Can this be the craziest dream sequence...

... ever to grace the screen of an adult film?


































































Crazy, eh?

I feel particularly dumbfounded by the milk squirting from Cinderella's breasts. Can it be a statement on mortality and the fleetingness of youth? A manifestation of fertility? Probably the yearning for the fulfilment of carnal needs that would surely tempt a young recluse on the brink of missing the hotter event of her sheltered life: the Prince's Ball.

In this light, we could read this scene as the fear - the surrounding forest that spits out this aging satyr, as well as her cruel stepsisters - of being forever under the boot of her elders, subject to every form of humiliation and degradation, never being able to enjoy life and youth. The milk spurting from her tender younger breasts would signify both her obvious sexual fertility and the fear of ending as an old matron, milked by all those around her.

Be as it may, it is a scene fit to rival with the famous pastoral romp on Borowczyk's LA BÊTE (1975), another dream sequence filled to the brim with squirting fluids. And, surely, it is the craziest dream sequence ever.

Or is it?

Keeping Centinella

I was just watching HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN (1987), when it came to me that I had never noticed how beautiful an actress Cec Verrell really is. A rapid search through the actress's roster of movies on the IMDB quickly told me why: Ms. Verrell must be the most underused actress in the history of B-movies. Now, I must confess I've never seen any of her other films (although I sure intend to, now), and even in FROGTOWN, she isn't given much to do with her role. Despite a totally needless, gratuitous - but oh so welcome nude scene - she keeps such a debonair that clearly elevates her performance above the camp value of the movie itself.

Clad in the most ravishing set of post-apocalyptic military garb that clearly ante-dates Milla Jovovich's in RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION (2007), she quickly out-shines Sandahl Bergman, herself sporting a wonderful wardrobe, both as the nerdy science type and the daring secret agent in safari garb or erotic dancer robes (no nude scene, alas).

And few actresses can look as good in military garb - remember how dreadful Demi Moore looked in G.I. JANE (1997)? - caressing the M-60 heavy machine gun as if was a trained pet, or wearing ammunition-belts as if they were Cleopatra's bejewelled necklaces. But above all, I was smitten by the playfulness with which she imbued her performance. As if she was there just to lend a little light to the movie; better, as if she was in altogether different movie, looking down with warmth on the silly proceedings.

Maybe it's her classic visage, the short hair, the summer blue eyes... Or, probably, that coy little smile, so simple and so alluring, telling us that although she could (should) be in so much better films, with so much more deserving and rewarding roles, she will still give her best in this wacky exercise on sci-fi camp. And to give her best she needs but to smile, like Gioconda before her, to warm our hearts.

Hot Summer swim

There's a moment where form meets perfection, where zig complements zag, where the wave laps the sky in an embrace of endless blue. We're given one such moment to contemplate, while miss Alba turns cool refreshing water into a blue-burning liquid furnace. And the ocean stands still, thankful for such a gift. Nature, subdued, turns playful, welcoming that desirable mermaid that stuffs the dreams of all us land-imprisoned sailors.

Hell, it's hot outside...

She died a little that night

If one is to believe it, death is the first step into transcendence. Well, the French said it better, when they called sexual orgasm la petite mort (the little death). And I can't remember a more convincing and ecstatic orgasm then the one this beautiful lady conveys in an unforgettable scene from Joe Sarno's VIBRATIONS (1968), after being inflamed from the animal love-making sounds that filtered from next door through the wall of her bedroom.

If she surely died a little that day, she will live forever in our memory, as an affirmation of unrestrained beauty and joy, through the radiant whites that Sarno used to paint the complicit shadows.

She's got the look

Surely no one today can deny that Joe Sarno is an aesthete. His earlier movies are chiaroscuro compositions of shadows cut by radiant whites; his later movies, are candy-colored explosions of subdued meaning. All his films are dynamic odes to the beauty of the female body and to the complex mental workings of the beings inhabiting them. Each and all of Sarno's characters have depth, an history that demands viewer empathy. And the story on-screen is most vividly detailed when seen through his character's eyes; for they are the windows through which viewer expectations are juggled by the master trickster.

