One day I read in the paper that a new French movie was opening called THE GAME IS OVER. The review mentioned that Jane Fonda starred and was naked in quite a few scenes. This I HAD to see!It was only playing at one art theater on La Brea in Hollywood. Damn! Why couldn’t it be at the Baronet (the local art theater that showed Fellini films to empty seats)?
I knew mom and dad wouldn’t let me borrow the car to see Jane Fonda’s vagina on the big screen and besides, it was only playing “over the hill” (anything not in the San Fernando Valley was considered "over the hill". But when you're nervous about driving that "hill" might as well have been the Andes).
So I convinced Lester Nafybal who worked with me at Wallichs Music City and was a grown up at 19 to take me in exchange for gas, dinner, and tickets.
Ohmygod!
If God can create a creature like this and in His divine mercy allow me to see her naked on a diving board, then He must truly exist.
For several days after I walked with a swagger. Yes, I was still a virgin and no, that wasn’t about to change anytime soon – but I was different, changed. I had become a man. I had seen a French movie.
"I Am Curious (Yellow)" was the big Swedish foreign film that was all the rage in New York in 1967 for mixing in both an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King into a film showing hot Swedish babes having sex (I think the director's goal was to give J. Edgar Hoover a coronary). While it came out a year before the G-M-R-X ratings debuted, at the age of 9 I was both a little too young to make the trip to the midtown theater showing the flick, and wasn't quite sure what the big deal about some yellow woman who couldn't speak English was (nine-year-olds were so naive back then).
ReplyDeleteHowever, four years later, I had figured out why it was worth sneaking in to see Ann Margaret and her endless cleavage in "Carnal Knowledge" (the secret being to cut school and go to an early afternoon showing, where there are fewer witnesses around to see them taking your money than a weekend night show).
Unless a speculum was involved, I'm pretty sure you wanted a glimpse of Fonda's vulva--not her vagina. (And undoubtedly settled for a flash of hair.)
ReplyDeleteThe first time I saw that in a movie was, I believe, the threesome scene in Antonioni's "Blowup".
The original French title was LA CUREE (The Quarry)--it was adapted from a novel by Emile Zola--this adaptation cut the period setting and the politics (the original novel was part of a seemingly-endless series of novels about life in France up to the Franco-German war of 1870)--it was a lot less sympathetic to Fonda's character than the film is. Indeed, everyone in Zola's novel is a revolting grotesque.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing I remember about this movie is the last scene, after Fonda has attempted suicide and is sitting alone in what used to be her workout room (she was into aerobics long before The Workout)--the camera just pulls back on her soaked, pathetic figure. It was both chilling and touching.
Jane Fonda has a lot to answer for as I remember getting very excited seeing her in Barbarella many years ago but on seeing the movie again recently, I want my money back!
ReplyDeleteI'm quite a bit younger, so for me the movie was "Barb Wire" with Pam Anderson. I think I suffered more, mainly because that movie had no actual nudity in it.
ReplyDelete"Last Tango in Paris" here. I, too, was 16. It was a short leap to move on to "Behind the Green Door." Both movies were advertised on the station I was working for.
ReplyDeleteWhat was interesting (okay, second only to what was up there on the screen) was the audience. Absolute silence and thoughtful observation during the sex scenes. Then, after each scene, what people could do in theaters back then: the collective lighting of cigarettes.
The internet has taken this rite of passage away forever.
ken, can you elaborate more on the role of sitcom creators in the process of the show vs staff writers?
ReplyDeleteassuming the creators aren't necessarily showrunners.
thanks a lot
hahaha... that's hilarious. no wonder Arrested Development was so critically acclaimed.
ReplyDeletenow if you believed seeing Jane Fonda naked made you a man, I've got some child support checks for you that need cashing.
Had a similar experience a few years later, except the flick was "Barbarella".
ReplyDeleteAwful, awful movie.
But worth every penny for two reasons:
1. Jane Fonda's right leg.
2. Jane Fonda's left leg.
Bob
Wow! a nice post. Thanks for this man. But an old though..
ReplyDeleteI'll buy this book in a New York heartbeat on the day it comes out; and hardbound. On the off chance you make signing tour to the Reno/Tahoe area I'll pester you for an autograph.
ReplyDeleteMy first "dirty movie" was Louis Malle's amazing "Pretty Baby" exploring the Storyville red-light district of turn of the century New Orleans and child prostitution.
And God Created Woman
ReplyDelete1957 and I was 14 years old.
My youth.