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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: July 26th, 2016.
Director: Jerry Douglas
Cast: Gerald Grant, Andrea True, Dean Tait, Katherine Miles, Darby Lloyd Rains
Year: 1975
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The Movie:
Written and directed by Jerry Douglas (the same man who wrote Radley Metzger's Score), 1975's Both Ways covers similar ground and even shares a cast member in the form of Gerald Grant. In the film, Grant plays Donald Wyman, a lawyer who does what he can to be a good husband to his wife Janet (Andrea True) and a good father to their son. On the surface, they appear to live an idyllic suburban life, but Donald secretly leads a double life.
When he's not playing husband and father, he and his 'friend' Gary (Dean Tait) are carrying on a secret affair, occasionally spending time together in Manhattan's gay bar scene (which allows the film to show off some pretty great location footage). Donald succeeds in keeping all of this hidden from his wife, but once he and she start swinging with the neighbor and his wife, Louise (Darby Lloyd Rains), the truth eventually comes out forcing the couple to confront the issue of Donald's bi-sexuality and all of the expected drama that comes with it.
Far more of a character driven drama than the hardcore film you might expect, Both Ways treats its subject with the utmost seriousness and is all the better for it. Grant is convincing in the lead and that goes a long way towards making this as believable as it is. He's very good in the part and when the truth comes out and the movie heads into some unexpectedly dark territory, his performance pulls us in along with him. Andrea True is quite good here as well. She was very attractive and easy enough on the eyes, but this movie asks more of her than just to look good and screw enthusiastically. She too handles the dramatic side of the picture quite well. Dean Tait and Darby Lloyd Rains are good in their supporting roles as well, but Grant and True do most of the heavy lifting here in the acting department.
Douglas' script does a good job with the dialogue between the two leads. When Donald's double life is exposed to his wife, she's understandably shocked and surprised, but so too is she hurt. In a more typical adult film she might join in the fun with him, but Douglas' story doesn't take us into typical adult film territory this time around. Rather than celebrate Donald's lifestyle choices, things get dark and bleak and this film turns out to be a pretty heavy slice of life tale, the kind rarely told in the era of porno chic.
The sex scenes in the film are hardcore and they are explicit but the actual running time that they take up is pretty low. Those going into those one looking for eroticism may be taken aback by it all. The film also somewhat infamously uses child actors in a few (non-sex) scenes, though past home video releases of this title have chopped some of that content out entirely (rendering much of the plot and much of the drama incomprehensible. Douglas' background as a live theater director seems obvious at times, as this can occasionally feel as much like a stage play as a feature film, and the look of the film isn't particularly flashy, but Both Ways is a tale well told.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both Ways arrives on DVD in a new 2k scan that has been restored from the original 35mm negative framed at 1.33.1 fullframe and it looks very good. The image is crisp, clean, nicely detailed and features realistic and natural looking color reproduction. There are no obvious compression artifacts nor are there any problems with noise reduction. All in all, this is a very film-like picture that presents the source material in very nice shape without taking away from the movie's surprisingly gritty aesthetic.
Audio chores are handled easily enough by the English language Dolby Digital Mono track on the disc. There are no alternate language options or subtitles provided. Clarity and balance are strong throughout and there are no problems with any hiss or distortion.
The main extra on the disc is a commentary track with director Jerry Douglas and Adam Baran that spends a good bit of time allowing Douglas to talk about where a lot of the ideas for the story told in the picture originally came from. He also talks up what it was like working with the different cast members in the film, dishes some dirt on who got along with who, shares some information about the locations featured in the film and quite a bit more. It's a thoughtful and interesting record of the film's origins and quite worthwhile.
Outside of that we get the film's original theatrical trailer, static menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Both Ways is a smartly written and challenging X-rated drama performed by a strong cast. While it's very obviously a product of the mid-seventies in terms of how it looks, the story still works more than four decades later. Vinegar Syndrome presents the film completely uncut and wonderfully restored with an engaging commentary as its primary supplement.
