All the Right Moves (1983)

Director Michael Chapman's PG-13 rated sports/romantic drama was an absorbing coming-of-age film. Both of its main 'teenaged' characters were up-and-coming stars who were just beginning their careers and in their early 20s.

It told about two Western Pennsylvania high school teens facing a bleak future unless they could escape their dying, impoverished, stifling steel mill town of Ampipe during an early 1980s recession:

• Stefen 'Stef' Djordjevic (pronounced George-a-vitch) (Tom Cruise), a cocky, defensive back HS football player
• Lisa Litski (or Lietzke) (Lea Thompson), 'Stef's' pretty and loyal hometown girlfriend

Stef (Tom Cruise) and Lisa (Lea Thompson) - Two High School Lovers

Their relationship included a revealing, realistic bedroom love-making scene in which they both displayed frontal nudity - in gigantic closeup - as the camera panned downwards. He tentatively removed her slip, while she removed his jeans, and they stood naked together, kissing before making love in the bed. The majority of the film revolved around the struggle of Stef to be respected by headstrong coach Nickerson (Craig T. Nelson), and to receive a sports football scholarship for college - eventually fulfilled with Cal Poly Tech by the film's sappy and feel-good happy ending.

Beyond the Limit (1983, UK) (aka The Honorary Consul)

Director John Mackenzie's thriller, an adaptation of Graham Greene's best-selling novel, "The Honorary Consul," was set in the seedy provincial Argentinian town of Corrientes.

It was basically a blackmail plot interwoven with a love-triangle between:

• Dr. Eduardo Plarr (Richard Gere, miscast although at the peak of his career in the early 1980s), an amoral half-British doctor whose father was a Paraguyan political prisoner
• Clara (Mexican actress Elpidia Carrillo), a 19 year-old, ex-prostitute, married Indian
• Charlie Fortnum (Michael Caine), Clara's husband, an alcoholic honorary British Consul

During most of the film, Dr. Plarr had a totally passionless affair with Clara, who spent most of her screen time pouting and half-naked in obligatory sex scenes, as the mistress of Plarr. By the film's end, he was forced to re-examine the relationship.

Breathless (1983)

Director Jim McBride's inferior remake of the classic 1960 original New Wave film Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, was now set in 1980s Los Angeles. It featured sex star symbol Richard Gere, who was chosen following his success in American Gigolo (1980), opposite 20 year-old sexpot Valerie Kaprisky in her American film debut.

The roles of the main two characters were reversed - this time it was an American fugitive romancing a French girl, rather than a French criminal dallying with an American girl. The two main characters in this modern adaptation were:

• Jesse Lujack (Richard Gere), a small-time petty crook and fugitive, hot-rodding car thief/murderer
• Monica Poiccard (Valerie Kaprisky), a gorgeous French exchange college student

Obsessed by both Jerry Lee Lewis rock 'n' roll and Marvel's Silver Surfer comic books, the conceited and self-absorbed Jesse found himself on the run ("a desperado") from Las Vegas police and fled to Los Angeles. There, the fugitive picked the door lock of the apartment of Monica Poiccard, took a steamy shower by himself (with full frontal male nudity, unusual for the 80s), and met up with Monica at her school.

Soon, their insatiable and uninhibited sex cravings were abundantly and frequently displayed in many places:

• the apartment's swimming pool
• on her drafting table (where he kissed her nipples)
• during another shower when he began singing "Suspicious Minds" (ending with the shower door destroyed)
• in her bed (with another two displays of his manhood, after which he told her: "Don't take a shower. I want us to smell like we've been f--kin'")

Later in the film, they kissed behind a giant movie screen in the California Theatre playing the black/white fugitive film noir Gun Crazy (1949) (during the projected film's line: "You're a knock-out, kid"), and living out words from the flick:

"I don't want to be afraid of life or anything else." (She kissed his chest as the soundtrack continued): "I want a guy with spirit and guts. A guy who can laugh at anything, who will do anything, a guy who can kick over the traces and win the world for me."

In the end, Monica contemplated that she would "roll the dice," let go of the responsibilities of her life and join Jesse on his way to Mexico. However, when she discovered she had been identified as "the girl in the pink dress" and had been taken as either a hostage or lover of fugitive Jesse, she decided to turn him into the police. She was anguished:

"I don't want to love you. I don't want to go with you...It doesn't matter if I love you. It's wrong for us."

She then confessed to appease him: "I don't love you" in order to get him to leave. Monica then watched as police surrounded him, and ran to him as he fatefully grabbed a gun on the ground and spun around -- the film ended in a freeze-frame.

Chained Heat (1983)

Director Paul Nicolas' classic, trashy sex-ploitative 'women-in-prison' (or 'chicks-in-chains') WIP film was popular with drive-ins. Many of the released versions of the film have since been heavily-censored, for violence and for some nudity. It followed the same stereotypes and predictability of Caged Heat (1974) and was part of a new wave of these types of films in the 80s - a combination of blaxploitation and sexploitation.

It starred The Exorcist's (1973) Linda Blair who was nominated for a Razzie Award as Worst Actress of the year, while co-star Sybil Danning, nominated for Razzie's Worst Supporting Actress, won the award. Blair's next trashy exploitation film followed shortly thereafter - a vigilante revenge film titled Savage Streets (1984). She skipped out on the next two segments of this film:

• Chained Heat 2 (1993) (with Brigitte Nielsen as the evil and sadistic prison warden)
• Chained Heat 3: Hell Mountain (1998), a sci-fi thriller

The first of the series of WIP films told about innocent, virginal offender Carol Henderson (Linda Blair) who was sent to jail for 18 months for vehicular manslaughter. In the prison, she was faced with corruption, violence, and sexual degradation.

Inmate Carol Henderson: Linda Blair's First Time Nudity in Shower Scene

Nudity was showcased in a long shower sequence, which first began with two lesbian inmates washing each other (and seen earlier making love in the dorm): Paula (Edy Williams of Russ Meyer fame) and Twinks (Marcia Karr). Carol was showering in a corner stall with friend Val (Sharon Hughes). When Val left, she was approached by another inmate who stroked her hair and asked: "How ya doin', sweet thing? What's the matter Snow White? I ain't gonna hurt you." Then she was replaced by busty lead tough girl white inmate Ericka (Sybil Danning), who authoritatively commanded: "Beat it!"

