destroy nuclear arsenals and hold a global auction for nuclear supremacy.
We’re back with quite a film! Probably the most disgusting and disturbing American film to come out of Crossing the Line, Pink Flamingos (1972), was cult director John Water’s first foray into film, and it made quite the impression.
Tagline: The filthiest people alive! Their loves, their hates and their unquenchable thirst for notoriety!
Synopsis: Babs Johnson comes under the crosshairs of Raymond and Connie Marble, who wish to usurp her title as the filthiest person alive. Raymond and Connie kidnap young women, have their manservant impregnate them, then sell the children to lesbian couples. The proceeds of this baby ring go towards heroin sales to inner-city schools. Babs and her tightly knit family will have none of it, and after a series of depraved acts on both group’s parts, Raymond and Connie are captured, tried in a kangaroo court, and executed in front of the press.
Interesting Fact: The dog feces in the infamous final scene are real. According to director John Waters, the dog was fed steak for three days beforehand.
Objectionable material: Nudity, cross-dressing, unpleasant homosexuality, unpleasant heterosexuality, slavery, murder, rape, drug use, cannibalism, the consumption of dog shit, the murder of a live chicken, wooden acting, the use of shock to simulate intelligent critique, eggs on a fat woman’s bountiful cleavage, incest, a naked transvestite, drug dealing, emasculation, kidnapping, a talking asshole, more camp than Adam West’s Batman
Disturbing Quote: Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth is my
politics! Filth is my life!
Yes this column is very late, I realize this. As the staff has undergone a bit of creative burnout trying to keep up with the weekly film viewing and writing schedule, I’ve decided to switch Crossing the Line from a weekly column to a “whenever we get it done” column. We still have a large backlog of material to review, we’ll just take a bit longer to look at it.
That said, here’s Tinto Brass’ 1979 porn epic about a guy that sleeps with his horse in a totally platonic way and with his sister in a manner that is much less platonic. Caligula.
Tagline: What would you have done if you had been given absolute power of life and death over everybody else in the whole world?
Synopsis: Gaius Caesar Germanicus (or Caligula) oversees the murder of his aging uncle, the mad and corruptly decadent Emperor Tiberius so that he may take the throne. Thus begins a long series of sexual excesses, depravity, rape, murder, insanity, and debasement. Caligula proves to be so mad both with power and in the traditional sense, that his advisors have him and his family killed, giving over the throne to the half wit Claudius.
Interesting Fact: After raping Proculus’ wife, Caligula was meant to sodomize Proculus himself. Malcolm McDowell refused to do it, and Tinto Brass instead suggested the off-screen fisting which is seen in the movie.
Objectionable material: Fisting, nudity, murder, urination, money shots, explicit sex, implicit sex, incest, rape, orgies, bashing a child’s head against the floor, historical inaccuracies out the wing wong, syphilis, homosexuality, suicide, regicide, crucifixion, a depiction of the Roman legionnaires as a bunch of naked guys hacking at reeds, prostitution, Malcolm McDowell with a beard
Disturbing Quote: I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a God.
Change of plans, this week we’ll look at Showgirls! Everyone’s favorite Dutch director, Paul Verhoeven crafted this little gem in 1995. You probably remember the film as the first rated NC-17 film to be shown at your local theatre. You were probably also to young to get in to see it.
Tagline: Leave Your Inhibitions At The Door
Synopsis: Nomi gets duped by a guy that looks like Brian Setzer as she hitchhikes to Vegas, leaving her with no possessions. She befriends the wardrobe designer of a Vegas Showgirls show and lives together with her in a trailer. Nomi is a stripper, but she catches the eye of Cristal Conners, the star of the previously mentioned Showgirls show, who gets Nomi to give the head of the show a lapdance. He of course hires her soon afterwards. Backstabbing, silly dancing, sexual tension, and more backstabbing occur. Nomi sleeps and assaults her way to the head of the show. Her friend is brutally raped by a rock star that she worships, Nomi beats him bloody and leaves Vegas for the city of Angels. Oh, also Nomi used to be a prostitute.
Interesting Fact: The only time actresses complained that they felt uncomfortable was during the scenes with the monkeys, who constantly stared at their bare breasts.
Objectionable material: Nudity, bad dancing, the dumbest depiction of sex I’ve seen yet, interracial coupling!, lesbians, sexual harassment, vomit, gambling, rape, brutal beatings, drug use, menstruation
Disturbing Quote: It must be weird, not having anybody cum on you.
We’re back after a week long break to bring you a film that changed the face of pornography! Made in 1972 by Gerald Damiano, Deep Throat created a surge of popularity among the middle class for porn and set the current trend of porn films with some form of plot. If the claim of nearly $600 million in profits is accurate (unlikely), Deep Throat would be the most profitable film ever made.
Tagline: How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle?
