Today's Female Filmmakers series focuses on someone who had a fantastic career: the one and only Joan Silver. Her name was Silver, but her films were gold. Let's take a look at the sexy scenes that she directed.
Joan was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College where she graduated in 1956 and got married to Raphael Silver the same year. She and her hubby stayed married until his death in 2013! That's a true rarity!
The pair briefly lived in Cleveland before going to New York City in 1967 where she wrote for The Village Voice. She started writing educational scripts for children's programming which lead her into making three short films. All of this was good practice for her later work in feature films.
In 1975, she directed her debut film Hester Street which was a critical success. The touching black-and-white drama was based on a novella called Yekl and it tells a Jewish American story about an immigrant family from Russia who comes to New York City in 1896. Living on the Lower East Side with other orthodox Jewish immigrants, a Russian man has been working in the States for three years to save money to bring his wife Gitl to America. Gitl is played by a very young Carol Kane in her Oscar-nominated performance.
Before Gitl arrives, her husband falls for a dancer. Gitl struggles to assimilate to American life and her hubby juggles his love for America (and its women) and his affection for his wife. He also takes time to hang out with a prostitute played by Lin Shaye in her very first film role. She lays in bed with a breast out, showing out huge hooters. He must have paid a pretty penny!
This film was beloved and is considered a classic in Jewish-American cinema and had a lot of critical acclaim in that community and beyond. It was also very different from her next picture!
Her next film was a sexy comedy from 1977. Between the Lines showed us what was between the clothing on the hot babes that star in this sexy comedy. The film stars actors Jeff Goldblum and Marilu Henner very early in their careers. In fact, Marilu even played a stripper who only gets down to her pasties. Pasties or not, she is super sexy.
There are quite a few strip club scenes and one of them features Gwen Welles. Gwen and her big breasts are seen a few sexciting times!
1988 brought a very interesting love story with the classic New York City comedy. Isabelle is a bookstore clerk who just can't find love. She eventually lets her old-fashioned Jewish grandmother play matchmaker and make her a match. Amy Irving plays Isabelle who eventually gets matched with...a pickle maker. Well, Amy's lingerie will have you jerkin' your gherkin.
The following year, Silver gave us another comedy with 1989's Loverboy. The name feels promising, but Patrick Dempsey plays the titular Loverboy who doesn't succeed in getting his co-stars nude. He plays a pizza delivery boy who gets $200 from a sexy woman that he falls for. Before long, this Loverboy is delivering pizzas and some extra meat to interested women.
We do not get to see much skin, but Rebecca Holden plays a babe with a big bosom and swanky hips who saunters sexily towards him in a bright green bikini and a huge 80s perm. She looks like a total dream straight out of the 1980s!
After that, she directed a lot of made-for-TV movies and work that stayed buttoned up. Sadly, Silver passed away in 2020 from dementia, but she left behind this wonderful legacy with sexy scenes and hot babes.
