Sunday Cinema
Yes, it's nearly St. Valentine's Day, the holiday on which we celebrate romance, the third-largest retail holiday (per the National Retail Federation, the average consumer will spend $97.27 on Valentine's Day). But instead of giving your sweetie a dozen roses, a box of chocolates, or a diamond encrusted bra from Victoria's Secret ( $10 million -- catalog model extra), we suggest that you give him or her the Subliminal Cinema chapter about weird sex. The first part's free, kid! (And it's by Scott C.)
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Weird Sex, or: Making the Beast with Two Backs with the Beast with Two Backs
Sexuality is a natural and healthy part of life—unless you happen to be watching Marilyn Chambers in Older Women, Hotter Sex at two in the morning, in which case just change your sheets and call me when you’ve sobered up. But as a society, we do a mighty poor job of imparting the facts about human sexuality to our young, and this is probably why so many of them think The Back Street Boys are heterosexual (you’d think the name alone…).
Some children who pose innocent questions about where babies come from are told by flustered parents that when a couple loves each other very much, the daddy plants a seed inside the mommy and a baby grows in her tummy. As well-intentioned as this explanation might be, it frequently results in the child’s life-long dread of accidentally swallowing watermelon seeds and getting pregnant, as well as the wish that Daddy would plants radishes instead of little-brother seeds this year, and a suspicion that if some sort of modern threshing equipment were used during harvesting, Mommy’s per-hectare yield would increase exponentially.
Other children learn the facts of life on the playground, thus ensuring that alpha male Trevor, who relentlessly beats all challengers to the top of the monkey bars, will successfully pass on his genes, once his testicles drop. But a lot of misinformation is passed along too, like that you can’t get pregnant your first time, that excessive masturbation can cause blindness, and that mixing Pop Rocks and Coke can blow your head off. So, if we want to avoid unwanted pregnancies, unwarranted fears, and tragic head explosions, we need to provide kids with accurate, readily available information about sex.
And that’s where movies come in. Hollywood has traditionally offered our eager youth detailed instruction in sexual activities such as French kissing, orgasm-faking, and how to apply a sheet to your breasts so it sticks like a mustard plaster.
But movies also teach about the perils of sex. A Summer Place shows that teen-age intercourse can lead to unplanned pregnancies. It also informs us that the State of Maine penal code makes deflowering Sandra Dee a Class B Felony. The Friday the 13th series depicts young couples engaging in illicit sex while a maniac watches through a crack in the blinds and then kills them in various gruesome ways, thus reinforcing traditional values like chastity and the need for good window treatments. Goldfinger imparts the important lesson that sexy women are always wicked (but really, who can blame them—imagine the teasing an 8-year-old Pussy Galore must have undergone at recess).
So, instead of sending the girls to the Home Ec room to watch "Growing Up and Getting Your Monthly Curse" while the boys troop off to the gym to watch "Wet Dreams: Nature’s Way of Telling You You’re Evil," we think that a good sex education program should involve showing adolescents old B-movies. Because that’s how we learned about sex, and we turned out just fine, as far as you know!
But there are some movies that we don’t recommend as replacements for Dr. Ruth or Masters and Johnson. These are the movies about weird sex. No, we’re not talking about Penthouse Forum here; we’re talking about interplanetary sex. Undead sex. Sex with Doug McClure. Outré, debauched, and anatomically impossible stuff that could easily warp a child’s tender sensibilities. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we can’t wallow in it like pigs oinking around in their own filth. Let’s face it, even the most loving of partners can grow bored with a steady diet of vanilla sex, and may need to rekindle passion by occasionally trying something wild and nasty, like French vanilla. So get set for a tour of Hollywood’s Red Light District. First stop: The Deadly and the Beautiful, which illustrates that the brain is the most important sex organ. And that, unfortunately, Viagra doesn’t work on it.
Please, kids, don’t try this stuff at home.
(The Belgian poster for Wonder Women. The French title translates to Red Fingernails, Thighs of Steel. While Babel Fish doesn't translate Flemish, using the "Dutch to English" feature we get a title of Red Nagles and Stolen Buttocks.)
The Deadly and the Beautiful (1973)
(a.k.a. Wonder Women, a.k.a Women of Transplant Island)
Directed by: Robert Vincent O’Neill
Written by: Robert Vincent O’Neill, Lou Whitehill
There have been several great baseball movies and a handful of memorable football films over the years. Even track and field has inspired pictures like Personal Best and Chariots of Fire. But one sport above all is indisputably made for the big screen: Jai alai. Just imagine the thrill of plunking down $8.50 to watch two guys play catch with raisin scoops, and you can understand the excitement with which we viewed The Deadly and the Beautiful. Alas, the jai alai match that opens this film is a classic piece of bait-and-switch, and before long we find ourselves knee-deep in a Ross Hagen movie.
A jai alai player emerges from the championships in Manila, and is promptly shot by a tranquilizer dart. The audience expects him to be radio-tagged and released to continue his migration; instead, he’s abducted by two hot babes disguised as Joey Bishop.