Synopsis: Linda Lovelace (coincidentally played by Linda Lovelace) can’t manage to climax in bed…or on a kitchen counter…or any other place she unashamedly puts out. She consults a doctor of questionable legitimacy who reveals that her clitoris is actually located at the back of her throat. He then confirms his diagnosis. Linda embraces her freak genetic mutation and gets a job as a personal sex therapist for various men, specializing in the titular “deep throat” technique. Meanwhile, her doctor has some more sex with a nurse. After a brisk 61 minutes of all this, Linda finds a fella to marry. All is right with the world.
Interesting Fact: The production, financing, and release of the film was done using mafia cash, mafia producers, and mafia owned theatres.
Objectionable material: Nudity, hairy naked people, ugly naked people, explicit blow jobs, pubic shaving, a ridiculous plot, some of the silliest music you’ve ever heard, orgies, an extraordinarily dumb plot even by porno standards, drinking coke out of a vagina, close up graphic sex
Disturbing Quote: “How would you like it if you had balls in your ears?”
“I guess I could hear myself coming!”
A film of questionable legality, “Men Behind the Sun” (or Hei tai yang 731) is a Hong Kong film produced in 1988 directed by Tun Fei Mou. It set out to chronicle the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War 2 and managed to infuriate everyone involved.
Tagline: Friendship is friendship; history is history
Synopsis: The Japanese army conquers China in the early stages of World War 2. Many elements of the Imperial Army view the Chinese as lower than humanity and thus useful only as a labor force or test subject. A number of young Japanese boys are sent to Unit 731, headed by Gen. Shiro Ishii. The camp is designed to test out a wide variety of chemical and biological warfare methods, with captured Chinese citizens as the guinea pigs. All manner of horrific experimentation follows, along with casual cruelty to people and animals alike for no real purpose. As the camp nears the cusp of developing a ceramic bomb capable of delivering plague fleas to the front, the US Army nears and the young Japanese soldiers grow increasingly disgusted by the work at the camp. All is not lost with the end of the war though, as the US Army is happy to take on Gen. Ishii and utilize his research for a brief period of the Korean War.
Interesting Fact: The autopsy footage is real, utilizing the body of recently deceased boy from a local hospital.
Objectionable material: Nudity, an actual autopsy, child murder, murder, mutilation, actual animal murder, a woman skinned alive, Asian people, Asian on Asian violence, animal on animal violence, a dismissive view of human life, racism, human target practice, anal explosion, crucifixion, vehicular manslaughter, rats on fire
Disturbing Quote: A small rat can beat a cat. Fleas and germs can defeat bombers and guns. This is… the basic theory behind Squadron 731. It is also my philosophy.
Oh god NSFW:
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BONUS CROSSING THE LINE!
Because we had to resort to less straightforward means of viewing Song of the South, we were able to see what kind of quality the booths at Comic Book conventions hocking imported DVDs and bootlegs provided. The “50th Anniversary Edition” of Song of the South also included a Merry Melodies jem from around the same time period. Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs is a charming recreation of the Snow White story with black characters. I won’t bother with the full format with this one: the video should speak for itself.
MBRFT: As a bonus, we had a chance to take a look at “Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs,” a Warner Bros. short from 1943. In a little over seven minutes it manages to make “Song of the South” look as dignified and socially-progressive as “The Cosby Show.” I can only describe it as a spastic fire-storm of crude racist stereotypes, with Snow White being darkified into the voluptuous “So White.” The Sebben (sic) Dwarfs are strange anthropomorphic minstrels that scat in rhyme and embody a new level of racism that I didn’t know movies could ever reach. Even in its short running time, it manages to squeeze in equally offensive attacks on midgets and Japs (both of which are terms that are have since become politically incorrect).
For obvious reasons, both of these films have been swept under the rug by their respective studios and are unavailable on home video. I understand that decision from a PR standpoint, but pretending they don’t exist feels revisionist and German (Editor’s Note: or Turkish). Despite their overwhelming flaws, they are important historical documents and should be publicly available and packaged with information that gives them appropriate context as a product of their times (possibly an introduction by a white-friendly African-American entertainer such as Wayne Brady). And they also make good fodder for our weekly columns.
PsychoLarry: “Oh Honey Chile, what story would you like to have Mammy to tell you tonight?” has got to be the finest starting line in any cartoon, or story in general. I wonder if the director had to shoot extra takes with the voice actress there just to get her to sound “More Black, you know, like a real Mammy”. That opening tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the cartoon, you could probably just stop it at that point without missing any of the racism.
They persist on though don’t they? Somehow a 7 minute musical short runs the full gamut of African-American stereotypes, complete with blackface and overt black sexuality, while also managing to squeeze in some good ol’ American Japanese bashing so our kids would hate Tojo just as much as his brave Dad fighting overseas. Why weren’t there were cartoons like this for the Nazis, maybe a square jawed New Yorker messing up Fritz’s train schedule so bad he explodes, raining clocks and bratwurst on everyone.