Ericka: "She won't bother you no more."
Carol: "Thank you."
Ericka: (offering her own soap) "Try this. Smells sweet. (She rubbed soap into Carol's upper chest) You're real sweet yourself. You oughta have somebody take care of you."
Carol: "Please don't."
Ericka: "Come on."
Carol: (rebuffing more forcefully): "Please!"
Ericka: (grabbing her arm and warning): "Doin' time can get dangerous, even deadly. Damn lonely, too. Think it over."

When she went to the perverted, vile and corrupt Warden Bacman (John Vernon) to complain, after seeing dead inmate Spider in a bathroom stall, he called her a "pretty little Lolita." He grabbed her hair when she tried to escape from the locked office, slapped her, and menacingly approached, mumbling to himself: "I should be taping this goddamned thing." He ripped the front of her prisoner garb and her bra, and assaulted her after knocking her unconscious. Later, when she was found wet and recovering in the shower stall, she told her friend Val: "It was so awful...Bacman raped me."

All of the requisite scenes and elements for this genre of film were included:

• a stern prison head-guard matron Captain Taylor (Stella Stevens)
• an evil Warden (John Vernon) who raped Carol and videotaped other inmates in his office's conveniently-placed jacuzzi hot-tub, including with Debbie (Monique Gabrielle)
• lengthy nude showers
• rape and lesbianism, and assaultive guards
• racial/gang warfare behind bars led by white leader Ericka and black leader Duchess (Tamara Dobson), often engaged in catfights

Deathstalker (1983)

This R-rated tacky, sexist sword-sorcery fantasy adventure from producer Roger Corman was a ripped-off, cloned nude version of Conan the Barbarian (1982) with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It was produced by two Argentinians, Hector Olivera and Alejandro Sessa, with a largely Argentinian crew, and directed by James Sbardellati. The film's tagline was: "The Might of the Sword... The Evil of the Sorcerer." The main attraction of this film was its female co-stars.

Deathstalker spawned three sequels in the late 1980s and early 1990s:

• Deathstalker II (1987)
• Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (1988)
• Deathstalker IV: Match of Titans (1991)

In the grindhouse film's opening misogynistic title sequence, medieval male swordsman-warrior Deathstalker (Rick Hill) rescued a rape victim from mutants, then was intent on molesting her himself.

Deathstalker was interrupted by deposed King Tulak (George Sorvic), who once ruled but whose kingdom had been taken from him (and his daughter, gorgeous Princess Codille (Barbi Benton)) years earlier by his wicked, tattoo-faced evil sorcerer or court magician named Munkar (Bernard Erhard). Deathstalker was also commissioned by witchy Toralva (Lillian Ker) to engage in a quest to find three "Powers of Creation" - a trio of mystical objects found in three relics (a chalice, an amulet, and a sword).

Along the way, he was joined by an Imp or Gremlin named Salmaron (Augusto Larreta). His ultimate objective, after acquiring the powerful Sword of Justice, was to obtain the other two objects (the Amulet of Life and the Chalice of Magic), and take back the kingdom now ruled by Munkar.

On his journey, Deathstalker encountered another fellow warrior Oghris (Richard Brooker), and he also met defiant blonde female warrior (Lana Clarkson) wearing only a cape - memorable for her unbelievable, breast-baring, criss-crossing costume and G-string. Their first night together, while they were secretly spied upon by Salmaron, Kaira and Deathstalker had sex beside the campfire. The group joined with warriors from throughout the land who had been invited to Munkar's castle to participate in a fight-to-the-death, two-day tournament.

[Note: See more about Lana Clarkson in two other Roger Corman sword & sorcery fantasy films:

• Barbarian Queen (1985)
• Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1990) (Video)]

Munkar's true goal was to eliminate all of his competitors in his kingdom who might be strong enough to overthrow him.

Codille, a beautiful chained prisoner with a flimsy white see-through robe, one of Munkar's harem slaves, was offered as the amazing prize for winning the warriors' tournament. However, she wasn't all that she appeared to be. Munkar had transformed one of his henchman into the likeness of the beautiful Princess to assassinate Deathstalker. When she was rescued by Deathstalker and he attempted to rape her, she physically resisted him and fought back. When he discovered her sex change, he was disgusted: ("What the hell are you? Get outta here!")

[Note: One-time model/singer Barbi Benton (and part time regular on TV's Hee Haw and the girlfriend of Playboy's Hugh Hefner in the 70s), had previously appeared in a few cult-style B-films, including The Naughty Cheerleader (1970) and Hospital Massacre (1982).]

Diamonds of Kilimandjaro (1983, Sp.) (aka El tesoro de la diosa blanca, or Treasure of the White Goddess)

Prolific Spanish sleaze-meister and writer/director Jesús Franco's adventure-action tale was an sexploitational 'jungle adventure' (and Tarzan rip-off). Its follow-up film was Amazons in the Temple of Gold (1986).

[Note: There were many similarities between this film and Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956) (aka Liane, das Mädchen aus Dem Urwald), a West German film directed by Eduard von Borsody.]

This film, produced by Eurocine Studios in France - with inadequate dubbing and translations - opened with the crash of a small plane in the jungles of Africa.

Surviving the fall from the sky, an older Scotsman godfather Dan (actor/composer Daniel White) emerged from the plane with his injured young stepdaughter in his arms. They were worshipped by kneeling native tribesmen, savage headhunters called the Moris, who henceforth worshipped her as a god, and him as a "Godfather" (he preferred to be called 'big chief'). The tribe was led by a wild-haired, topless female leader Noba (Aline Mess), often doing ritualistic war-dances.

When the young girl grew up to be 18, she wore a loin cloth and little else, and was seen perched in the fork of a tree eating fruit. The beautiful white jungle goddess was named Diana (played by gorgeous German actress Katja Bienert, who was reportedly underage at 16 at the time of some of the filming).

Diana (Katja Bienert) - Naked White Jungle Goddess

She saved a jungle explorer named Payton (Albino Graziani) who was threatened with death for taking diamonds (a big chunk of rock) from the jungle ("Go away and never come back").

