1976: dawn cummings, nadja mons, trixi heinenn and véronique monet in “mes nuits avec... alice, pénélope, arnold, maude et richard”

title: mes nuits avec... alice, pénélope, arnold, maude et richard, scene 7

performers: dawn cummings, nadja mons, trixi heinenn, véronique monet
production credits: michel barny (dir.), frédéric lansac (scr.), gérard kikoïne (ed.)
studio: alpha france | running time: 12:55
release date: 1976 | purchase

véronique monet, dawn cummings, nadja mons, trixie heinenn

it takes a lot for a european film to claim my top spot for a year, especially this early on. partly this is because of the language barrier — my french is only good enough to struggle through a written text, and while english dubs are available for most of the golden-age cinéma pornographique, i'm skeptical of those translations — and partly due to a smaller overall output (american production just has so many more at-bats), but in great part it's because of a comparatively smaller emphasis on girl/girl in continental porn. france was better than italy or germany (the only other countries producing notable work at the time) in that regard, but even it wasn't great: so much 70s french girl/girl has a "this might as well happen" lassitude about it, lacking the narrative propulsion that gives an encounter its heat, that coming across something as narratively bravura as mes nuits avec... is like discovering a new planet.

french hardcore had only recently opened up shop thanks to the liberalization laws of 1974, and in some ways this film was an all-star production, with four of the future best directors in french x-rated cinema (barny, lansac, and kikoïne, with francis leroi producing) behind the scenes. three of the four women at the center of the story had been in lasse braun's sensations the previous year (nadja mons was the newcomer), and roger fellous' cinematography was even praised in mainstream film journals. the lavishness of this production was a rarity, however: before long, the french government would impose such stiff taxes on hardcore that only slender-budgeted productions had a hope of making back their costs, so something this outrageous, even buñuelesque, could never be made again.

the story is a perfect admixture of the erotic, the surreal, and the existential: three women all attempt suicide after a disastrous sexual encounter, fail, and are visited in the hospital by the mysterious maude (trixi heinenn), who promises them a lavish lifestyle in which they will experience so much pleasure that it will kill them for good. maude's trippy mansion, full of color-coordinated phalluses, is a triumph of psychedelic set design, and it's where the girl/girl action all takes place.

the women sit on dildos at dinner, eat each other for dessert, and then break off into solo adventures: nadja fucks a mannequin, dawn stuffs a peeled banana into herself, which véronique eats out of her, and trixi masturbates to projected images of graveyards on the wall with the projection controls. subsequent adventures include men, and end by removing véronique (masturbates with dynamite), nadja (drowns in semen), and dawn (fucked to death) one by one; the black comedy of the dwindling friend group (and trixi masturbating at their graves) is not just surreal and absurd, but surrealist and absurdist, in the strict definitions of those twentieth-century literary movements.

trixi heinenn is dutch, and dawn cummings is american: even from the beginning, the european scene was very much a cosmopolitan affair, bringing together talent from across the continent and the world. even as budgets dried up and production shifted to less regulated eastern european countries, that would continue to be the case. so would short careers: of the four, only cummings appeared in more than two films, all european.

ultimately mes nuits avec... is probably better regarded as an exercise in sexually explicit surrealism than as pornography in the strict utilitarian sense: most audiences would be uncomfortable with the close proximity of sex and death in getting-off material. (and of course something so narratively bleak would be utterly anathema to the credit card processors who dictate what can and cannot be sold online today.) but for those of us who find aesthetics and cultural context more fascinating and arousing than the mere documentation of bodies engaging in specific acts, a film like this is exactly what we want out of porn, regardless of whether it gets us off or not. that said, the girl/girl action is respectable even beyond its context: véronique monet in particular displays great enthusiasm.

the film is currently available in three different releases, two under the english title the kinky ladies of bourbon street with a wildly different voiceover narrative, and the primary one as crazy girls in heat in three different versions (in french, with an english dub, and with a softcore cut). the kinky ladies cuts keep five to ten minutes of running time from the original theatrical release, but the shorter french edition has the best transfer and is the one i watched.

1976 runners up:

annie sprinkle and crystal sync in slippery when wet, scenes 4 & 8

distribpix (dir. joe sarno), 18:45

crystal, annie

for a few years in between prolific careers as a story-heavy softcore purveyor in the 60s and a no-frills hardcore purveyor in the 80s, joe sarno managed to marry the two sensibilities for a string of sexually explicit kitchen-sink dramas centered around groups of women (and their satellite men) learning to open up sexually, directing under a variety of pseudonyms and giving them the most generic porn titles. slippery when wet was preceded by the honey cup and followed by the trouble with young stuff, each featuring much the same cast and low-rent, hardscrabble circumstances that justify the limited sets: it's essentially a trilogy of chamber dramas. the girl/girl in all three is worth noting, but my favorite sarno-style sapphic awakening is the one crystal sync introduces legend-in-the-making annie sprinkle to, first and most notoriously with half a salami, and in the subsequent encounter with a much more subtle fingering touch.

joy silver and pauline lamonde in 9 lives of a wet pussy, scene 6

navaron films (dir. abel ferrara), 20:38

joy, pauline

best known as fiercely independent mainstream director abel ferrara's (unacknowledged) first feature film, 9 lives is remarkable for its masterful camera work and naturalistic performances from a cast of almost entirely non-porn performers drawn from ferrara's circle of acquaintance. (lamonde, the star whose story the film follows, was his girlfriend at the time.) joy silver is stunning as a "nigerian princess" in new york as a model: her tryst with lamonde is by way of healing from a sexual assault that ferrara (true to form) doesn't flinch from portraying as horrifically as possible. the girl/girl sex is amazing, shot with a gorgeous subjectivity in burnished low light and far more authentically performed than by many contemporary professionals, and even features a compelling soundtrack, from longtime ferrera collaborator joe delia.

brooke young and taylor young in sweet cakes, scene 4

s.f.c. films (dir. howard ziehm), 16:30

taylor, brooke

there are two ways to think about the short run that brooke and taylor young had in the late 70s hardcore scene as genetic twins who not only performed together but interacted sexually on camera. the first is to assume that the 70s were a much more sexually depraved era, willing to go places that common decency forbids today; the second is as just another sign that girl/girl sex was widely considered, even by its participants, to be little more than assisted masturbation. as it happens, both are true: it was both a more depraved time and one that didn't believe sex happened until a penis was involved. carter stevens' teenage twins made a meal of the taboo, featuring taylor masturbating with the spine of a bible before she and brooke get it on together, but howard ziehm's anthology sweet cakes, in which the twins wear wigs and affect an elegant demeanor, managed to wrangle the only adequate performance out of them (sexual and otherwise) that ever made it to screen.

also noteworthy:

scenes

• kristine debell, nancy dare, terri hall and juliet graham in alice in wonderland, scene 7 | essex (bud townsend)
• amber hunt and maryanne fisher in cry for cindy, scene 7 | essex (anthony spinelli)
• claude janna and marie-christine guennec in langue de velours, scene 13 | alpha france (patrick aubin)
• spring finley and val anderson in three shades of flesh scene 3 | today (howard christian)
• catherine burgess and nancy dare in through the looking glass, scene 5 | maturepix (jonas middleton)
• chantal nora and emmanuelle pareze in les week-ends d'un couple pervers scene 3 | jean desvilles (georges fleury)