Blu-Ray Review: Radley Metzger's Erotica Psychedelica

Radley Metzger is widely acknowledged as one of America's greatest erotic filmmakers, which basically means that he's more serious than Russ Meyer and more artful than most porn. Now Cult Epics has released a deluxe box set of three of Metzger's best-known films: Camille 2000 (1969), The Lickerish Quartet (1970), and Score (1973). The set, entitled Erotica Psychedelica, also includes a terrific soundtrack CD featuring cuts from all three movies, plus a liner notes booklet with photos and essays. Metzger provides commentary tracks on all three movies (with the help of historian Michael Bowen). Other extras include making-of featurettes, various outtakes and interviews, and trailers.

Camille 2000 is based on a novel by Alexandre Dumas, and as a result it's the most straightforward and literal of the three films. Metzger layers the film with some of his most glorious set designs, ranging from colored blocks stacked in the foreground to rooms decorated entirely in silver. The décor doesn't seem to intrude upon the core emotional story, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the movie seems overly pretty, but on the other hand, the prettiness doesn't overwhelm.

The beautiful Danièle Gaubert stars as Marguerite Gautier, the deadly good-time girl who likes all her boy toys and the money she can get from them, but has yet to be tied down. During a visit to Rome, Armand Duval (Nino Castelnuovo) falls hopelessly for her. He seduces her and manages to hang onto her; they disappear into each other's worlds for the time being until real life intrudes once again and Marguerite must decide whether to sacrifice everything.

Camille 2000 is definitely passionate, and it has some nudity, but it's not necessarily sexy; it's more focused on matters of the heart than matters of the loins. Nevertheless, it looks glorious on Blu-Ray, and it's a good introduction to Metzger.

In the much more interesting The Lickerish Quartet, three people watch a porn movie (projected on film). Then they go out and accidentally meet a girl who looks like one of the actresses in the movie. They invite her home, and she proceeds to sleep with each one of them over the course of the next day or so. It's basically the loosest of plotlines upon which any porn movie would be happy to hang its sex scenes. But Metzger had something better in mind, and he makes The Lickerish Quartet into something truly interesting and satisfying, as well as titillating.

The characters are not named. There's a man (Frank Wolff), the owner of the grand castle in which this trio lives. There's his wife (Erika Remberg), who may or may not have been a prostitute "rescued" by the man. And there's her grown son (Paolo Turco), a petulant soul. Silvana Venturelli plays the gorgeous "visitor" who may also have appeared in the porn movie. The family discovers her working at a carnival as a motorcycle stunt rider (which is just as sexy as being a porn star, frankly, especially given her leather riding suit).

Metzger has a great deal of fun with the castle setting, and its various rooms, all with their different moods. The first sex scene, between the man and the female visitor, takes place in a library, with large dictionary pages laid out like tile on the floor. These pages, of course, have all the dirty words visible. The visitor seduces the son outdoors, and then seduces the wife in the living room, while the movie projector is running. More scholarly viewers than myself can decide what each of these episodes means.

The editing also adds a strange mood, jumping randomly to the sex act during the foreplay, or showing sexy drawings, or the words on the floor. He is very much aware that the audience is watching, and he makes watching into one of the big themes in his film. At various points in the story, the characters watch the porn film again and again, the content of which seems to change around. (It changes around further at the end.) As voyeurs, we're watching sex, but we're also watching a film, and Metzger keeps reminding us of this. Watching a film requires so much of our memory; we must remember what came before to make sense of what's happening now, but how much can we really trust our memory, especially when Metzger keeps jumping outside of time, suggesting images, and creating false histories?

Adapted by Jerry Douglas from his own play, Score features four main characters, plus a fifth supporting character. It takes place over a weekend in a fictitious European city. A "swinging" couple, Elvira (Claire Wilbur) and Jack (Gerald Grant) have a running contest to see who can seduce more members of the same sex. They lure other couples over for dinner, and Elvira sleeps with the woman, while Jack sleeps with the man. Their latest victims are newly married Eddie (Casey Donovan) and Betsy (Lynn Lowry), who are already having troubles in bed.

Metzger spends most of the running time on the slow seduction process, complete with drugs and little games to get the couple to relax. He gradually builds to an erotic frenzy, cutting back and forth between the female couple and the male couple as sexual energy grows and their acts become more and more intimate. I saw the uncut, 91-minute version, which features nearly hardcore sex acts, fellatio between the men, etc.

The camera rarely looks head-on at the naked bodies, but rather tries to spy at them past objects in the foreground, or in reflections; this increases the forbidden quality and heightens the tension. The fifth character is Mike (Carl Parker), the phone repairman; Elvira seduces him -- in front of Betsy -- in the first few moments, and he returns at the end of the weekend for more action. The most notable thing about Mike is that (apparently) Sylvester Stallone played him in the off-Broadway version.

However, the most interesting thing about Score -- aside from the fact that it's a gorgeous and effective work of erotica -- is Lynn Lowry. Very pretty in an unusual way, Lowry had huge eyes and a thin, turned-up nose, and a slightly feline, pixie-ish aura. She wound up playing in mostly exploitation films, including George A. Romero's The Crazies and David Cronenberg's Shivers, and continues to have a cult following today. She's fascinating onscreen, waging an almost constant battle between beauty and savagery.

If you haven't yet tuned into Metzger's films, and you're not shy about watching movies about sex, this box set is highly recommended. (Buy the Blu-Ray here.)