Three Stars!
A genuine American success story.
Chicago Tribune
| “Mau Mau Sex Sex” This week, in its continuing effort to expand programming inits small but cozy Video Theatre, Facets Multimedia is hosting a one-week run of "Mau Mau Sex Sex" ((star)(star)(star)), a digitally shot documentary about two men who were key players in the down and dirty (but highly profitable) "sexploitation" film business of the 1930s through 1960s. Dan Sonney and David Friedman, now 84 and 77 respectively, were famous for introducing such movie genres as"nudie cuties" and "roughies" to the big screen. Some were innocent romps (topless women frolicking on the beach), while others bordered on the disturbing (rape, torture), but as the two men say with a laugh, they were never boring and they were almost always in bad taste. Using a casual style to introduce these life-long friends and business partners, director Ted Bonnitt presents a genuine American success story while also commenting on the eagerness of audiences to embrace the bizarre. (One film concerns the mating of native women with gorillas, while another features a man who changes into animals so he can spy on naked women.) From such trailblazers as "The Defilers" and "She Freak," totheir biggest financial success, "Blood Feast" (which was thestarting point for decades of blood-and-gore drive-in fare), "MauMau Sex Sex" gives us a look at an audacious period of cinemahistory that is gone forever. Some would say "good riddance." I say "too bad." September 21, 2001 |
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