Susan Tyrrell in Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981)

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Tales of Ordinary Madness is adapted from Charles Bukowski's mostly autobiographical experiences in Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, and he was one depraved SOB. He is Larry Flynt's favorite poet - tell you anything? I suppose he is best known to the world through the movie Barfly, which he scripted out of his own experiences.

If Tom Waits is the skid-row Frank Sinatra, Bukowski was the skid-row Shakespeare, who spent his literary life chronicling his alcoholic existence among the depraved, the displaced, and the drunk in the underclass of central L.A. The movie starts with Ben Gazzara (the Bukowski character) wooing a twelve year old midget, jumps into his affair with a hooker into self-mutilation, and continues with his drunken adventures among women who don't bathe, fat women, you name it. Bukowski was fond of pointing out that he started getting drunk at 17, and didn't get laid until he was 23. He pretty much never slowed down on either.

Although he could sometimes write very movingly about society's rejection of his world, I don't like Bukowski. On the other hand, the French playwright Jean Genet (another guy whose work I despise) called him "the best poet in America".

It's a Marco Ferreri movie, so you can bet that lots of ugly people got naked. (He's the guy who did the movie with Depardieu and the old lady). Oh, with the exception of the the lovely Ornella Muti, of course.

Nudity Report: Muti shows buns in two different scenes. Tanya Lopert shows breasts and buns, when she is entertaining a man and Bukowski barges in. Susan Tyrell shows all three Bs during the pseudo-rape scene. Katya Berger, as the "girl on the beach," asks him where poetry comes from. He tells her to show him her titties, and he will compose a poem for her. She strips, and shows lovely full frontal.


Written by: Scoopy …Scoopy.net