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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: February 27th, 2018.
Director: John Flanders/Jeffrey Haims
Cast: Rene Bond, Sandy Dempsey, Ric Lutz, Suzanne Fields, Lindis Guinness, Susan Westcott , Debra Christian, Annette Michael
Year: 1970/1971
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The Movies:
Vinegar Syndrome has dug up two white coaters that offer up the sort of explicit 'educational content' you'd expect from early seventies dirty movies. Here's a peek…
Sessions Of Love Therapy:
As the opening credits roll, we hear from couples who have always looked for something new and exciting and how one woman learned how to reach a climax with a vibrator thanks to her participation in group sessions. It goes on from there, as the Wurlitzer plays in the background and faces move from left to right across a pure black background.
From there, we learn how a sexual psychologist Dr. Johnson (who teaches at a university he fails to actually name) has created an educational film that will bring 'some measure of solution to the problems' that plague those who are married and having trouble in the bedroom. He goes on for a while about how uptightness is a problem and how anthropological studies have been done and blah blah blah blah blah - it's all bullshit and nothing more than an excuse to show people screwing.
As the rest of the eighty-seven minute feature plays out, we meet four young married couples (two of the performers are Rene Bond and Ric Lutz) who are, as we learn, experiencing with sexual problems. Time progresses, obviously, and through the wonders of counselling they allow themselves to let down their guards and enjoy all that there is to enjoy in the bedroom. Blowjobs, anal and more! First up, Rene gets down and narrates her escapades, giving us some background information on her issues and then how she got over it and wound up having a good time in the sack. From there, some lucky bald dude gets to use a vibrator on Sandy Dempsey's breasts and then her hoo-haw, which gets her off right quickly and then sees her return the favor by vibing his nuts! After that, a guy tries to talk his lady into doing some dirty talk (“Eat me, eat me…. Oh, oh, oh, oh yes!â€), a guy talks his wide into letting him do her up the ass, and then we cut to a group scene clearly taken from a completely different source material. After that, a chick who didn't really like sex learns to like sex, a girl gives her guy head only for him to then go down on her, and then that vibrator comes back for a second appearance.
Not much to this one. The doctor, and occasionally the patients, narrate things while people have sex in a black room with a spotlight highlighting the action. That's really about it. It's fun to see Rene Bond appear in the first scene and in some of the talkier bits and any time Sandy Dempsey appears it's a good time but this movie is seriously basic, rudimentary even.
101 Acts Of Love:
The second feature is hosted by one Dr. Ann Foster (Lindis Guinness with a funny British accent to add an air of class to all of this?). She's a shrink who specializes in helping women overcome the difficulties that the encounter in their marriages, particularly when it comes to matters of the boudoir. And while the movie might start off as a fairly standard 'doctor helps people with sexual issues' white coater, it soon tosses all of that to the side in favor of fantastically trippy footage of various people fucking under weird lighting and atop what looks like acetate platforms.
The whole thing takes on a tinge of sci-fi during these scenes. Sure, Foster's dull narration keeps going and attempts to provide the picture with some sort of context but none of that matters when we voyage into the weird territory that this picture takes us into. There's really no story here and the participants guide us through the fairly tried and true look at different sexual positions, but the visuals are so bizarre and, yes, seriously cool looking that you don't mind so much. On a narrative level, this film is no better than its co-feature, but on a visual level 101 Acts Of Love is just wild to look at. The camerawork and lighting in the film is fantastic. The movie occasionally takes us outside, where we see a family hanging out in the woods for some reason - oh, and there's occasional poetry thrown into the mix - but the vast majority of it focuses on weirdly lit people fucking each other on strange clear plastic.
Susan Westcott , Debra Christian and Annette Michael show up here, and they all look quite good. The movie was previously released on DVD-R via Something Weird Video's Bucky Beaver's Stags (Volume 237 for those keeping score at home), Loops And Peeps series running forty-six minutes and taken from a rough and tumble old print. This Vinegar Syndrome release runs just over seventy-minutes so clearly it's much longer and, not so surprisingly, more explicit.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both films are presented in new 2k scans from their original 35mm negatives. While they don't look as sterling as other Peekarama releases have, they're still presented in very nice shape and generally look very strong in terms of presentation quality. Colors are reproduced quite nicely and while print damage is apparent throughout it's fairly minor. These are grain, low budget pictures presented here authentically, as you'd want them to be, but they're certainly more than watchable and up to Vinegar Syndrome's typically high standards of transfer quality.
The Dolby Digital Mono audio, in English (the only option), shows the limitations of the source but is, for the most part, just fine. There's a bit of hiss here and there but the tracks are well balanced and easy enough to follow. There are no subtitles provided.
The one extra on the disc, aside from static menus and chapter selection, is a theatrical trailer for Sessions Of Love Therapy.
The Final Word:
Vinegar Syndrome's DVD release of Peekarama: Sessions Of Love Therapy/101 Acts Of Love is an amusing double feature of two fairly standard white coaters that will be of interest to those who appreciate early adult feature films. 101 Acts Of Love is the more interesting of the two, thanks to some truly bizarre camera and lighting work.
