The Image

The Image (1975)

*** (out of 4)

Jean (Carl Parker) runs into an old friend (Marilyn Roberts) at a party and soon she's teaching him about her slave Anne (Rebecca Brooke) and before long both are taking part in the S&M practices. Radley Metzger's erotic film isn't going to be for everyone but those who enjoy watching these older adult movies should find this one here to have quite a few good touches. Metzger would push the hardcore genre more mainstream a couple years later with THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVER and while this film here isn't nearly as good you can still see the blossoming of the young director as he was experimenting with more erotic films. I think the best thing about this movie is the direction by Metzger because he certainly isn't just trying to deliver some sort of bump and grind movie and instead he's pushing something more classy. Now I'm not going to sit here as some sort of snob and say this is better than your typical porn movie because it isn't. Those mindless sex pictures serve their purpose and I think a film like this one has its own purpose so comparing the two or ripping one while praising the other would be pointless. There's no doubt that this movie is extremely well made and there's a certain craft and style to appreciate. This is especially true with the editing, which really takes the movie to a whole new level. The way the sex scenes were edited gave them a certain atmosphere and really made you feel the dirty, erotic sense to all of it. The three actors all do fine work with their roles but it's doubtful people are coming to this for performances. I'm sure some might find some sort of message but to me THE IMAGE was simply a well-made porn film and there's nothing wrong with that.

I bought several erotic movies for my girlfriend and me and out of all of them I have found this one to be the best so far. The DVD has some scenes where there are lines in the picture but they do not take away from the movie, for being such an old movie it transferred well to DVD. I have to admit that I did not think that the movie would get so explicit in some of the scenes, but I think that just made it even better.

If you want a very erotic movie then this one is great. There are some scenes that are a little annoying, like screaming for five or so minutes, but overall it is great. I would not buy it if you are looking for a porno, but there are several scenes that you would see in a porno.

This movie falls somewhere between "Last Tango in Paris" and "The Story of O". It doesn't have the realism, the pathos, or the character development of the former, but it also isn't exactly an enjoyably silly sex fantasy like the latter. Like all Metzger films it is well-photographed and classy in a way, but it also contains some hardcore porn scenes which might leave a bad taste in some peoples' mouths (no pun intended).

The story is about a man who meets a jaded older woman who in turn introduces him to a younger woman "Ann" who she is training as a sex slave. Carl Parker, who also had a small part in Metzger's "Score", is pretty good as the man. The young woman played by the pseudonymous "Mary Medum" is also decent, even though she looks more like a young American "soccer mom" than an exotic Euro-beauty like Maria "Last Tango in Paris" Schneider or Corrine "Story of O" Clery. (Thus for me this movie was more of a fantasy of what I'd like to do to that idiot that nearly ran me off the road in her SUV last week while blabbing on her cellphone than it was a sex fantasy). The older woman, on the other hand, is pretty much a superfluous character--for some reason S and M seems a lot classier when it's a woman doing it to another woman at the behest of a man rather than a man directly doing it to a woman. (Not that this movie is too "politically correct" by today's standards--and thank god for that!)

I guess I'd recommend it, even though it's not that sexy on one hand, and pretty hard to take seriously on the other.

Okay movie starring Carl Parker, that swarthy-looking guy from Radley Metzger's SCORE, which was better than this. It's well-made, like all of Metzger's movies, but it's hard to like unless you're into this kind of subject matter. There are some pretty funny moments, though. I particularly liked the intentionally obvious Freudian imagery that keeps cropping up. Actually, the whole movie is about as cheerfully un-P.C. as they get. Only in the '70s...

THE IMAGE is a disturbing, erotic, scary, elegant movie that probably only Radley Metzger could have made. Most directors of 'erotica' concentrate on gynecological close-ups to the exclusion of all else; Metzger's hallmark has always been to tell the story and explain the characters by relying as much on the actors' eyes as on the dialogue. The S&M scene is as alien to me as peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches (which I am also told some enjoy), but in THE IMAGE I can see the gamesmanship, the role-playing and the unspoken psychological leveraging that makes it all so compellingly complex. Would I show this film to Grandma? Uh-uh. But then, that's just MY grandma, who knows, yours may have a side you never suspected. This film is hot, fascinating, and, in this gorgeous and UNCUT (thank you, thank you!) video transfer, stunningly beautiful as well.