BLUE SUNSHINE (1977)
Zalman King, Deborah Winters, Robert Walden, Charles Siebert, Mark Goddard, Ray Young, Ann Cooper, Alice Ghostley
Directed by Jeff Lieberman
Released December 2, 1977 (Happy 45th Anniversary)
What do a doctor speaking to his cancer patient (A), a housewife complaining about her hubby to a next door neighbor (B), and a woman babysitting for her friend (C) all have in common? The trio all lead us to Jerry Zipkin (who looks like a young & scruffier cross between René Auberjonois and Sean Penn, and keeps his hands in his pockets a lot). Jerry is at a Los Angeles party in a cabin where he sees a guest (Brion James) suddenly burst into a Rodan impersonation, flapping & squawking his arms. Then an old friend, Frannie (played by Billy Crystal's brother, Richard) descends from stairs crooning ala Frtank 'Ol' Blue Eyes' Sinatra. After his song, Frannie gets his wig yanked off for putting the moves on another man's woman, causing him to flee into the woods. With everyone out looking for him, he returns to the cabin, kills 3 women, and stuffs their bodies into a huge fireplace. Jerry confronts Frannie and fights him, and as both men spill outside onto a road, Frannie is fatally pushed into the path of an oncoming truck. With Jerry responsible for this death, and shot in the right arm by the vehicle's passenger, he is now wrongly accused of the party murders and goes on the run, first seeking medical help from an old friend he's tracked down, Dr. David Blume (from A). Jerry's feisty girlfriend, Alicia, also attempts to help him clear his name while pouring back cocktails. Stressed & frustrated, he discovers that 10yrs earlier in 1967, Frannie was amongst a group of Stanford University kids who had been given a bad batch of LSD ('blue sunshine') which caused the users to get shredding headaches, lose their hair, and the most alarming negative side effect: has turned them homicidal exactly a full decade after first taking the drug -- with the condition irreversible.

The drug dealer back then was Ed Flemming, who is now a Neo-Con politician running for Congress. When Jerry reads of a John O' Malley (from B), an ex-detective having slaughtered his family, he breaks into the man's house to sift through the crime scene where he suffers a psychedelic panic attack with a frightening premonition. Jerry and Alicia meet Flemming at his campaign headquarters, along with his bodyguard named Wayne Mulligan who was a former football player. Hoping Flemming will give him answers about the drug, Jerry comes up empty knowing Flemming is hiding something. Still a fugitive eluding the police (primarily Lt. Clay), Jerry returns to Dr. Blume and finds out that Doc knew Flemming from their school campus flower power days, having sold drugs for him as classmates were "turning on, tuning in, and dropping out." He asks for tranquilizers but leaves without any. Meanwhile, Mulligan hits on Alicia who is taken aback when he yells at a blaring truck that zooms by. Hesitant, she nonetheless agrees to meet him at a shopping mall discotheque. When Jerry visits Wendy Flemming (the would-be Congressman's wife from C) for more info about blue sunshine, she boots him from her apartment but unsettled, he comes back just as she goes bonkers, chasing 2 children in her care (who are shouting for Dr. Pepper!) with a butcher knife. Defending himself, he tosses her over a balcony. After Lt. Clay pays Flemming a visit enquiring about his wife's death and Jerry's involvement, Jerry is in a park frequented by junkies. At first spooked by a bald man (who is either gay cruising, another cue ball on the path to flipping out, or just an average weirdo), he sees Dr. Blume who hands over some tranquilizers.

