BY ROD BARNETT
The
general consensus among fans of “Adult Films†(a.k.a. pornography movies) is
that the genre floundered and died because of the advance of technology. The
first blow was the mass adoption of VCRs in the 1980s. This was initially seen
as a major boon to the smut industry because
video cassettes allowed porn into the home where it could be watched in
secrecy. But the ravenous appetite of the back room video shops for product made
cheap, fast productions more enticing for producers, thus bringing the quality
down further and further with each passing year. The second and most deadly hit
was the creation of the internet, which made porn available at the click of a
button and made the consumer contemptuous of paying for the product at all. Now
that it is possible to see almost any combination of human bodies in almost any
form of sexual activity that you can imagine instantaneously what is to become
of the long form film version of pornography? Who will preserve old school
narrative adult movies from the old days of porno? Vinegar Syndrome will! The
DVD label seems intent on bringing us every possible opportunity to wallow in
sleaze from decades past and taste is no barrier.
Jungle
Blue (1978) is one of those films that hails from that magic time before the
death of narrative porn –from before the time when the very idea of having to
follow a story to see people copulate onscreen caused puzzlement in a viewer.
Yes, this film is from the ‘Golden Age’ of pornography when smut peddlers saw
porn as just another form of profitable storytelling. As crazy as it may seem
from the 21st century perspective, there was a time when porn was seen as just
another form of motion picture art and the genre was the cutting edge of
boundary pushing. "Let's make the old folks uncomfortable - let's make a
sex film!" But, of course, that
wasn't the only impetus behind making porn. In those days there were people
that wanted to make solid, credible movies that just happened to have several
scenes of sex scattered about the running time. During this short lived time
there were some well produced pornographic movies that had high budgets and
pretty good scripts but, as you might expect, the vast majority were lower down
on the quality scale. Indeed, once the Fast Forward button became a reality,
any pretensions about crafting ‘artful films’ for the porn market became a
silly notion. People were watching these movies for one reason only- titillation
- and if the movie skimped on that front it was reviled, or worse,
unprofitable.
How
do you review a film that opens on a shot of a woman orally pleasuring a man in
an ape suit? Like this- Jungle Blue tells us the tale of Jane (Kathie Kori) who
is in search of her missing father in the jungles of Peru. She arrives in that
country with a group of friends including Silvia (Nina Fause) who has convinced
Jane (by lesbian seduction we learn in one of many flashbacks) to let her and
Hank (Hank Lardner) join her on the trip. These two are posing as botanists
searching for healing herbs in the jungle plant life but are actually in search
of a hidden treasure of precious jewels that they believe are guarded by tribe
Jane's father was studying. Once in the jungle they meet loin-clothed white man
Evor (Bigg John) who is called by native the lord of the jungle. Looking very
Tarzan-like, Evor is a gentleman in every way and is the center of much
spirited attention from both Jane and Sylvia. Inevitably, both get to “knowâ€
him- if you know what I mean.
In
a truly bizarre turn, Evor explains that he was created in the jungle like Adam,
with no Earthly parents and a natural innocence that not even sex with multiple
women in a single day can ruin. This needless fantasy element adds a touch of
extra silliness to the proceedings that pays off later in the film when we see
that even a gut full of bullets can't seem to kill the studly Jungle King. Of
course we learn that Jane's father has died and there is some grief-stricken
sexual activity to help keep our interests from flagging. All goes well until
the group locates that (not so) hidden tribe when Silvia and Hank put their
secret plan to poison everyone with candy into effect. The evil twosome hope to
cash in and make off to Brazil with the jewels to live a life of hedonistic
fun. As you might expect, things don't go as planned.
If
this film is a good example of the majority of narrative porn movies of the
1970s then I can see why the genre died. This movie is a damned mess from
beginning to end with the only draw being the actual sex scenes. Everything is
poorly done. The actors are mostly clueless, the script is a third-grader's
idea of a dirty Tarzan story and the stupid 'steal the jewels' plot is dropped
in so randomly halfway through the movie that it seems like a later addition to
the whole thing. Adding to this general slapdash feel is the fact that one sex
scene is repeated a couple of times and sloppy inserts are used to imply that Kathie
Kori actually performed sexually for the cameras. And did I mention the
sequences of an orgy with unrelated characters that are dropped into the film
at random intervals to spice things up? Ugh! Also, this is the first movie I've
seen that uses shots of the movie's poster to display the opening credits - now
that is an effective way to save money.
This
is not a film to my tastes but I am still glad that Vinegar Syndrome has
released it and continues to release sleazy titles of this type. These
artifacts from cinema's underbelly are fascinating and worthy of preservation
even if their appeal is quite limited. I suspect that fans of 'classic' porn will
eat this up.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER AND VIEW TRAILER
Rod
Barnett blogs at The Bloody Pit of Rod