Case in point: SIN IN THE SUBURBS (1964). In less capable hands it would be just another boring story about bored housewives in search of a passion that can substitute for their absent working husbands, their escapades obsessively timed by the train schedule, the weather or the unexpected appearance of their daughter's boyfriend, tick-tocking down the slope that will eventualy lead them into a world of sex clubs and anonymous lovers. With Sarno holding the helm, it becomes a captivating study of social mores, loneliness and need. Among the couples whose stories we're invited to partake, Audrey Campbell (later famous for the OLGA series of films) gives a fascinating performance as a housewife and mother of a teenage girl, driven by loneliness and boredom to the arms of whomever happens to be at hand. These ephemeral substitutes, however, prove to be as boring as loneliness itself.

In an unrivaled moment of frustration, during one of the afternoon reunions in her home where she entertains a man (her lover) and another couple, and with this other couple already upstairs, she manifests to her lover the growing sense of frustration and routine that begins to tarnish their 'relationship'. While he remains nonchalant, she dares him to go watch the other couple's lovemaking. And there, standing near the bed, looking down on the lovemaking couple, on the steaming sex (conveyed through sound alone), we see in her eyes the need, the hunger, the desire, the great void that is consuming her. We sense that she is feasting upon their ardeur, rekindling a fire that burns intense and oh so fast.

And we keep watching her eyes although her lover is fleetingly touching her breasts...

... unbuttoning her dress...

... kissing her earlobe...

... her neck...

... removing her bra...

It's her eyes that held us, although her nipples are peeking from under her arms, it's her eyes, it's her look, as she shows us what's going down on the bed - hot, passionate lovemaking - that draws her like a moth to a flame, that draws her as her eyes draw us into her, until she finally joins the contorting bodies and we don't see her eyes anymore.

But we know she's happy, at least for a fleeting moment. And we rejoice with her, for through her, we've also made love to the couple on the bed, made love to her...

And we're left to always search for that look on a woman's eyes again.

A new beginning

And so, dear readers (if really there's anyone out there), from now on my humble blog will thread under a new name. The reason for the change? Well, I just thought I was in need of a new beginning, after almost a complete year of near inactivity.

The aim of it will still be the same: to explore the darkest fantasies of the male psyche. Or, if one does not want to sound very presumptuous, just to let ourselves be drawn by the strange and exciting allure of the feminine body and mind in danger. Sexual danger.

And what better image to convey the complex web of contradictions, dark sexual charisma, and power of the threatened female than this publicity photo of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (Cassandra Petersen)? She's imprisoned in a dark and forbidding dungeon (doesn't blue lighting and fake smoke work wonders when one wants to build an oppresive atmosphere?), arms shackled and extended above her head (exposing her vulnerability by the way her breasts are thrust forward, threatening to spill out of her low cut gown), subject to the whims of whoever has captured her. And yet... the look on her eyes; the hauteur. Defying, demanding, indifferent to danger. That's the true power of the undiminished female hero.

We Men may want to possess her, we may force ourselves upon her... we may even rape her... but she is, and still will be a creature of power.

And we, her humble subjects.

I fell in love with Amy Amanda Allen...

... as soon as I saw THE RABBIT WHO ATE LAS VEGAS (Episode 7, Season 1, 1983). Although that isn't entirely true. Melinda Culea, who plays Triple A in the cult series The A-Team (1983-1989) is one of those actresses whose screen presence is charged with that kind of sensuality that makes one both want to cuddle and do dirty things to her, irrespectively of which one does first. Although her character, a journalist, was the pivotal element that led the viewer to the A-Team in the two-parter first episode of the series, she wasn't given much to do in the following episodes... that is, besides being pretty eye-candy with a promise of intellectual depth. Not withstanding, her interplay with the other characters (specially with Dwight Schultz's Howling Mad Murdock) is always funny and nice, and it was not gladly that we saw her disappear from the series after only 25 episodes.

So, in truth, I fell in love with Amy Amanda Allen from the start. Who can resist a sexy investigative reporter that follows doggedly a crack commando unit, surviving as soldiers of fortune, to engage them in a foreign mission and than has the gall to blackmail them into accepting her as one of them? Not I, rest assured.

And she was sexy from start of episode one, wearing a pink dress on a Mexican beach, smiling that warm smile of hers, playing at being the all-american sweet-heart. But it wasn't until episode 7 that she got to wear an unforgettable mini-skirt, carried in Face's arms. Man, the way the light played on her stockinged lithe legs... Everything in her was luminous sensuality, from the red suede boots to the dark patch of panties peeking from the shadowed valley of unfulfilled promises between her shapely thighs.

Amy would ware some other mini-skirts and short-dresses on later episodes of the show. Bu you know what they say: there's no love like the first love, and no memory moment carries more magic than that one.

We miss you Amy.