Soon after, a rescue attempt was made by an expedition commissioned by Diana's ill and dying mother Hermine (Lina Romay) to find her daughter. The rescue group was led by three individuals:

• Fred Pereira (Antonio Mayans) - a dark-haired, tough hunter and guide
• Payton - the aforementioned explorer
• Rofo (Javier Maiza) - mustached, mean, brutish and treacherous .

Greedy, white haired, and drunken Uncle Mathieu ('co-director' Olivier Mathot) and his adulterous, red-haired, low-cut tank-top-wearing young wife Lita (Ana Stern), who were in line to inherit the family fortune, also accompanied the expedition - and did not want the heiress to return alive.

Before the trip, Fred was propositioned by Lita and offered 15% of the inheritance, if he would help make sure Diana did not survive - and they began to have an adulterous relationship. Fred was also fortunate enough to become friends and have sex with Diana.

In the end, the entire group of trackers was slaughtered by the bloodthirsty tribe. Rofo was lethally wounded by a Mori tribesman's poisoned arrow, and Lita and Mathieu met a similar bloody fate. Fred was caught stealing diamonds, but Diana saved him from death and he was freed to leave: "You deserve to die, but you have been my lover."

When given the choice between the diamonds and Diana, he chose to ask to depart with her: "I want to go back with you. You're more precious to me than any stones," but she declined. Then, Diana's godfather shot Fred in the back as he walked away ("It had to be done and you know it. He would have come back"). She was reminded that she was the white goddess of the natives, her people.

Easy Money (1983)

Director James Signorelli's feature-film domestic sit-com was a seminal Rodney Dangerfield comedy - his first lead role - after the raunchy comic's success in the golf classic Caddyshack (1980). He provided the script with some of his most memorable jokes. The film's tagline explained how he would acquire 'easy money':

I was happy being a big fat slob, but for $10 million...I'll give up everything!

The quick-quipping, stand-up comedian Dangerfield starred as 'black sheep' baby photographer Monty Capuletti, who had to shed all of his vices (philandering, drinking, foul-mouthed, unhealthy food, pot smoking, debauchery and lechery, visiting strip clubs, gambling, etc.) within a year to inherit ten million dollars from his domineering mother-in-law's (Geraldine Fitzgerald) fortune. But he was self-deprecating and disgruntled and provided one of many punch-lines: "My mother-in-law, for years I wouldn't kiss her face. I end up kissing her ass."

In one of the scenes in which he was tempted, he was greeted as he went to his back porch by his topless, well-endowed sunbathing neighbor Ginger Jones (Kimberly McArthur, Playboy Playmate January 1982). She waved and said hi, causing him to tremble and kick his garbage can down his steps - she giggled at his nervous clumsiness. He mumbled to himself: "She ain't worth ten million dollars," but had second thoughts when she stretched her arms back, as he mused: "Five million, maybe."

First Name Carmen (1983, Fr.) (aka Prenom Carmen or Carmen)

Director/actor Jean-Luc Godard's avante-garde, l'amour fou film (promoted as "a revolutionary fable of erotic destiny") was loosely based on Bizet's opera, and won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. Dutch-born actress Maruschka Detmers had her screen debut in the film as the title character Carmen X, a modern-day terrorist gang member. She appeared nude (or semi-nude) throughout much of the movie.

Carmen X (Maruschka Detmers)

Film elements in the confused story line with parallel plots first told about Carmen's membership in a terrorist gang with her new young lover Joseph Bonnaffe (Jacques Bonnaffé), whose plan was to rob a bank where he worked as an inept bank guard. He would be arrested and tried for the crime - but acquitted.

Other plotlines included film-making (a documentary about luxury hotels) by burnt-out film-maker Jeannot (Godard himself) (Carmen's uncle) who was living in a sanitarium, a kidnapping scheme with cover provided by the fake documentary film being directed by Jeannot, and numerous views of a string quartet rehearsing Beethoven.

In one early scene, Carmen peed into a men's wall urinal, while holding her lover Joseph's hand. In a semi love-hate relationship with Joseph in her Uncle's empty apartment, she bluntly told him: "I feel like showing people what a woman can do with a man...What she does to him." (She grabbed his crotch.) She then thought back to when she was a young teenaged girl - and had been abused by her Uncle in an incestuous relationship.

When Joseph roughly tore off her top, she cautioned him: "Easy. That's the way it is." He wondered: "Why do women exist?" Shortly later, she warned: "If I love you, that's the end of you." She then asked a prophetic question: "What's it called? ...Something about the innocents and the guilty." During their heavy discussion, she was bottomless and he was touching her intimately (in a full-frontal closeup shot). Ultimately, she asked herself: "I often wonder what I'm doing with you."

Shower Scene

In the film's most controversial scene, when she was showering (after flirting with the handsome room attendant), the angered and jealous Joseph jumped naked into the stall with her and in a frenzied manner masturbated onto her (seen in the mirror's reflection). She fell to the tile floor, and judged him: "You disgust me" - and he agreed ("Me too"). Shortly later, she told him: "I never get over things. Over anything. Why do men exist?"

Then came the predictable doom ending - the kidnapping in the dining room of the luxury hotel where the gang were staying. Both Jeannot's film crew and the string quartet were in attendance as part of the set-up.

Joseph vowed to face-off with Carmen: "I'll kill her first. Then, I'll kill myself." During a shoot-out in the dining room in the botched plan, a number of people were shot and killed. As Carmen and Joseph pointed guns at each other at point-blank range, it was unclear who would shoot first. A gunshot signaled that Carmen was shot, as she slumped in Joseph's arms. But then after Joseph was seized and dragged away by the police, she had enough strength to utter the film's final words to the room attendant:

Carmen: "What's it called when you have the innocents on one side and the guilty on another?"
Room Attendant: "I don't know, Miss."
Carmen: "Then think, stupid."
Room Attendant: "I don't know, Miss."
Carmen: "You know, when everything's been lost, but it's daybreak and we're still breathing."
Room Attendant: "It's called Dawn."

