Secrets of Sex (1970)

User Rating:

3.7/10   

Director:

Antony Balch

Writers:

Antony Balch (writer)
John Eliot (writer)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror

Tagline:

Unisex explodes in the film they tried to stop

Plot:

A brainy sex flick with a sense of humor, the film begins with a narrator/mummy who guides us through...

Plot Keywords:

Torture | S&M | Bondage | Birth Defect | Shirtless Male Bondage

Cast

Richard Schulman	...	The Judge
Janet Spearman	...	The Judge's Wife
Dorothy Grumbar	...	Photographer
Anthony Rowlands	...	The Model
Norma Eden	...	Norma, the Photographer's Assistant
George Herbert	...	The Steward
Kenneth Benda	...	Sacha Seremona
Yvonne Quenet	...	Mary-Clare
Reid Anderson	...	Dr. Rilke
Sylvia Delamere	...	The Nurse
Cathy Howard	...	The Cat Burglar
Mike Britton	...	The Burgled Man (as Mike Briton)
Maria Frost	...	Lindy Leigh
Peter Carlisle	...	Col. X
Stephen Preston	...	Philpott (as Steve Preston)

Also Known As:

Bizarre (USA)
Eros Exploding (UK) (pre-release title)
Erotic Tales from Mummy's Tomb (UK)
Multiplication (UK) (pre-release title)
Tales of the Bizarre (USA)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:R (Manitoba/Ontario) | USA:R

Company:

Balch

Trivia:

The character of Lindy Leigh was originally created by Alfred Mazure for the British men's magazine "Mayfair".

Quotes:

The Mummy: Imagine you were making love to this girl. Imagine you were making love to this boy. Imagine you were making love to this girl. Imagine you were making love to this boy. Imagine you were making love to this girl. Imagine you were making love to this boy...

Movie Connections:

Featured in Naked Came the Stranger (1975)

silly, offbeat horror anthology movie from an experimental filmmaker and big movie fan

You would expect Antony Balch, who collaborated on some experimental short films with William Burroughs, to make a weird horror film. And it is indeed pretty kooky, though doesn't often strike one as experimental.

Some of the more experimental, or at least odd touches include: a voice-over saying "Imagine yourself having sex with this girl. Imagine yourself having sex with this boy. Imagine yourself having sex with this girl." etc. for some time, with images of mod young people in various states of undress. It then repeats with slight variation, "Imagine this girl having sex with you" etc. In another segment, there are shots of planes taking off and landing intercut throughout. It's unclear if they're meant to represent sex, or the threat of the man's wife coming home, or that the man's house is under a flight path, or if they're simply filmic non-sequiturs.

The movie has a mummy narrating, telling about the battle of the sexes. The segments all have to do with men and women at odds with each other in various ways, sometimes fatal. The opening segment has an Arabian judge who believes his wife may have a lover hidden in a trunk. He has the trunk buried without opening it. This is perhaps the origin of the mummy (though how he comes to be mummified would be a mystery, but the producer on the commentary track indicates we should not give it that much thought).

There are women photographing a male model in various states of torture. There's a sexy spy who's supposed to find secrets in a foreign embassy. There's a young man with a strange fetish rooted in a childhood incident.

Offbeat, and definitely for those that like that. It was quite well-received at the time! Now, it does seem awfully 1960s, but that lends it a new sort of charm.