Butterflies

Released by: Retro-Seduction Cinema
Released on: June 28, 2005.
Director: Joe Sarno
Cast: Marie Forsa, Harry Reems, Eric Edwards
Year: 1974
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The Movie:

The third and final German Nebes/Sarno efforts, Butterflies is also one of Sarno's best movies. Once again starring Maria Forsa as, here the actress plays a young vixen named Denise who lives out in the quaint countryside and spends her free time hanging out with Freddy (Rob Everett, better known as porno star Eric Edwards), her nice, down to earth boyfriend.

Things are going fine for the young lovebirds until one day she realizes that her life is boring and that she is in fact very unhappy. What does she do? She packs up and heads off to seek adventure in the big city. She isn't there long before she meets up with a flashy nightclub operator named Frank (played by Harry Reems of Deep Throat fame). The two hit it off and Denise thinks that she's something special to him, but soon reality sets in and when Frank doesn't seem to have any desire to treat her any differently than any other of the women that are in his employ, she soon becomes just as disillusioned with her new life as she was with her old one. To make matters worse, the woman that Frank lives with is starting to see Denise as a threat and she's none too happy about any of the attention that Frank has given her in the first place, let alone any attention that Denise might hope to get down the road.

Frank leads her on a bit but Denise does finally figure out that she, like all the other woman that Frank has come into contact with, has been used as nothing more than a cheap lay. Reality truly does bite sometimes, and she's going to have to figure out what to do with her life sooner or later, because obviously things just aren't working out for her here.

About as close to hardcore as you can get without actually crossing the full on 'we show penetration' line, Butterflies is steamy stuff (in fact there is a hardcore version of the film out there that did play theatrically - included on the second disc in this set). The sex is very obviously real and performers seem pretty into it - as they should be. This gives the movie a lot of passion and a lot of flat out sexiness that works well in its favor, which is good, because there isn't a whole lot of plot to work with here.

Once again we're treated to some excellent cinematography and truly polished looking camera work, ensuring that Butterflies always looks better than you'd expect it to. Most of Sarno's work has this quality and there are some shots and compositions in this film that rival any of the other films that this reviewer has seen from his catalogue.

The cast is what really makes this one shine. Forsa is an absolute vixen in this film, looking about as sexy as a woman can get and even outdoing her performance in Mac Ahlberg's Justine & Juliette made that same year and also starring Harry Reems. Speaking of Mr. Reems, he is in fine form here, hamming it up for the camera as you'd expect him to but also playing it straight when he needs to. Eric Edwards isn't given as much to do in the film but the novelty of seeing him here, looking all of fifteen or sixteen (but actually being much older than that) is not without its odd charm. When the dust settles, Butterflies stands up as one of Sarno's best efforts, thanks to some genuinely erotic sex and some keen visuals.

As noted earlier, this two disc set contains Sarno's 'Director's Cut' of the film (which is basically the softcore version running 1:51:37) as well as, on a second disc, the 'Grindhouse Cut' of the film (which is basically a shorter and considerably less interesting hardcore version running 1:32:05). The softcore version is Sarno's preferred version and it's easy to see why as it's just got a much better story, but it's nice to have both cuts of the movie here.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Butterflies is presented fullframe and the framing looked pretty decent here indicating that this is probably the correct aspect ratio for the movie. As far as video quality goes, the transfers for both cuts were taken from 35mm prints which means that the movies look nice and natural here. The picture quality is generally pretty clean looking though every once in a while there is some mild color fading a bit of minor print damage. All in all, fans should be pretty happy with the way the film is represented here.

Presented with English dialogue in Dolby Digital Mono, the sound quality isn't going to blow you away but aside from some mild hiss here and there, there's little to complain about. Understanding the performers and following the dialogue is easy enough and the score for the film sounds quite good.

Most of the extras are on the first disc, beginning with a featurette in which Nebes and Sarno discuss how they collaborated on this film and how they opted to get Harry Reems and a young Eric Edwards involved in the German shoot. They cover the reality versus fiction aspect of shooting more explicit adult content and Sarno gives us a nice history of his career and how he ended up in Germany after becoming a mainstay of the New York exploitation scene of the sixties. It's a pretty interesting piece and it's nice to get to hear so many of these stories out of Sarno's own mouth, as he's much more active in this documentary than he was on the other two in the set.

We also get an audio interview with Nebes, conducted by Michael J. Bowen and it proves to be just as interesting as a commentary probably would have been, even if it is more compact in its delivery. It plays out over the entire length of the feature just as a commentary would. The focus here is as much on Nebes as it is on Sarno or Forsa, probably more so as we get to hear how he got his start as a producer as well as some of the highlights from his interesting career. Bowen knows his stuff and he's very good at keeping Nebes on topic and getting as much information out of him as he can, and because of that we also get schooled on some of the scoring done for the movie and the German locations where so much of the material was shot. Michael Raso, president of E.I./Seduction Cinema, provides a brief but respectful introduction to the interview.

The second disc, in addition to the hardcore cut, contains the same extras as the first disc (the commentary and interview) in addition to a few trailers for other Sarno movies available from After Hours/Retro-Seduction Cinema. Both discs contain menus and chapter stops as well.

Included inside the case is a full color booklet of liner notes from Michael Bowen that provide some welcome background on this film and the other films that Sarno made in Germany in the seventies. There are a few nifty on set photos in here too.

The Final Word:

One of Sarno's finest, Butterflies is a worthy addition to the collection of anyone with even a passing interest in seventies sex films. It's a smart, well acted and stylish movie with plenty of heat and Retro-Seduction Cinema has done right by the film with this excellent two-disc special edition release.