This was the last (and best) of a series of four teen "sex comedies" from Troma Entertainment, with the tagline: "It's Always the Wildest!" [Note: The film featured the screen debut of Vincent D'Onofrio.] It appeared after:

• Squeeze Play! (1979)
• Waitress! (1981)
• Stuck on You! (1982)

The story opened, under the credits, during the last day of summer camp at Camp Big-Tee-Pee ("Survivors Welcome Back"), where the campers disliked nature and acted like disgruntled misfits. The narrator's voice-over bragged about how the physical exercises of the camp enabled "young bodies to grow" - one girl confessed: "My chest grew a quarter of an inch since last week."

A group of campers were being led through the woods, as a middle-aged female counselor talked about spotting wildlife ("This region abounds with many of the furry animals, such as raccoon and beaver, watch your step! The brush is thick here. It's hard to see where you're going") - in the bushes on a blanket, a couple named "Dick" (Steve Chambers) and "Jane" (Donna Barnes) were copulating and when discovered - they ran off.

The main plot was about a group of wayward campers (three guys and one girl smoking a joint) and a camp counselor who became trapped in a cave after a minor quake and avalanche:

• Mitchell (Michael Sanville), a self-proclaimed "stud"
• Annie Goldberg (Heidi Miller), Mitchell's girlfriend
• Henry Putz (Googy Gress), a fatso
• Danny Anderson (John Flood), nerdy
• Miss Michelle Farmer (Georgia Harrell), hippy-like, blonde curly-haired, 22 year-old "nature counselor"

To pass the time, they told fabricated and outrageous stories of their sexual conquests and exploits (seen in flashbacked vignettes) when they first lost their virginity, although Miss Farmer at first objected: "I don't want to talk about this. The act of sexual intercourse - the coupling of two organisms - is the most important and obviously essential one in the life cycle of the species."

Characters in the Fabricated Stories
Mitch With Lucy the Hooker (Lara Grills) in a Hotel Room
Henry With Rescued Barbara Billingham (Kristina Marie Wetzel)
"Farm Girl" Annie (Heidi Miller) With Johnny the Maniac (David Berardi)
Danny With Dreamgirl (Sheila Kennedy)
Danny With Mona the Ball Buster (Donna Winter) and Dreamgirl in "Or-gy"
Miss Michelle Farmer (Georgia Harrell) With Phil Twins (John and Bob Stoltzeus) on Bowling Alley
The Orgy in the Cave (Mitch with Michelle, Annie with Danny, etc.)

When they thought they were approaching death and asphyxiating, all confessed that they were still virgins, and their subsequent orgy and tumultuous orgasms ("The earth is moving!") caused another unlikely yet life-saving landslide, allowing them to be freed (to the tune of Thus Spake Zarathustra and the statement: "What a f--kin' day!").

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Flashdance (1983)

Adrian Lyne's MTV-style, feel-good hit with rock music by Giorgio Moroder and other hit tunes (Irene Cara's "Flashdance - What a Feeling" and Michael Sembello's "Maniac") showcased an independent-minded 18 year-old woman who had dreams of being a legitimate dancer.

The musical film popularized ripped off-the-shoulder baggy sweatshirts, aerobic dancing, street break dancing, and other fashion trends (ankle warmers, etc.) of the era. It also had some raunchy dialogue, such as: "Did you know that the smallest penis ever measured was 1.1 inches?" A sub-plot about a rescue of the heroine's friend Jeanie Szabo (Sunny Johnson) from a real nude strip club named Zanzibar, after the dancer had sold out on her own dreams, provided the film's brief and only glimpses of nudity.

The opening scene was an erotic one - of Pittsburgh welder and gorgeous erotic dancer Alexandra "Alex" Owens (Jennifer Beals in her first lead role, although quite a few of her scenes were performed by body double/ professional dancer Marine Jahan) in a wet skimpy red outfit in a quasi-strip club named Mawby's Bar. One of the most iconic images of all 80s films was of "Alex" on-stage, performing supine on a chair as water splashed down on her.

In one of the sleeper hit's well-publicized scenes, she removed her black bra from under her torn gray sweatshirt.

Later, there was a suggestive scene of Alex tantalizing older boyfriend (and steel mill boss) Nick Hurley (Michael Nouri) during a lobster dinner - while she was dressed in a black tux. She slowly nibbled and sucked soft pieces of seafood while making suggestive comments, and later on removed the tuxedo jacket, leaving the front piece of only a white shirt and cuffs without sleeves:

Nick: "How's the lobster?"
Alex: "It sucks."
Nick: "Want some of mine?"
Alex: "I'm not hungry, thanks."
Nick: "Whatever turns you on."
Alex: "What turns you on? (During the conversation, she moved her leg up under the table to tantalizingly touch his crotch with her stockinged toes.) You like phone booths?"
Nick: "Phone booths?"
Alex: "You probably just like doin' it in bed, right?..."

Alex's (Jennifer Beals) Lobster Dinner Seduction of Nick

Nick's ex-wife Kate (Belinda Bauer) showed up to introduce herself, and made insinuating comments about Alex's work as a welder and stripper. Alex removed her tuxedo coat, and candidly described her provocative first date with Nick: "I f--ked his brains out."

The Hunger (1983, UK)

Director Tony Scott's directorial debut film was this stylish, decadent and R-rated erotic film.

It included a controversial, lengthy soft-focus lesbian vampires sex scene in the sunlight of a late afternoon between two females with mutual attraction to each other:

• Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve), a seductively-elegant, centuries-old, immortal vampire queen
• Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), a butchy, sleep and aging researcher/scientist who was studying longevity

During a visit to Miriam's elegant NY townhouse, the doctor became Miriam's new healthy blood candidate/recruit - her latest courtship victim. She was offered a drink of sherry, while Miriam played The Flower Duet, "a love song" on the piano. Sarah suspiciously asked:

Sarah: "Are you making a pass at me, Mrs. Blaylock?"
Miriam: (correcting her) "Miriam."
Sarah: (repeating) "Miriam."
Miriam: "Not that I am aware of, Sarah."

When Sarah spilled a blood-red droplet of sherry on her white T-shirt (worn without a bra), she first daubed at it, and then was prompted to remove her top. Miriam gave her some soft Sapphic touches before a slow kiss and many other love-bites. In the very next scene, Sarah had removed all of her clothes except black panties, and was on a bed, where Miriam continued to kiss her and suck on her bare nipple.

