By Christian Shapiro

Whenever two or more jaded connoisseurs of visual stimulation gather together in discussion of hard-R and XXX-rated Skinema, the term softcore is generally tossed off as an expression of derision. It's time for all hardened jerkoffs to expand their conception of filmed erotic splendor and look back in wonder at the wrist-wearying works of Radley Metzger, an undisputed wizard of simulated ahhs. If splendid sets, engaging plots, emotionally gripping characterization, fluid camera movement and precise, predatory focus that draws a viewer into a world of sensual privilege and thrusts him to the fore of the action, and ethereally beautiful women stripped to the bare writhing essence of longing, repulsion, surrender and dominance are the raw ingredients of art, then Radley Metzger is an artist.

Radley Metzger was born and bred in New York City, a metropolis renowned for its museums, art-house theaters and bustling trade in commercial sex. The influence of New York's blend of culture and carnality was presumably crucial in infusing formative Radley with an appreciation of erotic byplay conducted in grand style. Inspired, intrepid and indomitable, he closed out the 1960s and kicked off the 1970s by creating a string of serious, sexually themed masterpieces that rival the best pictures from any of the acknowledged foreign movie-making geniuses of the era whose work is film-school fodder today. Unfortunately for any hopes of establishing a legacy among the "legitimate" entertainment and academic industries, Radley Metzger took a slight detour under the name Henry Paris into full-contact pornographic productions during the mid-1970s. Of the five penetrating Henry Paris sex flicks, three are all-time classics: The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann (1975), The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) and Barbara Broadcast (1977).

Will the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ever get over their shock and dismay at Radley's lapse into splooge FX and enliven their awards ceremony with a five-minute tribute displaying highlights culled from, to name only a few of Metzger's sexually simulated, but super stimulated, oeuvre, Carmen, Baby (1967), Therese und Isabelle (1968) and The Lickerish Quartet (1970)? Probably it will. Right after the presentation of Russ Meyer's lifetime achievement Oscar.

Where Meyer's turbo-charged brand of titillation was manifestly American, Metzger forayed somewhat further afield. A studied master of art-house aesthetics, Radley shaded his epics of gender politics and sexual power trips in washes of decadent European opulence. He favored Mediterranean locations, source materials from French literature, lighting that duplicated the mysterious revelations of renaissance painting, and fine-boned beauties whose translucent complexions and svelte, buoyant figures showed every sign of flawless Old World pedigrees.

So dust off your passport and journey down to your local DVD outlet or online retailer and inhabit the unique pleasures of world's as created by the artist who should be much more widely known as Radley Metzger. Prepare to be overwhelmed in the most sensually understated way that could possibly be imagined.


CARMEN, BABY (1967)
Censorship was rearing its hoary head long before the moralists at Clear Channel were pulling the plug on any radio-wave provocateur who dared to call a breast a boob. Howard Stern, if he'd been born 150 years earlier, might share an anisette and commiserate with French litterateur Prosper Merimee. Poor, picked on Prosper's novella Carmen (1845) failed to earn him half a frank, having been undermined by a silent and invidious campaign of censure. A steamy tale of a pussy-whipping gypsy dancer and the obsessive stalker soldier who kills her, Carmen was rescued from obscurity by Georges Bizet's opera of the same name (1874). Jealous, small-minded critics panned Bizet's adaptation as "immoral" and "low," but Bizet had the last laugh. His has become one of the highest grossing operas of all time, and then became the foundation for the lush, sinful and scenic constructs of Radley Metzger's stylish, twisted Carmen, Baby (1967) (Picture: - 2). In Matzger's somewhat-dated update from 35 years ago, the titular Carmen is played by busty and sultry Uta Lekz (Picture: ). Uta's full-figured concupiscence is incapable of the manipulative conniving of the original's femme fatale. This mantrap has no control over the furry animal running wild between her thighs. Carmen as the groovy '60s Euro swinger doesn't intentionally lead a local cop astray; corrupting him with boozy promiscuity and casual-sex soirees. The star's innocently lustful body and unabashed sexuality are simply nature's way of saying that males are doomed to folly and tragedy. The only safe way to handle such high voltage eroticism is in the doses of sophisticated titillation doled out by Metzger in this lavish descent into the milieu of Riviera crooks and scam artists. Monster shots, no. Monstrously hot, yes.

THERESE UND ISABELLE (1968)
The mons-rubbing romance between sylphlike adolescent girls who are confined to a European finishing school is one of male sexuality's most enduring fantasies. Metzger's lingering, haunting black-and-white rhapsody to one woman's memory of her first love beautifully realizes every man's dream of girlhood same-sex exploration. Set in the French countryside and taking its cues from Violette Leduc's novel Therese and Isabelle (1954) (Picture: 1 - 2), this lyrical remembrance of budding adolescent sexuality is as seductive as an opium dream. Metzger imbues two girls riding bikes through a tree-lined lane with greater erotic mystique than most XXX directors can cram into a double penetration. The nudity is slow coming in Therese und Isabelle, but the build up of exquisite pressure is constant and ever more pleasurable. If a touch of guilt is triggered along with the ache of arousal as two naked girls loll full screen after their fevered groping, just repeat this mantra: "These are adult women. They are only pretending to be statutory children." The actresses, Essy Persson as "Therese" (Picture: 1 - - ), who has sleepily wandered back into the defining erotic relationship of her past, and Anna Gael (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5) as the hypnotic object of desire, "Isabelle," bring an edgy, waif's reality to lesbianism that no amount of exposure to the man-hating diesel dykes of this world can dispel.

