Grindhouse Triple Feature: John Holmes Unzipped Collection

Vintage Erotica

After Hours Cinema

R1 DVD

These films are typical of the standardised porn being produced in huge quantities for the 70s Grindhouse market. They were shown back-to-back in the sleazy backstreet theatres nearly twenty four hours a day, with just enough of a break to wipe the sticky stuff off the seats.

By now such films had been reduced to a formula – lick, suck, he gets on, she gets on, he takes her from behind, money shot. For variety black actresses would feature, or there might be a bit of fondling, but they were only there for padding. Much the same formula approach is still used today, just with a lot more silicone. Budgets were negligible as shown in these films. A bed or a couch (or in big money productions, both) were all the set that was needed. A certain quota of money shots was required in each film. If you ran out of ideas but still had to fill in fifteen minutes, an orgy scene could be quickly put together. It’s not as if you had to write a script for it.

John Holmes’ big advantage (if that’s the right description) was that he could ejaculate pretty much on command. This made him popular with directors, who could get a film “in the can” in a day with such a compliant leading man. His other bigger advantage was that he was quite well endowed, at a time when size equated to sexy (at least in the minds of the directors). It was rumoured to be over 13 inches long in his later days. He never seems to have taken it seriously, though. His biography is titled “A Life Measured in Inches”.

This compilation includes three of his earlier films. I’m not going to bother outlining the plots as mostly there isn’t one and they would be irrelevant anyway. None of the films were exactly classics and so have been unavailable for a long time. From somewhere, After Hours Cinema has managed to get prints that are in fairly good condition. Further enhancement, colour correction and cleaning up has made them quite useful. Even the sound in all its tacky 70s glory has come up well.

They will never occupy a significant place in the history of film but they are perfect examples of the sleazy quickies of the time.

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