During their sexual encounter, Sarah didn't realize that Miriam bit into her arm, causing a blood exchange. Miriam took on the new lover by mingling with her blood, and Sarah now had a bruised arm and was infused with "inhuman blood." Through tests, Sarah knew there was "some alien strain consuming my blood." She contronted Miriam: "What have you done to me?", and was reassured: "I've given you something you never dared dream of...Everlasting life...The blood in your veins is mine." She then said: "You belong to me. We belong to each other."

Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) and Dr. Roberts (Susan Sarandon): The Sexual Exchange of Kisses - and Blood

[Note: This sequence reportedly ushered in more lesbian vampire chic, keeping up the trend from earlier 'queer-horror' 70s films The Vampire Lovers (1970, UK), Daughters of Darkness (1971) (aka Les Lèvres Rouges), Vampyros Lesbos (1971), and Vampyres (1974) (aka Vampyres: Daughters of Darkness).]

The Key (1983, It.) (aka La Chiave)

Italian erotic director Tinto Brass' soft-core film was based on Junichiro Tanizaki's 1956 Japanese novel Kagi. The film included full-frontal nudity and erotic love-making scenes, featuring many shots of derrieres - one of Brass' favorite subjects.

The lushly photographed, stylistically-sleazy tale was banned by the Catholic Church for its torrid tale set in pre-WWII Venice, about a couple who wished to revive their withering sex lives after 20 years of marriage:

• Nino Rolfe (Frank Finlay), an aging husband and professor, kinky, cross-dresser
• Teresa (Stefania Sandrelli), Nino's younger wife, sexually-repressed

One technique to incite them was to write and read fantasies recorded in separate diaries. He also took naughty pictures of her while she slept. Nino discovered that Teresa was secretly attracted to their naive daughter Lisa's (Barbara Cupisti) fiancee, Laszlo Apony (Franco Branciaroli). He schemed to push his wife slowly into infidelity, conducting an affair with their future son-in-law. Nino's daughter Lisa was no match for her lusty, undraped mother-in-law.

Teresa (Stefania Sandrelli) with Son-in-Law Laszlo (Franco Branciaroli)

His goal was a great success and the changes in her were evident - he had been able to sexually liberate her with pleasure and reignite her (and his) libido - but it resulted ultimately in his stroke (while wearing his garter belt and stockings) from over-indulgence.

The Lonely Lady (1983)

Following her role in Butterfly (1982), Pia Zadora also starred in director Peter Sasdy's trashy The Lonely Lady (1983). It was the winner of six Razzie Awards (from eleven nominations), including Worst Picture and Worst Director. Zadora won another "Worst Actress" Razzie Award - her multiple Razzie Awards gave her the additional recognition years later as "Worst New Star of the Decade" of the 80s.

It was an adaptation of a Harold Robbins novel by Ellen Shepard, about "the story of a woman's struggle for fame in Hollywood." The trailer told about the main character - "determined to take nothing less than everything Hollywood has to offer."

• Jerilee Randall (Pia Zadora), a young and aspiring, award-winning Southern California Valley Girl screenwriter

In an early scene, Jerilee was honored for her accomplishments at a celebratory pool party. Teenaged bad boy Joe Heron (Ray Liotta in his feature film debut) joked that her high-school creative writing trophy looked like a penis, and then sexually assaulted her with a thick garden hose nozzle ("I'm gonna give you something special!"). Saved by prominent Hollywood screenwriter Walter Thornton (Lloyd Bochner), the father of one of the boys, she soon married him but suffered a failed marriage to the older, impotent man. She had enough as his trophy wife when he angrily taunted her with the garden hose regarding the earlier rape attempt and also his inability to perform: "Is this more your kick?"

Further, she experienced a series of degrading, and exploitative sexual encounters, and became pregnant by actor George Ballantine (Jared Martin) after giving him oral sex in a shower. She was forced to get an abortion, and then became associated with sleazy nightclub owner Vincent deCosta (Joseph Cali) who gave her a job as a hostess and promised to help produce her screenplay - but then became domineering. After telling him off: "If I write for anyone, Vinny, I write for me!", she ended up forgiving him and spent a decadent night of wild love-making with him.

Things went from bad to worse when she was pimped in a hotel room to an Italian producer and his international starlet, and upon her return to deCosta, found him snorting coke in his office and betraying her with two naked females. Her unread script was thrown in her face, and it caused her to suffer a nervous breakdown. The debilitating attack was depicted in a clothed shower sequence, and as she madly typed on the keys of her typewriter while surrounded by the swirling faces of those who had wronged her while crying out: "Damn you!" She had to be institutionalized.

Finally by film's end, she received a Best Original Screenplay award for her new, semi-autobiographical script titled The Hold Outs - a scathing expose of all her experiences in Hollywood. As she arrived at the awards ceremony, someone in the crowd snidely remarked: "She can't be anybody if she doesn't have an escort." During her acceptance speech, she brutally denounced the price she had to pay on her rise to fame:

"In this business, the price of success is very high, especially for a woman. I don't suppose I'm the only one who's had to f--k her way to the top."

After admitting she hadn't learned the meaning of self-respect, she refused the award, left the statue on the podium and stiffly stomped off by herself, amidst boos from the audience as the film ended.

One Deadly Summer (1983, Fr.) (aka L'Été Meurtrier)

This French erotic thriller and dark family drama from director Jean Becker told about a traumatized and unstable seductress, who was often naked in the film - both voluptuous and with evil intent by using sex as a weapon. The noirish melodrama was nominated for the Golden Palm award.

The main "deadly" fearless and tragic femme female was:

• Elaine Wieck (Isabelle Adjani), aka Elle, a gorgeous 20 year-old sexpot

She had moved to a small S. French village in the mid-1970s with her crippled father Gabriel Devigne (Michel Galabru) and her German mother Paula (Maria Machado). The tartish and free-spirited Elaine-Elle soon became the center of attention with her low-cut blouses and skimpy attire.

Seen with ambiguous flashbacks in part and with multiple narrators and points of view, her motive was to avenge the 20 year-old brutal rape of her mother by Italian immigrants including infatuated local auto mechanic Pin-Pon's (Alain Souchon) now-deceased father and two other men. She wished to unlock the secrets hidden in his family’s dusty player piano stored in a barn.