As Alicia contacts Lt. Clay in preparation to apprehend Mulligan (to test him for blue sunshine), Jerry buys a tranq gun. When Alicia meets Mulligan at the disco, he is agitated by noise and excuses himself to the bathroom. Outside, Jerry sets up the tranq gun and Lt. Clay arrives to meet Alicia inside. Told that Mulligan is in the bathroom, Lt. Clay goes to fetch him but is promptly attacked and knocked out after Mulligan pulls off a wig. Mulligan returns looking like an angry Mr. Clean and goes spectacularly apeshit and trashes the place in berserk Hulk mode. As Flemming is giving a rally in the same mall (complete with lip-synching marionettes of Barbara Streisand and Frank Sinatra!), Jerry keeps an eye on him (as his campaign already has cover-up implications which will be worse should the crooked candidate wind up in Washington), but Flemming's speech is broken up by screaming patrons running past in terror from the disco. Flemming tries to take down Jerry but is shaken off as Jerry heads to the disco. He hits the dancefloor and grapples with Mulligan but quick-thinking Alicia cranks up the genre's terrible tunes knowing the loud music will drive Mulligan away. As Jerry chases Mulligan through the mall, will he be able to take down the linebacker with the tranq gun? Will he pick up some Xmas cards & wrapping paper as he passes through the gift shop? Did he hear Flemming's political ads playing on the TVs announce how "it's time to make America good again?"

Are there more individuals out there still to pop up as menacing, slightly zombie-ish, wacko chrome dome killers? BLUE SUNSHINE is an obscure & off kilter, socio-political fringe thriller that is delirious but entertaining with it's interesting premise that recalls early David Cronenberg without the graphic grossness. Far from innocent & harmless substance abuse, and the odd 'bad trip' from a couple of tabs, the idea of involving former graduates having indulged in past "experimentation" who are now respectable "establishment" who suffer mad shark-eye stares, psychotic breaks and lash out in raging rampage, makes for a great plot and seems to even carry a vague, elitist anti-hippie sentiment. The movie does have pacing problems which along the lines of suspenseful made-for-TV fare, has some bland characters, overacting making for unintentionally funny, and the tension sometimes deflating into flatness, but if nothing else, it has originality going for it (regardless of twitchy Jerry flirting between silently subdued, erratic, immature, and ridiculously temperamental to the hilt) and offers a lot of guess work as to who might be a potential kook. Also of note is how the movie is a real product of the 1970's. The backdrop of that decade saw a penchant for cynicism and mistrust with unnerving films of the post-Vietnam & Watergate era delving into paranoia, conspiracies, and infection/invasion themes (all with resident car chases).

Here, the uinque twist comes from the subliminalism of revolutionary counterculture values having turned into the horror of mass conformist, corporate/capitalist collaboration. [It's also probably no accident/coincidence that the narcotic nightmare of 'blue sunshine' ominously echoes the CIA'S notorious 'Project MKUltra' mind control program from 1953-73 that conducted secret experiments with psychotropic drugs on human test subjects in colleges & universities, prisons, and hospitals -- with the institutions each serving as fronts. Often unwilling citizens (Americans and Canadians) went haywire from mindbending trances & flashbacks, and the purpose of manipulating brain function was tantamount to torture. The most extreme accusations contend the CIA using MKUltra to create assassins, triggered from brainwashing. 20yrs of controversial revelations and damning documents led to Senate Hearings in August 1977]. BLUE SUNSHINE's discordant and eerie musical score adds to a creep factor, and with a firm cult status and crossover appeal, the movie was often seen projected behind many bands playing on stage at CBGB's during its early punk years, and UK group The Glove (The Cure's Robert Smith and Siouxsie and the Banshees' Steven Severin) were such huge fans of the film that they named their album after it. Overall, this movie is a neglected off the wall rarity that in addition to defying singular categorization, no matter how it's labeled (a more psychological cousin of THE 39 STEPS without the dementia from electric Kool-Aid?), still fits perfectly beside your copy of REEFER MADNESS.

CFL does Toronto! Congrats Grey Cup champs.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication debut of GALLERY magazine (1972). Famous lawyer F. Lee Bailey was a co-publisher and after the first issue too closely resembled PLAYBOY, Hugh Hefner sent a cease & desist letter resulting in GALLERY having to change its layout. With money problems right off the bat, legal battles in the US Supreme Court over obscenity, and wanting to devote more time to his passionate hobby (his helicopter company), Bailey left the magazine by year's end.


