Scrambled Sex

Erotic Cinema of Early 80s Cable

Secret Key Motion Pictures

All Region DVD

After the one-reeler mildly pornographic films of the 50s, 60s and 70s two new media emerged to cater for these special interests. One was videotape and the other was Cable TV. The cable stations were a bigger market so a small industry sprang up to cater for them. Most of the films (and the four examples in this collection) were imported from Italy or Germany and overdubbed in the U.S.

In the comprehensive sleeve notes Ed Grant, now a film critic but once an importer of the films, describes the market they were catering for and the type of film the cable stations preferred. Even then it was regarded as soft-core – hard-core was definitely out. Cable met the needs of those for whom getting to a theatre that showed these films was too difficult. Often it was on a pay-per-view basis. Grant also describes how, in an effort to protect their product against “accidental” viewing by young children, the Cable signal was often scrambled and could only be decoded with a settop box. So what of the films themselves? Let’s look at the ones in this two-DVD compilation.

Honey stars the attractive Clio Goldsmith in a probably Italian story of a frustrated young girl scriptwriter who forces a producer to read her autobiographical script. In flashbacks she relives those early days as a naïve young girl in the big city.

Loves of Lady Chatterley is an Italian film about a lonely and celibate young woman who lives with her crippled husband in a villa. Her sexual frustration is resolved when a new gardener arrives.

Sorry, Wrong Bedroom is a sex comedy of the kind that the Germans did so well. A bad tempered and ill mannered nightclub manager is driving his staff away with his constant insults. His wife, who has aspirations of becoming a stripper herself, is sent to East Friesland to line up new talent. Her jealous husband follows her but gets his comeuppance while she gets the men.

Moonlighting Mistress is more of a detective story. A husband plots the death of his rich wife so he can get hold of her fortune and keep up his debauched lifestyle. Everything goes wrong and his girlfriend dies. There is another shock waiting for him as well. This film doesn’t have much nudity but has a good story with enough titillation to keep your interest.

None of the films is great cinema but each is a good example of its genre. Individually they are entertaining and mildly sexy. They are good examples of Euro-Erotica and have been overdubbed quite well into English, although the picture quality is not great – they are probably taken from early videotape. They are quite entertaining as well as historical.

Reviews appear on the Synergy website with a single cover image. In the digital and print edition, reviews appear with multiple images and with expanded content.

This review will appear in Volume 4 No. 1 of the digital and print edition of Synergy.

We recommend you download the free digital edition (or buy the print edition) to get the most from Synergy. The print and digital editions of Synergy also include a large selection of articles and features not found on the website. If you have a limited download quota you can view the digital edition via the Issuu viewer on the digital edition page.

If you came to this page directly (and missed our menu), click here to go to the front page of Synergy Website or use the following link: http://www.synergy-magazine.com