Screaming Girl: (Editor’s note: As Screaming Girl could not be bothered to spend the 7 minutes required to watch this short and the 10 minutes needed to review it, there is nothing to put here. Pretend she said something about how she was shocked and appalled, maybe she denounced and rejected the Merry Melodies people or something. Oh, and I guess something about doing her hair or just wanting to dance tonight. Men are pigs would work too.)
It’s the film Disney refuses to release (probably)! The NAACP’s least favorite feature length cartoon, Song of the South was made in 1946 and is remembered largely for the song Zip-a-dee-do-dah and a log flume style ride in the Disney amusement parks.
Tagline: We’re headin’ for the Laughin’ Place!
Synopsis: A whiney little white kid and his family truck out from Atlanta to his Granma’s plantation, which was somehow not burned down by General Sherman (this is Reconstruction Alabama). He cries because his dad immediately leaves again for the city. He quickly forgets his angst though, as Uncle Remus, the aging black man who also raised his father, befriends him and teaches him quaint stories about the various Brer animals and their misadventures. The boy also makes friends with a young black boy and a poor white girl, and the three of them are plagued by the girl’s asshole brothers. Uncle Remus’ quaint country wisdom saves the day though, and everybody that deserves to end up happy ends up happy, singing Zip-a-dee-do-dah.
Interesting Fact: The film was first released in 1946. Disney re-released the film in 1956, but in 1970 Disney announced in Variety that “Song of the South” had been “permanently” retired, but the studio eventually changed its mind and re-released the film in 1972, 1981, and again in 1986 for a 40th anniversary celebration.
Objectionable material: Racism, white people, demon spawn children, sappy songs so saccharine that you’ll need insulin injections, ancient racial slurs you’ve never heard of, heavy handed morality and parables,
Disturbing Quote: There’s other ways of learnin’ ’bout the behind feet of a mule than gettin’ kicked by him, sure as I’m named Remus. And just because these here tales is about critters like Br’er Rabbit an’ Br’er Fox, that don’t mean it can’t happen to folks! So ’scuse me for sayin’ so, but them who can’t learn from a tale about critters, just ain’t got the ears tuned for listenin’.
Alright, I had the full column typed and ready to go last night. Whiskey and waiting for my fellow contributors got in the way, and I woke up with the column missing. Here’s my recreation of our look at 1986’s blockbuster hit “Soul Man” directed by Steve Miner, who I hope has died of shame since. Apologies if it isn’t as funny as the original, but then, how would you be able to tell?
Tagline: He didn’t give up. He got down. (Editors Note: Subtle Racism?)
Synopsis: Mark is white. Mark got into Harvard Law. Mark’s dad won’t pay, and he can’t summon the effort to work his way through. The solution is apparently to use too many tanning pills and get a full ride scholarship for black students. Hilarity ensues. Lessons are learned.
Interesting Fact: In the scene where Mark first approaches Gordon as a black man, Gordon was originally supposed to believe Mark was going to mug him. An entire scene was filmed in which Mark played along with it and made Gordon sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. It was taken out because it was thought, that although funny when filmed, it was inappropriate and racist. (Editor’s Note: Somehow they found something too racist to put into this film)
Objectionable material: Rae Dawn Chong, racism, sex, jungle fever, awful writing, some really good actors slumming hard, an endless parade of stereotypes, what is essentially an extended blackface gag
Disturbing Quote: Mr. Watson, I am not a humorous man, but if you insist on taking up my class time making jokes, please see to it that they are funny. (Editor’s Note: This pretty much sums up the entire film)
Tagline: Every rose has its thorns
Synopsis: Dawn is a devoted leader of the high school abstinence program in a way that is of course totally not related to any western religion affiliated with bearded Jews or old men. She falls for a fellow promise keeper and things get too heavy. So heavy in fact that he forces his hot beef injection on her! Surprise though, she’s got built in rape protection in the form of teeth on her vagina! Most of the rest of the film progresses as a series of men who try to take advantage of her, and then pay the ultimate man-price. First the gynecologist who thinks he can get away with finger-banging her, then the charming guy from school who drugs her and sweet talks her, then her asshole step-brother who was too busy having sex with his girlfriend to save their mother from dying. By the end of the film, Dawn has embraced sex as her way of punishing all the sexually deviant men in the world, one dong at a time.
Interesting Fact: No real interesting trivia here. The DVD was released on my birthday though! Coincidence!
Objectionable material: Nudity, Rape, Portrayal of all men as either spineless or rapists, castration, a vagina with teeth, a penis eaten by a crab, pseudo-religious abstinence, death, misogyny, anal sex, mentally abusive relationship, white people
Disturbing Quote: “Your mouth is saying one thing babe, but your sweet pussy is saying something very different.”
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