Gross sins in the movies

Just as women's clothes are responsive to fashion trends, so are the sins in a motion-picture.

Today all the women's dresses have legs on them, which was not so a year ago. The movie sins, however, remain the same as they were a year ago.

What I mean is, motion picture watchers still accept lesbianism, but ordinarily will not rush out to see a male homosexual epic.

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The trend started with "The Killing of Sister George." It has come a long way since then; in fact, it has reached "The Vampire Lovers," which features lesbian vampires.

Had male homosexuality enjoyed a similar vogue, we might now be looking forward with considerable apprehension to Dracula, Frankenstein and Hyde in drag.

The only really significant male homosexual movie (entirely without overt acts) was "The Boys in the Band." It was a strong work that defied copying. Before that there was a lesser effort called "The Sergeant," with Rod Steiger. There have been a couple others. But no trend, really.

Just as dress designers try from time to time to change women's fashions, moviemakers try to get out of the bind of sameness in sinning. For a while it seemed as if the screen were trying to get an incest kick going. I saw two pictures last year in which attractive matrons seduced their, to me, repulsive sons. Another movie concerned itself with brother-sister incest.

Exhibitors in Cleveland were not impressed enough to buy these movies, and they have not done well elsewhere. The lack of enthusiasm for incest movies is perhaps pointed up by the strange case of the new ending for "Where's Poppa."

***When the picture was screened in New York-it ended with strong intimations of incest between a middle-aged man and his senile mother. When the picture was over and the credits were unreeled, everybody in the audience was getting up silently and heading for the door.

Usually on occasions such as this (with the actors and directors and what-not in the audience) people applaud the credits, even including the key grip. But on this occasion everybody headed for the street and, presumably, some bar or other to get the taste out. No one clapped.

Before the picture went into general release the ending was changed to omit the incest; why, I don't know.

For a while, too, it seemed that there was going to be a run on ritual sadism. We've had casual sadism for a long time; the Italian Western is a sample. Also the private-eye picture in which someone gets gobbled up by a snow blower.

--For serious sadism, there were three pictures last year featuring stories by De Sade two of which played here. They did not get much acclaim, partly because the screen is not yet ready to show what De Sade-tells in his books. I know, for when the third DeSade movie came around, I ran out and got a paperback of the strivings of the marquis.

By Emerson Batdorff

It is true that he had a great singleness of purpose, but his imagination left a lot to be desired. I failed to detect any resemblance between the movies and the writings. To be done properly, his stories would have to be played by freaks.

The sadism kick failed to get off the ground, showing that movie-watchers have more sense than moviemakers.

At the moment the trend is an odd one. There is a tremendous preoccupation with excrement and dirty words. Here is good fodder for some eminent psychologist.

Here is the documentation. Quackser Fortune makes his living, in "Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx," by following the horses with broom and shovel.

"Brewster McCloud" exists in a rain of bird droppings.

There is another movie, not yet released, so I won't mention its name, in which the hero, if so he may be termed, is a high-priced photographer who specializes in portraits of excrement and in the movie has a whole issue of Harper's Bazaar devoted to his works.

Now for the dirty words. In this situation where to be in vogue is of the essence, they are always the same dirty words. At present they involve the ultimate in AngloSaxonisms.

The movie makers have put these in the mouths of two young women, Barbra Streisand in "The Owl and the Pussycat," and Ann Margret in "C.C. and Company." Gene Wilder gets to say them in "Quackser Fortune."

Where we go from here I don't know. Up, I hope.

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