Cheerfully ribald!- Box Office Magazine
| MAU MAU SEX SEX *** Starring Dan Sonney and David Friedman. Directed and produced by Ted Bonnitt. Written by Eddie Muller and Ted Bonnitt. A 7th Planet release. Documentary. Unrated. Running time: 81 min. Called "America's oldest independent filmmakers," graying, pudgy granddaddy figures Dan Sonney and David Friedman are also brightly described as two of the original "peddlers of smut" in the cheerfully ribald "Mau Mau Sex Sex," a history of exploitation films. Although the documentary glows with jocular reminiscences, sincere moments of friendship and devoted family portraits, the prevailing sense of good-ol'-boy lightheartedness can't overcome the unsettling unpleasantness of its heroes' grungy trade and its stinging victimization of women. It's not surprising that the inevitable start for each of the men is rooted in the earliest of "scam" theatrics: Dan discovered his fondness for playing to the public's appetite for two-bit showmanship when his father found brief fame as frontier lawman touring small towns boasting of his exploits, even making a few one-reelers. Dave's roots for public manipulation were set in a well-paying position at Paramount Studio's publicity department which he later ditched to return to his passion for the "carney" life, centering around the "peeping-tom" girlie show attraction. The men warmly bitch at one another and readily relate the early days of the exploitation films that, due to industry censorship restrictions of the early 1950s, were shrouded in the guise of "education" films, covering topics ranging from miscegenation to child-brides to abortion, purporting to serve as a warning against these social evils. These cheap quickies gave way to more frankness with the burlesque or "hooch" films, which allowed partial nudity (all women's, naturally), frequently filmed at nudist camps, that appear remarkably mild and even silly when compared to the pair's later fascination with "roughies," in which women are tortured and assaulted for no better reason than to arouse men both on and off-screen. It's startling to see a younger version of the teddy-bear Dave appearing in many of his own films (Dan only made one film appearance in a somewhat stilted bit-part). The filmmakers' assertion that the roughies' torture scenes were so inadequately done that it was clearly all faked in good "fun," and their sincere despair at how the exploitation film has now become all raunchy, never adequately addresses their part in perpetuating heinous behaviors. It is Dan who bluntly explains the documentary's title, which came in part from a low budget "serious" documentary, "Mau Mau," made by another production company on the African native uprisings. Because of the partial nudity of the native women, the film couldn't be approved for television broadcast, yet it was too short for feature distribution. Dan and Dave added approximately three minutes of staged murder, rape and mayhem in a native village, then successfully marketed the film with that footage. "'Mau Mau' don't mean nothing," Dan remarks, "but add 'sex sex' and you got something." While exploitation films certainly deserve as much examination as any other genre, and producer/first-time director Ted Bonnitt presents Dan and Dave in all their glorious contradictions, after the chuckles and surprises, all that is really left is the grime.-Luisa F. Ribeiro
|
|||
 |