As it was revealed, the instrument was delivered by the men who raped her mother and led to her conception. Elle feigned pregnancy in order to trap Pin-Pon into marriage and settle the score.

Private School (1983) (aka Private School...for Girls)

The second in a series of Private... films by producer R. Ben Efraim, a voyeuristic sex farce (with a pop-tune soundtrack for numerous montages) that featured lots of teens, many of whom became future stars (Matthew Modine, Phoebe Cates, Betsy Russell, etc.), and Emmanuelle's Sylvia Kristel as sex education teacher Ms. Regina Copoletta.

The weak storyline was about all-girls private school student Christine Ramsey (Cates) at Cherryvale Academy whose boyfriend Jim Green (Modine) attended a nearby boys academy. There was romantic rivalry between Christine and competitive Jordan Leigh-Jenson (Betsy Russell) who often appeared in states of undress.

The most memorable scene in the film was a slow-motion, topless horseback ride by Jordan in order to attract attention. The elderly headmistress Miss Dutchbok (Fran Ryan) snidely but humorously made an eye-catching remark:

Jordan's (Betsy Russell) Ride: "That's the finest example of bareback riding I've ever seen."

One of the guys' pranks was to cut up the cheerleaders' uniforms so that when they performed on the field, their boobs popped out. Another was to peep on the girls - Jim and one of his piggish friends named Bubba Beauregard (Michael Zorek) snuck into the girls' school, where they peered through the window. They also dressed in drag on their way to the shower room (an obligatory scene in many of these teen comedies), where they also viewed many of the Schoolgirls, including: Playboy's busty Lynda Wiesmeier and future scream queen Brinke Stevens (with a brunette ponytail).

Obligatory Shower and Locker Room Scene of Schoolgirls
Lynda Wiesmeier		Brinke Stevens

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Risky Business (1983)

Writer/director Paul Brickman's effective and well-received teen sex comedy equated the rewards of sexuality and successful capitalistic enterprise.

It opened with a fantasy-dream sequence (narrated in voice-over) in which affluent college-bound, high-school senior Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise), living in a Chicago suburb, saw a strange young girl (Francine Locke credited as "Shower Girl") soaping up in a steamy shower in his neighbor's house (and non-chalantly requesting: "I want you to wash my back") while he was three hours late to his college board SAT exam. He thought to himself:

"...Finally, I get to the door and I find myself in a room full of kids taking their College Boards. I'm over three hours late! I've got two minutes to take the whole test. I've just made a terrible mistake. I'll never get to college. My life is ruined."

In the film's most famous exhibitionist-karaoke scene early in the film, Joel made a floor-sliding entrance into his living room where he danced in his tight white cotton underwear and long-sleeved pink-striped shirt and lip-synched to the tune of Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock & Roll" with an air-guitar.

To experience a good time while his parents were away, Joel decided to contact a call-girl referral ("It's what you want...It's what every white boy off the lake wants"). But first, during one masturbatory session gone awry (when he imagined himself making love on the kitchen table with a babysitter), the house was surrounded by police and his parents ("Get off the baby-sitter. Don't throw your life away like this") - it was evidence of his extreme worry about his future. To prove his manhood, he phoned hooker Lana (Rebecca DeMornay), gave her a fake name (Ralph), and his address for contact.

His first hot encounter with heart-of-gold prostitute Lana came later that evening after she rang his doorbell and let herself in. She entered his living room, and enticingly asked: "Are you ready for me, Ralph?" He helped remove her dress from the bottom up and revealed she was naked underneath, and as they kissed, the wind blew the patio doors open (a fantasy masturbatory dream sequence gone awry) and they made love on the stairs and on a rocking chair, to the tune of electronic music provided by Tangerine Dream - for a fee of $300 that she wished to collect the next morning.

Lana (Rebecca DeMornay): "Are You Ready For Me, Ralph?"

In another much later scene, Joel and Lana riskily and daringly became exhibitionists during a deserted, late-night, elevated CTA subway ride. Joel explained in voice-over: "She wanted to make love on a real train. Who was I to say no?" They began kissing - to the tune of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight." After all the other passengers vacated, they found themselves in an empty car where they could be more intimate and passionate, as the pounding rhythms of Tangerine Dream took over. He touched her thighs through her dress and slipped off her panties, while she unbuckled his pants. They made love while seated, as the train slipped quietly through the night.

The film was also noted for Miles' (Curtis Armstrong) repeated advice to Joel: "Sometimes you gotta say, 'What the f-k.' Make your move....Every now and then say, 'What the f--k.' What the f--k gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future."

Joel was involved with an extracurricular group at school called Future Enterprisers, so it would look good on his record for college (Princeton preferably, according to his father's wishes). Joel proved his business prowess by film's end. He had accepted Lana's idea to raise money (for her services, and to pay for repairs for his father's damaged Porsche) by transforming his parent's house into a brothel and making him a successful entrepreneur. He succeeded by both coming-of-age and by setting up the profitable brothel in his parent's home:

Joel: "My name is Joel Goodsen. I deal in human fulfillment. I grossed over eight thousand dollars in one night. The time of your life, huh, kid?"

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Screwballs (1983, Can.)

This Canadian film from director Rafal Zielinski was another low-brow teen comedy and a Porky's (1982) rip-off story, with the tagline: "The nuts who always score." The film's inferior sequel was Screwballs II: Loose Screws (1985).

It told about five male students at T & A (Taft & Adams) High School who were detained for sexual perversions. An early prank was a compulsory breast exam scene with a coed (Jennifer Inch), when the examiner Rick (Peter Keleghan) with a stethoscope proposed a "closer look" by removal of her bra ("these are very experienced hands").

The five students who were punished made a pact during detention for revenge against the female student responsible - to see the unclothed breasts of the last virgin in their class ("the last hold-out at T&A High") -- icy chaste blonde and reigning home-coming queen Purity Busch (Linda Speciale) by the time of the dance.

Their efforts seemed unnecessary, however, since the horny and mischievous Purity was observed in her bedroom hugging a large blue stuffed teddy bear to herself while fantasizing about sex.

