1977: annette haven and bonnie holiday in “visions of clair”
title: visions of clair, scene 5
performers: annette haven, bonnie holiday
production credits: zachary youngblood (dir.), ohm's law (strk)
studio: canard films | running time: 17:32
release date: 1977 | purchase
the initial draft of this blog began in 1977, and after my initial investigations into the material produced that year, i was extremely impressed by this scene. and even with my current wider frame of reference, it's still extremely notable — neither grindhouse sleaze nor high-gloss porno chic, but abstruse bohemian art-schlock, and so one of the most direct descendants in porn of andy warhol's blue movie, which was the first explicit film shown in mainstream theaters. here begins what i wrote then:
"visions of clair is a legendary art-porn commercial disaster made in the bay area by zachary strong (credited here as zachary youngblood), who also directed gay porn as well as more standard boy/girl. i only watched the last seventeen minutes of the movie, because that's where the girl/girl sex scene was, so my grasp on the plot is slight, but my understanding is that annette haven plays claire [yup, sic], a model turned wealthy playgirl whose life is a stream of hallucinatory conversations, art in process, and feverish sexual entanglements. (a very good synopsis and attempt at decoding the film is here.) even without any of the foregoing narrative context, however, this fragment has its own hypnotic logic and phantasmagorical fascination.
"claire and daphne (bonnie holiday) dance together as mozart plays on a reel-to-reel; as they undress and caress one another, they are spied on by roahn (susan bates in a nude nonsex role), who wanders off as they settle down to leisurely sex on a chaise longue. the sex between claire and daphne is intercut with images of roahn, naked, toying with a knife, staring at art, and having brief flashbacks of group sex with men, all while an eerie, electroacoustic sonic landscape by composer ohm's law plays. as the women reach tender climaxes, roahn appears to cut herself with the knife, but the blood disappears in the next shot; frankly, the whole thing smacks of gender (honorific). claire and daphne cuddle and kiss, while roahn, suddenly clothed again, looks haggardly into the middle distance. roll credits.
"i'm not going to try to attempt an explanation; i'm perfectly comfortable with ambiguity in art, and am delighted that our first investigation into the history of girl/girl porn turned up something so enigmatic and even (i mean this in a good way) obtuse. porn is so godforsaken literal, especially nowadays, and the number of crimes against porn consumer orthodoxy in the internet era that this scene commits are too many to enumerate. a preliminary list would be: dim lighting, music playing over the sex, the sex isn't audible at all, the sex is heavily edited and not particularly genuine, the sex is intercut with other imagery, naked men briefly appear during a girl/girl scene, there's any hint of violence whatsoever. to hell with porn consumer orthodoxy, though: i'll take an interesting failure any day over a rote success, and this was an aesthetic experience i wouldn't have missed for anything even if it hadn't done anything for me erotically. but aesthetics are erotic, and frequently more erotic than mere sex.
"i don't believe i've paid much attention to annette haven before (though i knew the name from glancing through porn archives), and bonnie holiday is definitely new to me, but i am glad to get to know a little of their work: their slim, tall models' bodies work dazzlingly well together, and they are both stunning beauties of a kind that recalls a somewhat earlier era than 1977, which in my historical imagination is all flared polyester and feathered hair; their willowy, artsy hippie vibes give this scene a pleasantly old-fashioned air, one which is very convenient for me to be using as a starting point."
long jean silver, an amputee and occasional sex worker, appeared in a few porn films where she was treated like a freak show exhibit; this scene from alex derenzy's 1977 showcase for her is lovely in that it treats her as just another one of the girls, cute and giggly even as she fucks the others with her stump. i'm trying to imagine a visibly physically disabled porn performer today who wouldn't be instantly marginalized into the fetish ghetto, and failing.
director anthony spinelli, using a variety of pseudonyms, really came into his own in 1977: see also the inventively kooky sex world. but even this run-of-the-mill teensploitation flick showcasing chinese-american linda wong's beauty is masterfully crafted as the titular babysitter sleeps through the parents of her charges without discriminating between men and women: spinelli's 35mm camera work includes extreme close-ups that are still impressive by today's hi-def standards. and i keep being struck by how much diversity there was in porn in the 70s: the modern industry, even with so many more resources and its lip service towards diversity, is pathetic in comparison.
performers: annette haven, bonnie holiday
production credits: zachary youngblood (dir.), ohm's law (strk)
studio: canard films | running time: 17:32
release date: 1977 | purchase
 |
| annette haven, bonnie holiday |
the initial draft of this blog began in 1977, and after my initial investigations into the material produced that year, i was extremely impressed by this scene. and even with my current wider frame of reference, it's still extremely notable — neither grindhouse sleaze nor high-gloss porno chic, but abstruse bohemian art-schlock, and so one of the most direct descendants in porn of andy warhol's blue movie, which was the first explicit film shown in mainstream theaters. here begins what i wrote then:
"claire and daphne (bonnie holiday) dance together as mozart plays on a reel-to-reel; as they undress and caress one another, they are spied on by roahn (susan bates in a nude nonsex role), who wanders off as they settle down to leisurely sex on a chaise longue. the sex between claire and daphne is intercut with images of roahn, naked, toying with a knife, staring at art, and having brief flashbacks of group sex with men, all while an eerie, electroacoustic sonic landscape by composer ohm's law plays. as the women reach tender climaxes, roahn appears to cut herself with the knife, but the blood disappears in the next shot; frankly, the whole thing smacks of gender (honorific). claire and daphne cuddle and kiss, while roahn, suddenly clothed again, looks haggardly into the middle distance. roll credits.