NOVEMBER 1972 ON THE WORLD STAGE President Richard Nixon has won an overwhelming Republican victory in the US Presidential elections for a second term in the White House. In a landslide, he took 61% of the popular vote (47,168,710 votes), compared with 38% (29,173,222 votes) for his Democrat rival Senator George McGovern. He won 521 (of 537) electoral college votes and carried 49 states while McGovern took just 17 votes and won only two states, Massachusetts and the predominantly black district of Washington,D.C. However, Nixon's Republican party lost ground in the Senate and fell short of gaining control of the House of Representatives. In total, the Democrats now control 57 of the 100 seats in the Senate while in the House of Representatives, the Republicans increased their seats from 179 to 191 which is still short of the Democrats with 243 (down 13). Independents gained only a single seat. Senator McGovern delivered his concession speech from his home town of Sioux Falls in South Dakota where he spoke of his desire to see an end to the war in Vietnam saying "we will press on with this effort until all the bloodshed, all the sorrow has ended once and for all." The President's victory -- by one of the largest margins in American history -- had been widely predicted by political correspondents. McGovern had become regarded as a radical as he advocated higher taxes, and supported what became known as the "three A's" (abortion, acid and amnesty). He supported cannabis reform law, an amnesty for those who dodged the draft to avoid military service in Vietnam, and a reduction of the restrictions on abortion. But the Senator's views were unpopular with the largely conservative voting population that saw him also misjudge the public's mood on various issues like the ever-contentious Vietnam war. When Nixon announced peace was at hand, McGovern complained it should have been made earlier. For his part, Nixon kept a very low profile during the campaign, standing by his record and in particular, his achievements in foreign policy where his popularity was boosted by his historic visit to China in February 1972, which led to the restoration of Sino-US diplomatic links as a co-part of "Détente" which was the reducing of strained foreign relations. Later in May, he also agreed to a first strategic arms limitation treaty with Moscow, known as SALT in which negotiations for the talks began back in November 1969 in Helsinki,Finalnd, and whose aim is to freeze the number of ballistic missile launch sites. In the immediate aftermath of the election, the only sections of the population who remained behind the Democrats were the under-privileged, black voters & other racial minorities -- but even among these groups, the Republicans increased their share of the vote based very much on campaign promises of a platform seeking to improve the lives of citizens one & all.

R.I.P. Darren 'D.H.' Peligro. 1959-2022.

Today marks the 35th anniversary of THE MORTON DOWNEY JR. SHOW (1987) making its TV debut. [The air date -- Oct 19 -- was particularly ominous for it would come to be known as 'Black Monday' due to the stock market causing considerable panic when it fell over 500 points]. Growling Morton Downey Jr. was shock/trash TV before Jerry Springer, and his combative schtick would be to bully & shout. Pandering to his live audience of acolytes & sheep, he typically responded with sarcastic abusive insults to his guests whenever they presented their POV. The very first episode of the talk show had loudmouth opinionated host MDJ covering porn & its accused damaging effects on American society. The pro-adult film industry panel consisted of Seka, Candida Royalle, and Gloria Leonard. During a commercial break, Seka famously walked off the stage after MDJ kept verbally running her down. She was a class act and held her self-respect for the entirety but was clearly sick of his crap and had enough. She did not return. In May 1988, MDJ went national. Viewership was almost exclusively about tuning in for his coarse & disparaging behaviour but widespread critically panned, the show was cancelled in Jul 1989. A lifelong heavy chainsmoker, in Jul 1996 he first had a tumor and then his right lung removed due to cancer which led him to become a staunch anti-tobacco activist. He died in Mar 2001.

