Reviews and Commentary:
The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig
Background Information
Long considered a lost classic, The Erotic Memoirs of A Male Chauvinist Pig (1973), is now available on DVD. A combination art/porn film, it literally pushes the bounds of all taboos, while remaining an entertaining film and a great example of an X-rated grindhouse classic.
This legendary film is a wildly fascinating throwback to the early years of explicit "Triple X" theatrical feature films. It was shot in 1973, before VHS, DVD and the Internet, when the only way to see porn was in an actual movie theater or a silent 8mm loop –often projected on a bed sheet!
The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig is definitely is one of the more atypical XXX features of its day. The performances are strong, the concept is legitimately interesting and the movie is quite well made.
It was intended as a satirical black comedy but was almost never perceived as such. The existential plot recounts the story of a misogynist and his travails with a series of women while exploiting all manner of taboos along the way. Written and directed by R. C. Hörsch (aka Ray Hoersch), it features the cream of East Coast pioneering adult film talent including Georgina Spelvin, Helen Madigan (aka Helen Mathews), Tina Russell, Darby Lloyd Rains, Paul Taylor and Any Mathieu (aka Any Hunter).
It was filmed in and around Philadelphia and the principal location was the Chestnut Hill home of a local Assistant District Attorney. Other notable locations include the actual Hahnemann Hospital emergency waiting room, the infamous Locust Street "Bag of Nails" go-go bar and a vintage SEPTA trolley.
Production financing was reportedly through the infamous Sam (The Barber) Larussa and its Philadelphia premier (complete with search lights) was at the luxurious, first-run 1812 Theater on Chestnut Street (now a CVS pharmacy), was attended by many city dignitaries who gave it an actual standing ovation. Al Goldstein, writing in Penthouse and , said it was well made but called the sex in the film "Disgusting." Distributed by the legendary Sam Lake (Mature Pictures, Inc.), it achieved #38 in the nationwide Billboard
The plot revolves around a man named Barney (Paul Taylor), a man with a compulsive obsession which requires him to record all of his thoughts on the fly by way of the tape recorder he seems to have on him at all times. When we meet him, he explains by way of his internal narration, that he’s been through three wives already and is now engaged to a forth – a woman named Alice (Georgina Spelvin). Barney makes some sort of living, we assume, as an artist specializing in three dimensional pieces of erotic art – they hang over his bed to the left and right of an existential sign that says ‘I Fuck, Therefore I Am.’ As Barney says, sex is everything. It seems odd then that he’s already bored with Alice. She comes out of the bathroom one night dressed in leather and brandishing a whip and it’s all he can do to feign a reaction. When she tells him she wants to be raped, not pretend raped but really raped, he begrudgingly agrees but doesn’t really seem too into the idea.
And why should he? Sex comes easily to Barney from other sources. There’s the schoolgirl who shows up to give him head (Helen Madigan) without asking anything in return and there’s the foxy brunette named Susan Tina Rusell) who lets him come over and watch her play with herself. She doesn’t want anything more than that, but doesn’t mind if he takes matters into his own hands while he watches. And then there’s his friend Eddie, who calls him up to hang out one night. When Barney makes a crack about Eddie’s promiscuous past, his wife (Darby Lloyd Rains) responds by leaving for a brief moment and then coming back in lingerie. At this point she ties Eddie to the chair, crams her panties into his mouth and screws Barney right in front of her husband. Complicating matters is the presence of a Brazilian stripper named Christine (Any Mathieu credited as Amy Hunter). They talk when Barney shows up to watch her, completely by chance, at a dive bar where she performs. She boosts his wallet but, with up with no place to stay, she returns it to him, sans the cash, in hopes that he’ll let her crash. He’ll let her into his bed, of course, but no, he’s not going to let her stay longer than it takes him to get off. As all of this is going on, there is still the lingering matter of Alice’s request that he has to contend with. What’s a man to do…
This one is pretty twisted and definitely not your average seventies adult feature. Barney’s narration, which is as nihilistic as it is self-serving and chauvinistic, carries the film and links the sexual encounters that make up a good portion of the movie. At the same time, those scenes of copulation don’t always appear to be legitimately played for the purposes of arousal. They’re often quite quick and often performed for satyrical and comedic purposes. The most obvious example of that being a scene where Barney goes down on Alice while she talks… and talks… and talks. She’s not in the least bit aroused or into what he’s doing, but he goes at it dutifully because, well, he fucks and therefore he is.
The sense of humor that runs throughout the film is more effective than the sexuality of the picture. A scene in which Christine approaches Barney at the bar to get a bit of money out of him in exchange for some fun is handled well and shows interesting character traits in both parties, while the scene in which Barney visits Eddie only to get some surprise action from his wife is also pretty funny not just in content but in execution. A few odd angles are used here to accentuate the more unusual aspects of this situation. Also rather amusing is the scene in which Alice is eventually surprised by an intruder in the house. She reacts just as you’d think she would, chastising ‘Barney’ for being so predictable despite the obvious effort there to give her what she’s explicitly told him she wants. The movie makes some interesting observations about the lengths that couples can and do go to in order to keep things interesting in the bedroom, though it does so with more than just a little bit of jaded satire.
The performances are strong across the board here, with Spelvin and Taylor really turning in great work. The supporting cast members are also strong, but for the most part our two leads do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Spelvin’s character is a bit vapid and we don’t necessarily understand why she’s into Barney, but it never matters all that much. She’s funny and charming in that way that Spelvin can be when given good material to work with. Taylor does a great job here, offering up the narration with just the right amount of distanced disdain for his subjects, and the dialogue is written well enough to provide sufficient comic relief. Though the sex scenes do go into some rougher territory here – rape, golden showers, and even some blood – this one plays more as a strange, comedic satire than as a straight up traditional sex film. However, that doesn’t take away from its merits or its entertainment value. Definitely one of a kind!