"i'm not going to try to attempt an explanation; i'm perfectly comfortable with ambiguity in art, and am delighted that our first investigation into the history of girl/girl porn turned up something so enigmatic and even (i mean this in a good way) obtuse. porn is so godforsaken literal, especially nowadays, and the number of crimes against porn consumer orthodoxy in the internet era that this scene commits are too many to enumerate. a preliminary list would be: dim lighting, music playing over the sex, the sex isn't audible at all, the sex is heavily edited and not particularly genuine, the sex is intercut with other imagery, naked men briefly appear during a girl/girl scene, there's any hint of violence whatsoever. to hell with porn consumer orthodoxy, though: i'll take an interesting failure any day over a rote success, and this was an aesthetic experience i wouldn't have missed for anything even if it hadn't done anything for me erotically. but aesthetics are erotic, and frequently more erotic than mere sex.
"i don't believe i've paid much attention to annette haven before (though i knew the name from glancing through porn archives), and bonnie holiday is definitely new to me, but i am glad to get to know a little of their work: their slim, tall models' bodies work dazzlingly well together, and they are both stunning beauties of a kind that recalls a somewhat earlier era than 1977, which in my historical imagination is all flared polyester and feathered hair; their willowy, artsy hippie vibes give this scene a pleasantly old-fashioned air, one which is very convenient for me to be using as a starting point."
of course it is no longer the starting point, just where i came in. i was born in 1977, although naturally i wouldn't begin watching filmed porn for another two decades. but moving back the start date of the industry by five years feels much more like i'm beginning at a beginning rather than in the middle of a chapter. tempting as it is to try to track down stuff even further back in the mists of time, i will not be trawling through 1950s stag films or fin-de-siècle kinetoscopes. this scene, with ecstatic girl/girl sex as a lynchpin for hallucinatory imagery in a purely cinematic mode, is, if no longer a perfect introduction to girl/girl sex on film, still an early high point. more effort, thought, and intention went into it than 90% of the scenes that will follow in these pages, and that counts for a lot with me.
1977 runners up:
china leigh, long jean silver and lori blue in long jeanne silver, scene 3
astronics (dir. alex derenzy), 14:40
 |
| china, jean, lori |
long jean silver, an amputee and occasional sex worker, appeared in a few porn films where she was treated like a freak show exhibit; this scene from alex derenzy's 1977 showcase for her is lovely in that it treats her as just another one of the girls, cute and giggly even as she fucks the others with her stump. i'm trying to imagine a visibly physically disabled porn performer today who wouldn't be instantly marginalized into the fetish ghetto, and failing.
christine kelly and linda wong in oriental babysitter, scene 8
essex (dir. leonard burke), 17:25
 |
| christine, linda |
director anthony spinelli, using a variety of pseudonyms, really came into his own in 1977: see also the inventively kooky sex world. but even this run-of-the-mill teensploitation flick showcasing chinese-american linda wong's beauty is masterfully crafted as the titular babysitter sleeps through the parents of her charges without discriminating between men and women: spinelli's 35mm camera work includes extreme close-ups that are still impressive by today's hi-def standards. and i keep being struck by how much diversity there was in porn in the 70s: the modern industry, even with so many more resources and its lip service towards diversity, is pathetic in comparison.
chantal virapin and edwidge davis in la nymphomane perverse, scene 2
france-continental (dir. claude pierson), 10:28
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| chantal, edwidge |
one thing about the early french porno industry is that it included black women more regularly in its girl/girl fantasies than the american industry did, despite their comparatively smaller black population. maybe it's the long french colonial legacy of eroticizing the african (cf. josephine baker), maybe french cinematographers understood the beauty of contrast in a way the mooks churning out porn across the mer didn't. chantal virapin was the 1977 model (black women's brief careers were a constant on both sides of the atlantic); here, she is a mysterious temptress wordlessly initiating frigid newlywed edwidge davis into a new world of exciting sexual exploits.
also noteworthy:
scenes
- annette haven and c.j. laing in barbara broadcast, scene 10 | audubon (henry paris)
- delania raffino and desiree west in expectations, scene 4 | essex (arvid beller)
- linda wong and ursula brandwin in the final sin, scene 1 | command (cecil howard)
- judy ziehm and lenore grant in hot cookies, scene 3 | tvx (howard ziehm)
- jennifer welles and marlene willoughby in inside jennifer welles, scene 8 | evart (joe sarno, jennifer welles)
- annette haven and constance money in obsessed, scene 3 | stranger (martin & martin)
- gloria leonard and victoria corsaut in odyssey, scene 7 | asom (gerard damiano)
- abigail clayton and lesllie bovee in sex world, scene 7 | essex (anthony spinelli)
- jenny baxter, marlene willoughby and nancy dare in the trouble with young stuff, scene 16 | artemis (joe sarno)
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