105yrs ago today, sex, power and war culminated in the execution of Mata Hari in France, having been found guilty of spying for Germany during WWI. Born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, in Holland, She spent a few years in the Dutch East Indies which resulted in a broken marriage that did produce 2 children. She became an exotic dancer and later courtesan, who took the stage name "Mata Hari" meaning 'eye of the day' (an expression for the sun) in Malaysian. As oriental culture was the popular rage of the early 1900's and with her reputation preceding her, she was the toast of cosmopolitan Europe for her provocative routine (nude yet allowable for being artistic within the law) as a Javanese temple dancer reinventing herself along the way. As she dazzled the elites of high society with her striptease, she equally earned the scorn of many among them with one famous criticism that came from a ballerina who said, “she is as much an Indian dancer as I'm a Chinese waiter.” Accused of espionage and suspected of being a double agent, she was first recruited in Sept 1916 by the French (codenamed H21) to pass on military information to the government, that had been obtained from her lovers. With her frequent traveling across international borders made easy by her neutrality, and her bevy of wealthy male suitors (mostly high-ranking officers & diplomats from opposing sides of the war) who were willing to provide her financial support in exchange for her company, this caused several of those bedding her to question her activities. British Intelligence placed her on a watch list eventually leading to her being interrogated by Scotland Yard. Followed by surveillance teams and charged with duplicity, the French arrested her in February 1917 (after the Germans had deemed her services ineffective and deliberately leaked a coded message outing her, intending for it to be intercepted). After a short trial riddled with bias in front of a military court held in private (and with her Russian fiancé denouncing her after denying their engagement), she was found guilty and sentenced to death. On Oct 15, 1917 she was shot by firing squad (having refused a blindfold) in Vincennes, near Paris. She was 41. To this day, Mata Hari’s guilt is widely contested and the nature & extent of just how much damage (if even at all) she is responsible for remains uncertain. With hardly any proof or any damning material to sustain the leveled crimes that cost her life, in 1930 the German government publicly exonerated her. In 1947, 30yrs after her death, one of her prosecutors stated unapologetically in an interview, “there wasn’t enough evidence to flog a cat.” In all likelihood and tragically, the French were only too willing to frame her as an exaggerated scapegoat to divert attention away from their Army's abysmal losses and recent mutinies. The mystery surrounding her life and alleged treachery continues to pique curiosity, having elevated her to a mythic status. The very notion of a seductress extracting secrets; a sultry harlot swirling in betrayal has eclipsed the real person. The dangerous ensnaring vamp has long become the now-automatic portrayal. Mata Hari has spawned numerous biographies, several movie depictions (with Greta Garbo the most famous), TV series, pop culture spoofs galore, songs, musicals, and museum exhibits -- all further popularizing her legend. In 2017, a century after her death, France released declassified documents reportedly indicating her innocence.

This month marks the 45th anniversary of the publication debut of VELVET magazine (1977). The last print issue was Jun 2016.