The twin Joeys rendezvous with two sinister confederates--a blonde dressed like Heidi and a black woman whose Afro was apparently designed by R. Buckminster Fuller. In a hideous scene reminiscent of The Premature Burial, the victim is sealed inside a coffin while peppy calliope music plays on the soundtrack. The coffin is shoved into a hearse, and the kidnappers roar off a high speed. Random shots of a Ferris wheel increase the tension. Meanwhile, at Super Villain World Headquarters and Community College, mad doctor Nancy Kwan is performing surgery while dressed in John Travolta’s Saran Wrap suit from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Back at the kidnapping, the Gal Joeys perform a striptease in the back seat of the hearse to the accompaniment of the song "Wonder Women." Random shots of bra straps and breathable cotton panels increase the tension.
The coffin arrives, and Dr. Nancy, who has changed into a nun’s habit from The Sound of Music, examines the victim. She is seeking immortality, and has developed a serum that will startle the scientific world by allowing her to transplant the brain of a jai alai player into the body of a snooker champion.
Meanwhile, ex-CIA agent, ex-LAPD detective, and all-around tough guy Ross Hagen arrives at the airport and immediately acquaints himself with the gaily-festooned jitneys of Manila. Lloyds of London hires Ross to find the missing jai alai champ, who was insured for millions of dollars against fire, theft, collision, and unwanted brain transplants.
Nancy meets with a dirty old man in a wheelchair. For an exorbitant price, she will transplant his brain into the body of the kidnapping victim, thereby creating a dirty old jai alai player.
Back at the dorms, the Gal Joeys are debating whether Dr. Nancy’s "brain sex" is superior to intercourse, since it eradicates both emotional dependencies and the wet spot. The discussion becomes heated, and the girls nearly come to blows. Random shots of chess pieces, bikini bottoms, and maple syrup increase the confusion.
To settle the issue, they go Nancy’s storehouse of previous abductees, defrost some men without brains (the popular but stupid Australian pop band), and have sex with them.
Meanwhile, Ross is attacked by Nancy’s hired thugs, sparking the most lethargic foot chase since "T.J. Hooker."
Our next stop is a cockfight. While the soundtrack swells with music stolen from a porn movie, the viewer pauses to marvel. Jai alai. Cockfights. Why doesn’t ESPN broadcast from the Philippines 24 hours a day?
Dr. Nancy, who’s now dressed like Raquel Welch in Fathom, takes a stroll through the frozen Hunk section of her grocer’s freezer, and selects one for transplant. But Gal Joey Vera wants to have sex with him before he completely thaws out. It’s the third time this week, apparently, but Vera is addicted to the practice, as it allows her to act like a slut while still remaining frigid.
One of the Joeys walks into a bar, and Ross--who has apparently acquired a hot comb, since his hair is now fearlessly exploring the limits of the Dry Look--gives her his foolproof pick-up routine: He hands her a glass of Tang, then seductively eats a maraschino cherry to symbolize his hopes that he’ll be losing his virginity tonight.
Soon, Ross is snug beneath the covers while the girl kneels on the bed in her underwear and pecks at his face in a wan effort to arouse him. Meanwhile, the director tries to set a sultry mood by blasting the theme from "Sanford and Son" on the soundtrack.
Naturally, this all culminates in the girl trying to shoot Ross with a tranquilizer gun, but Ross would rather jump on the bed and have a pillow fight. When she kicks his ass, however, our hero tries to shoot her in the back with a sawed-off shotgun. Failing, he falls down a flight of stairs.
Ross and his jitney-driving sidekick take the Joey back to the Island of Dr. Nancy. As they disembark from the canoe, Ross pauses for a boring argument with the sidekick. The girl takes this opportunity to make a break for it and saunter to freedom. When the two men finally look up and discover she’s gone, Ross is dumbfounded. The sidekick is moved to observe, "She’s very tricky."
Meanwhile, an army of Joeys pour out of Evil Junior College, armed with machine guns and outfitted for jungle warfare in saffron mini-dresses. They race into the bush and proceed to hunt Ross down like a snipe. Ross runs away; stumbles; fires aimlessly into the foliage, and looks perplexed. Random shots of the Rorschach-like sweat stains on Ross’s leisure suit increase the queasiness.
The Gal Joeys capture Ross and take him at gunpoint to the Banquet Room of the Route 46 Ramada Inn in Teaneck, New Jersey. Dr. Nancy, who’s now dressed like That Girl, explains her evil scheme while Ross is forced to eat a party hat.
They tour the facility, and for some reason, Ross begins to sashay, his elbows and wrists bent and fingers splayed, as though waiting for his nail polish to try. Despite this, Nancy slaps an air filter on his head, and the two of them have "brain sex." At last, we’re finally given a chance to see what this mysterious erotic technique looks like. Unfortunately, Ross can’t get his brain up.
Eventually, the sexual tension reaches a fever pitch as Nancy falls asleep, and Ross squirms obscenely on a vinyl loveseat until he soils himself.
Sticky but undaunted, Ross escapes and corners Dr. Nancy, who destroys herself in a spectacular explosion of Gold Medal flour.
Safely back in Manila, Ross gets a $100,000 check from Lloyds of London, and promptly blows it all on a drunken hooker. Living up to his well-established reputation for virility, Ross spends the rest of the movie playing chess with the well-compensated prostitute, while she stares uncomprehendingly at the board and fondles a pear stem.
Random shots of rooks, bathrobes, and wax fruit increase the tension headache I’m getting. The End.
2:20:46 AM 
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