Various attempts included:

• sneaking into her bedroom while she was sleeping
• hypnotically luring her to the indoor swimming pool changing room, where they used a giant pulsating weiner attached to a diving board; their efforts with Purity failed, although they ended up with two other girls (Astrid Hildebrandt and Kim Cayer) being stripped of their blue bikini tops on the diving board
• dressing in drag to try and get a glimpse

By the end credits, Purity was thankfully disrobed (via a powerful magnet machine that pulled her dress from her body) onstage in a patriotic setting, wearing a Statue of Liberty headpiece as she sang the national anthem

The Disrobing of Purity Busch (Linda Speciale)

There was plenty of other nudity in the film from the guys' "friendly" coeds:

• Rhonda Rockett (Terrea Foster), nude in the machine shop, who proposed to use a blow torch to extract a bowling ball caught on a male's member ("Hey guys, this always works"). The trick was for the females to excite the guy so much that he orgasmed and the ball shot off of him - "My first strike!" he exclaimed
• Bootsie Goodhead (Linda Shayne) - scenes of sex and strip bowling
• Raven DeLaCroix (or Miss Anna Tomical) - a strip scene with the busty female

One memorable, oft-quoted sequence was an exercise scene in which the teen girls exercised their pectorals during outdoor gym class, while chanting:

"We must, We must, We must develop our bust. The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys depend on us."

During hip-thrusting exercises, they also cried out: "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am," although Purity considered it "lewd, obscene, and nasty," while another was visibly turned on.

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Star 80 (1983)

Writer/director Bob Fosse's despairing pseudo-documentary final film was a realistic and unsettling biography (told with flashbacks and a portrayal of Hugh Hefner by Cliff Robertson) of Miss August 1979 centerfold and Playboy's Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten (by look-alike Mariel Hemingway enhanced with breast implants just before filming).

Mariel Hemingway Posing as Playboy's Playmate Dorothy Stratten

During the opening credits, there were shots of Hemingway portraying the nude playmate in various semi-naked poses, as she was heard in voice-over:

When the editor of Playboy told me I'd won Playmate of the Year, the first thing out of my mouth was, 'Are you sure?' (Question from interviewer: 'Did your brother mind you being in the magazine?') I think, uhm, my brother was a little shy, because he has friends who are 18 years old, 17 years old, who said that, you know, 'Hey! Your sister's in Playboy.' But his friends -
Well, I remember when I came home to visit the family, and they came over and they said, 'We couldn't believe it. We saw you in Playboy.' And they said, 'How'd you get in?' And 'it's so wonderful.' And then he started thinking that, you know, that, that that is pretty neat. You know, my sister --
Playboy's motto is The Girl Next Door. They look for girls that are wholesome and fresh and young and naive. They look for all of that, so most of those girls do, uh, have that type of background.
It took me five months to shoot my Playmate of the Year layout. I shot over 20,000 pictures. It's perfection. They don't go for just, uh, great nude shots. They go for art, perfect art, and I'm proud of that. And, uh, I'm happy to share that with somebody who can appreciate it.
(Question from interviewer: 'Would you like to be just like your sister when you grow up?') Yeah. ('Why?') Cause I'm proud of her.

Then she appeared in various other poses as the story was told, some snapped with a polaroid by her lunatic, exploitatively controlling, and jealous hustler-promoter-manager husband Paul Snider (Eric Roberts). He actually set up a "bizarre shrine" of all of her photos (and many of them showed them together) (as an interviewee confessed: "Frankly, I thought it was a little like a soap opera"), and Dorothy eventually demanded a divorce from him: "I want more freedom...Things change. I'm not the same girl I was in Vancouver." She had become estranged from Snider and was dating director Aram Nicholas (Roger Rees) (a fictionalized version of Peter Bogdanovich who directed her in They All Laughed (1981)).

It was a tragic account of the aspiring, beautiful, naive and sexy actress who brutally lost her life (on August 14, 1980) at age 20 in a double murder-suicide committed by the drunken Snider.

The Grisly and Tragic Double Murder-Suicide

A Summer in St. Tropez (1983, Fr.) (aka Un été à Saint-Tropez)

Writer/director David Hamilton's lyrical, soft-core hour-long film contained no dialogue, although there was added music on the soundtrack. Other similar films by Hamilton included Bilitis (1977), Tendres Cousines (1980), and Premiers Desirs (1984) (aka First Desires).

British photographer Hamilton had established a reputation for making erotic films featuring scantily-clad young teenaged women exhibiting innocent and romantic fun. He engendered considerable controversy and was often accused of child pornography for his work.

Hazy Images of Young Scantily-Clad Girls

In this hazily-photographed, slow-paced film without a plot that was set during a carefree and idyllic two days of summer at a remote St. Tropez country house, eight sensual and playful pubescent girls unself-consciously slept and awoke, groomed, showered and bathed naked, ate meals, rode on horseback and on bicycles, did laundry, practiced ballet, ran nude in slow-motion along the coast, engaged in pillow-fights, picked flowers, went on a picnic together and played a game of hide-and-seek, and took a wagon ride.

There were only a few brief moments of sensual touching (of each other's breasts) or kissing between the girls.

One of the girls, Joan, appeared to be having a serious romance with young male garden worker Renaud, and there was one scene of their kissing each other atop straw as he gently touched her naked body and breast - and then in the next scene they were married in a church ceremony (with the other girls serving as bridesmaids). The couple sailed off together from the shore as the film ended.

All of the girls were identified in the closing credits with a still shot from the film: Joan, Catherine, Esther, Monika, Ellen, Anne, Helene, and Cyrille.

Trading Places (1983)

Director John Landis' popular lampooning screwball comedy concerned the long-standing debate of hereditary-nature vs. environment-nurture.

The social satire with mature content told about a reversal of roles, and "trading places" between two unequals, as part of a $1 bet and "scientific experiment" - [Note: the two were both cast members of Saturday Night Live, although at differing times]:

• Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), a homeless yet wily con artist
• Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd), a snobbish Wall Street commodity broker

Jamie Lee Curtis as Hooker Ophelia

The film was best remembered for the topless nudity displayed by young Jamie Lee Curtis as a sympathetic hooker with a heart of gold named Ophelia, who vowed she was drug-free and didn't have a pimp. The lady-of-the-night befriended the un-street-smart downcast loser and unsuspecting victim Louis, and allowed him to stay at her "dump" of a place. After removing her top in a mirror, she turned, covered her breasts, and advised him: "By the way, food and rent are not the only things around here that cost money. You sleep on the couch," although at one point, she stripped down to a thong and got in bed with him.