SEPTEMBER 1977 ON THE WORLD STAGE Steven Biko, the leader of the black consciousness movement in South Africa, has died in police custody. The 30yr old's death was confirmed by the Commissioner of Police, General Gert Prinsloo, and it is understood Biko died in hospital in Pretoria. The government Minister of Justice & Police, James Kruger, stated that Biko had been transferred 740 miles (1,191 km) from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria for medical attention following a 7-day strike. He was in custody since Aug 18th when he was arrested & detained under the Terrorism Act. He is the 20th person to die in custody during the past 18 months. Steven Biko was born in King William's Town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in Dec 1946. He became active in the anti-apartheid movement in the 1960's when he was studying medicine at the University of Natal. After initially joining the National Union of South African Students' (NUSAS), he resigned in 1969 because he felt it did not represent the needs of black students. That July, he set up the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) and was elected its first president the following year. In 1972 due to his increasing political involvement, Biko was expelled from medical school and began working full-time for the Black Community Programmes (BCP). He also started writing regularly for the SASO newsletter under the pen-name of Frank Talk and by 1973, his work had come to the attention of the White-minority government who, in an attempt to curtail his endeavors, imposed a banning order on him restricting him to his home town. Biko however continued his work with the BCP which succeeded in building a healthcare clinic and a crèche (nursery) in King William's Town. In 1975, he was instrumental in setting up several community groups including both the Zimele Trust Fund which helped political prisoners & their families, and the Ginsberg Educational Trust to assist black students. In January of this year he was made honorary president of the BCP. An inquest into his death is not to be held for several months according to the authorities but world media has condemned the South African secrecy as ongoing extreme abusiveness, noting the continuing long disturbing history of black suffering & fatal brutal beatings in jail at the hands of police interrogation, and especially by members of the security branch who with their sweeping powers to seize individuals for the slightest of perceived offenses, have for decades been accused of torture. Steven Biko leaves behind a wife and two children.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of WANDA WHIPS WALL STREET (1982) opening in XXX theaters. When a high finance femme fatale weasels her way into taking over a Securities Firm, the acquisition results in a private investigator brought in to get the low down -- in more ways than one -- to which all players are soon into much more than just money. With a cameo by Veronica Hart's nephew playing an office worker, this heartily funny film occurred just as the vcr era of VHS/Beta was starting and was one of the first xxx features to show up (although heavily edited) on early after-hours pay-per-view channels. Followed by the 1984 sequel STOCKS AND BLONDES which re-uses footage for a new storyline picking up where WWWS leaves off.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of DEEP THROAT (1972) opening in XXX theaters. DEEP THROAT and Linda Susan Boreman (later Marchiano) aka Linda Lovelace will forever be linked. 50yrs on, to say the movie and her profile have carried over a massive resonation would be an understatement. Lovelace was adult cinema's first true superstar in a huge hit that brought the brief fad of 'porno chic' that saw Hollywood celebs slumming it, and her going on to grace the cover of ESQUIRE magazine. Even before her success in 1972, she had first appeared in loops (1969-71) involving golden showers, anal and most infamously, a dog film for which she had denied being in. DEEP THROAT's very title would spill directly from porn into politics as it would be used as the codename for whistleblower W. Mark Felt, the secret informant who with the Washington Post was a major instrument that unraveled the Richard Nixon/White House/Watergate scandal (Felt went on to be the Associate Director of the FBI and died in Dec 2008). What began with an initial investment of $28,000 (or according to other sources $22,500), the picture went on to make supposedly over $600 million and was backed by the Mafia (Colombo crime family), with Lovelace said to have made only a total paltry sum of $1250.00 who nevertheless became a household name that brought hardcore into the mainstream. With the overnight attention came the Press -- Movie critic Roger Ebert panned DEEP THROAT while Al Goldstein of SCREW magazine gave it a rave review. A judge had fined the producers $100,000 ruling it obscene smut and in that courtroom moment of gavel-pounding condemnation, no one could know the film would go on to be the most popular xxx release of all time, and the very first to be inducted into the XRCO (X-Rated Critics Organization) Hall of Fame in its inaugural year, Feb 1985. In the Pussycat Theatre chain alone, it ran for over 10yrs straight.

But all was not bliss and Lovelace would be shrouded in controversy ultimately more than the film itself. Regarding her private life, she said her marriage to manager/promoter Chuck Traynor was one of emotional distress, submission to complete control, forced prostitution, physical/mental/sexual abuse, and rape. After their divorce he went on to marry Marilyn Chambers who would state she was never mistreated or pimped out by him. (Traynor died in Jul 2002 while Chambers passed away in Apr 2009). When Lovelace later became a born-again Christian, newly feminist, and supported (or used) by Gloria Steinem, she testified at hearings in the 1980's that she more than literally had a gun held to her head during the filming of DEEP THROAT, and that she had not consented to a lot of what appeared on screen but instead was coerced, repeatedly threatened with violence and beaten. She then went on the college lecture circuit denouncing porn but could never entirely separate from her synonymous movie that cast a long shadow. Back in Apr 1978, a New York pirate cable station aired it illegaly with the culprits never identified. When it traveled across the pond to the UK, it was quickly banned which was upheld for a decade. Not until Sept 2000 did it finally appear uncut. The movie was followed by a sequel (DEEP THROAT PART II) in 1974 and then a further 5 unrelated sequels (the last in 1992, and 3 of which were directed by Ron Jeremy). In Feb 2008 in Holland, Dutch TV broadcast DEEP THROAT as part of a porn history theme in relation to youth sex culture. After mostly centrist & conservative members of parliament caused a laughable uproar and failed to have the movie yanked, an estimated 907,000 viewers are said to have tuned in without a single complaint lodged by the watching audience. Linda Lovelace to this day is still viewed in a status of legendary mystique inspite of all the subsequent negativity that followed. Her life has been covered extensively as featured in her 4 autobiographies (2 from 1974 both pro-porn. Then 1980 & 1986 both anti-porn); the 2005 documentary INSIDE DEEP THROAT; 3 stage plays (2004 starring Tina Yothers, 2008 & 2010); the scrapped movie INFERNO (troubled from 2010-13) set to star Lindsay Lohan; and the 2013 film LOVELACE starring Amanda Seyfried. Lovelace died at 53 from car crash-related injuries in Denver on April 22, 2002. R.I.P.