CAMILLE 2000 (1969)
Dipping once more into the well of French literature to draw the skeleton of his plot, Metzger puts a late-'60s spin on the tragic The Lady of the Camellias (1848), Alexandre Dumas fils' tale of an illicit romance doomed from the outset because the star-crossed lovers are foolish enough to chase their passions across class boundaries. Filmed in spectacular Roman palaces, Camille 2000 is centered on the bedroom gymnastics of "Marguerite" (Daniele Gaubert), a slinky temptress who can afford to maintain her exalted position among Rome's elite decadents only because she encourages and accepts the lecherous kindness and lavish gifts of an ancient but amorous count. Sex is a lucrative hobby for Marguerite, and even contracting a mysterious fatal ailment cannot curb her profitable appetite for sensual excess. She launches headlong into a whirl of dope, booze and intransigent sluttishness. Though actual nudity is slight by porn standards, Metzger treats the entranced audience to exquisite, extended meditations upon Gaubert's classically languid form. Kink aficionados will pop their corks during the champagne-fueled fetish-theme hijinks that occur during a dress-up bondage party thrown in a bordello that has been fashioned from an old prison. Prospective lovers spend a getting-acquainted period while chained together, then slink off to private cells to seal the deal. Being sentenced to the inescapable world of Camille 2000 is fitting punishment for the crime of succumbing to grand passion.

THE LICKERISH QUARTET (1970)
Is it coincidence or artistic circumstance when a rich and listless Italian family of three happen upon the lead actress from a smut film that they have just viewed? If reality is dictated by Radley Metzger, Momma, Poppa and Momma's libidinally erupting son persuade the stacked and rapacious blonde to accompany them back to their countryside villa for an orgy of existential and surreal seduction. What is real? What is imagined? Where is the line that joins memory and fantasy? Why is it that all the deep places of the psyche are drenched with the imagery of skin sliding on skin? Considered by discriminating cineasts to be Metzger's masterpiece, The Lickerish Quartet (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6) is deliberately mind-blowing and intends to penetrate the viewer's head space as deeply as it does the seat of desire. Indeed, the point of this exercise in high-class, dissociative erotica may be that the origin and destination of all lust sits squarely between our ears. Again, expect the eye candy to be more implicit than explicit, but with enough sugar-coated visuals to satisfy the most demanding appetite for fleshly sweets.

SCORE (1972)
In what might alternately have been called Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf Pussy?, a sophisticated couple with an open but contentious marriage prey on the insecurities and taboo desires of an earnest, naive and troubled pair of young lovers. Unlike the Edward Albee psychodrama as prepared for the screen by Mike Nichols in 1966, every performer in Score (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6) deserves to be seen getting laid, and is seen getting laid, and the characters also all live happily ever after. And why not? Stifling inhibitions and outmoded gender roles have been overcome. The life-affirming sexual energy has been unleashed. Men and women have been presented naked more often than in any Metzger feature that was not rated XXX. And this elevating hanky-panky and campy repartee all take place in the panoramic pre-war seaside charm of Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Homophobes be alert! Avert your gazes, or else pretend that one of the two dudes playing couch ball is actually a chick, which is exactly what one of those dudes does. To counteract the gay content, the two women engage in a gorgeous bout lesbian grappling, underscoring Metzger's understanding that two women having sex with one another is a doubly heterosexual experience.

LITTLE MOTHER (1973)
Pretend that you were the teenaged Madonna. On a dare, and because you are bored and adventurous, you have ditched high school slunk off to a slightly stinky, declining movie palace in the urban center of Detroit. Surrounded by rapt, semi-panting afficionados of film as art, you, the teenaged Madonna, take in a viewing of Radley Metzger's Little Mother. A powerful stream of thought rushes through your head: Someday, you think, I will become a fabulous cinema icon on a par with the exotic, severe glamour puss who is Christiane Kruger, and I too will play the ruthless, sexually manipulative wife of a president of a South American country, and my director will light my body so I appear to be emerging from a cocoon of heavenly light, and every illicit detail of my character's whorish past will be presented with the hallowed care befitting the lives of the saints, but unlike this movie with its quick and funky chopped-in shots of genitals, I will actually suck cock long and lovingly and even do anal in my film. Although you, as the teenaged Madonna, made this vow in all sincerity, you unfortunately changed your mind. When your chance came to portray the morally compromised wife of a South American potentate, you substituted singing for sex; so Little Mother remains a superior big- or small-screen delight than Evita (1997) in every way that matters.

THE IMAGE a/k/a THE PUNISHMENT OF ANNE (1975)
Kids: learn from the example of writer "Jean," the male hero of The Image, or as it is alternately called, The Punishment of Anne (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7). Stay in school and master your grammar and one day you too may live an adventure like that of scholarly Jean when he is reacquainted with "Claire," a an overtly sexual mystery woman who has frolicked about in Jean's subconscious in all the years that have intervened since their first meeting. Perhaps Jean minored in psychology. He is a keen student of human behavior, and soon divines that Claire commands her own personal sex slave, the demure and delightful "Anne." The underworld of high-gloss S&M, particularly that portion of it populated by fashion model quality femmes, is an area of study that deserves the knowing lens work and psychosexual insight of Radley Metzger. Extrapolated from Frenchwoman Catherine Robbe-Grillet's novel L'image (1956), this exploration of semi-consensual sex and worshipful humiliation is staged in the luxurious drawing rooms and bedrooms that are a hallmark of Metzger's settings. Also typical of the master, Jean is fully satisfied by the production's end. Not only does the sinisterly alluring Claire share Anne with him, she shares herself as well. Plot points couldn't have favored Jean more if he'd written the story himself.

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