Videodrome (1983)

Director David Cronenberg's dark "body horror" (or bio-horror) film involved kinky sexuality, extreme S&M and orgiastic mutilation, and reality-manipulating TV. It had a memorable phrase: "Long live the new flesh" and contained many symbolic images of sexuality. The film's title was the name of a pirated film on a VCR cassette from the Pittsburgh underground - a depraved torture/snuff film.

The story was about sleazy cable TV programmer Max Renn (James Woods) of X-rated Channel 83 in Toronto, which aired soft-core pornography and violent content. Max desired to acquire and broadcast the pirated VCR cassette of "Videodrome." Renn didn't know that he was being used by the villainous forces behind Videodrome - the Spectacular Optical Corporation (and Videodrome's producer), headed by Chief of Special Programs Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson). Renn was deceived into watching (and becoming hooked on) Videodrome because Spectacular Optical (with the motto "Keeping An Eye on the World") wanted to seize and take over his Channel 83 TV station to broadcast its signal to the masses ("It can be a giant hallucination machine, and much much more!").

A mind-controlled Renn began to become infected due to his own TV watching (that seduced and controlled him), leading to his brain mutating and developing tumors, and he was experiencing many disturbing, mind-altering sights. Exposure to the Videodrome film caused carcinogenic tumors that triggered hallucinations in Max. Sexual imagery included a vaginal-like slit or womb-wound orifice that opened in his abdomen (into which he could insert his entire hand holding a gun) as he became an organic video-recorder. He could be both "raped" and "programmed" by the villains forcefully inserting videotapes inside his body to "play" him.

In the film's most notable scene, Max watched a videocassette of Videodrome's origins on his TV set (including the strangulation of Videodrome pioneer Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley)), revealing the black-hooded executioner as Nicki - his future 'girlfriend'. She beckoned Max:

"Come to me now. I'm Nicki. Don't keep me waiting."

Her seductive red lips enlarged on his TV screen (the set itself undulated, pulsated, formed engorged veins, and moaned as if sexually-aroused). He submissively fell to his knees and pushed his own lips into the enlarged and bulging image to kiss them -- a symbolic metaphor for oral sex (cunnilingus), as he was sucked into the image.

He also engaged in a torrid, S&M romance with self-help radio personality Nicki Brand (rock star Deborah Harry or Blondie) - their first encounter in Max's apartment revealed her interest in sadism and voyeurism when she encouraged him to play the cassette "Videodrome." During this early encounter after she proposed: "Wanna try a few things?", they laid naked in bed (as the video played in the background). He picked up a long needle and traced it along Nicki's legs and torso, and then pierced her earlobe with it. In another infamous scene in an act of protest against Max, she stubbed out Max's lighted cigarette on her left bare breast, leaving a burn mark that looked like a third nipple.

Kinky S&M Between Max (James Woods) and Nicki (Deborah Harry)
Earlobe Piercing
Cigarette Branding

Womens Prison Massacre (1983, It./Fr.) (aka Blade Violent, Emanuelle in Prison (UK) or Emanuelle Fuga Dall'Inferno (It.), or Emmanuelle Escapes From Hell))

This trashy Italian women-in-prison (WIP), in the "women behind bars" sub-genre, was a grindhouse sexploitation film from Italian director Bruno Mattei. There were a number of similar WIP films that were generated in the late 60s to 90s, such as these:

• 99 Women (1969)
• Love Camp 7 (1969)
• The Big Doll House (1971)
• Women in Cages (1971)
• The Big Bird Cage (1972)
• The Hot Box (1972)
• Women in Cell Block 7 (1973)
• Caged Heat (1974)
• Women Behind Bars (1975)
• Ilsa films: including Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975), Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976), Wanda: The Wicked Warden (1977), Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia (1977)
• Barbed Wire Dolls (1976)
• The Gestapo's Last Orgy (1977)
• Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977, It.)
• Women in Cellblock 9 (1977)
• Escape From Hell (1980)
• Amazon Jail (1982)
• Caged Fury (1983)
• Chained Heat (1983) and Chained Heat 2 (1993)
• Jungle Warriors (1984)
• Red Heat (1985)

This film was actually unrelated to the series of "Black Emanuelle" films (some claimed it was the last of the series), although it starred Laura Gemser (who was clothed throughout the film). She starred as investigative journalist Emanuelle who was framed (on drug charges) and imprisoned in a rough and violent institution after exposing a corrupt government politician-official.

The WIP film opened with a play being staged by three female prisoners, one of whom was Emanuelle. During the performance, blonde, bitchy jailyard bully Albina (Ursula Flores), who was always favored by the Warden Colleen (Lorraine de Selle), objected and staged a food fight. It was the first of a number of conflicts between Emanuelle and Albina, including an arm-wrestling match and a vicious knife fight in the prison yard (Albina was stabbed in the leg).

Typical of these films was a requisite soft-core lesbian sex and women's shower scene with a naked and slutty Irene (Antonella Giacomini) and her dark-haired lesbian lover Laura (Maria Romano). They were ratted out by Albina (who accused her fellow inmates: "These two pigs were kissing in front of everyone...they acted like dogs in heat and need to be cooled down and given a lesson in modesty"). The two offenders were roughly reprimanded - cooled down and half-drowned by having their heads repeatedly dunked in cold sink water.

Infamous Razor Blade-in-Crotch Castration Scene with Laura (Maria Romano)

In the film's roughest and most infamous scene, Laura took razor-cutting revenge. She stuck a sharp razor blade into a cork and then painfully inserted it into her crotch. During the next seductive rape scene, she enticed escaped male convict Helmut 'Blade' von Bauer (Pierangelo Pozzato), one of four psychopathic death row convicts who had taken over the prison (when temporarily imprisoned there), to have intercourse with her, although she was savagely choked to death.