This month marks the 45th anniversary of HARD SOAP, HARD SOAP (1977) opening in XXX theaters. A silly & very funny parody of soap operas (particularly MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN) about the intrigue and interplay between various characters crossing paths among sprawling storylines, largely centering on two housewives. Frustrated Penny is married to a flaccid psychiatrist who is away on a business trip. Her brash neighbor is Linda Lou whose own husband is never around. She tries to help Penny by sharing one of her boy-toys. After some sex-filled jumbled confusion with the doctor's office patients and some cleverly rearranged appointments, both women ultimately just want to settle down into suburban calmness but their wacky surroundings see them alongside zippy characters such as a crude arrogant janitor who anally rapes Penny (for which she is ashamed of enjoying), her sister Patty who is hysterically blind from the sight of a flasher's huge schlong in the supermarket, a paperboy peeping tom, gloomy milkman, and a cheerful reverend treated to a burlesque striptease. All is capped off with a crazy group therapy session. For all the sendups of what was daytime afternoon television, HSHS has actually good acting and some atmospheric cheesy melodramatic organ music which is amusingly & deliberately cornball in how it calls back to the oldtime radio dramas. HSHS is a delightful hoot.


Another marking its 45th anniversary this month is THE VIOLATION OF CLAUDIA (1977) opening in XXX theaters also. Claudia is a lonely housewife whose older businessman husband has zero game in the sack. Stuck in a loveless & miserable marriage and yearning for orgasms, she seduces her tennis coach. He just happens to run a prostitution ring on the side and promptly pimps her out, leading to an epiphany in her sexual reawakening that there's more to life than just monogamy & masturbation. With this revelation she becomes privy to a new playground from lesbo french maids and a teen hitchhiker, to the dumpy goofball senator with his soda jerk fetish complete with whipped cream & hot fudge. Even in her disgust involving a fairy tranny drag queen's failed request for pee play. And all wrapped with a twist ending. VOC director William Lustig is the nephew of boxer Jake 'Raging Bull' LaMotta. He went on to do the MANIAC COP trilogy and is founder of the dvd/blu-ray label/company Blue Underground.

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This month marks the 45th anniversary of BABYFACE (1977) opening in XXX theaters. Considered by many golden age connoisseurs to be director Alex de Renzy's finest hour & crowning achievement, BABYFACE is about construction worker Dan who after being teased by (and then bones) underage flirt Priscilla (fear not, actress Lyn Cuddles Malone who nails the youthful look was infact 20), is forced into hiding after falling into a river having been shot by a cop -- all set in motion thanks to the girl's religious wackjob mother who is oblivious to her lying daughter (having said she was attacked) being a naughty lolita. He is saved by a sexy pair of hotties who get him a job at a male brothel catering exclusively to rich women who shag his brains out. Culminating in an epic gonzo orgy, this terrific film is near as perfection gets and has it all: good storytelling, plenty of sizzling sex scenes, subversive humor, fine production, several all-natural & mature women, actual decent acting, and a perfect twist. A real gem that is a must in any serious xxx collectors library. And fun fact: the police officer chasing Dan is Oakland Raider Otis Sistrunk who after the NFL became a pro wrestler and had a brief stint in the NWA.

Happy Birthday to RHONDA JO PETTY
Billed as the Farrah Fawcett lookalike (under the name Sarah Dawcett), she was particularly popular as one of the first stars to appear with a shaved pussy, and taking part in fisting scenes which was then unconventional. Born a Mormon, she was ex-communicated from her church when they found out she was in XXX.