Sin in the Suburbs

8/10 may be just a little generous for this b/w number but it has been made with surprising care and what we may be lacking in wide expanses of naked flesh is certainly made up for in dramatic storyline and non stop action. Pity we don't see more of the masked activities but we have to remember how early this is and that in many films around this time the title was as sexy as it gets. Here at least we get lots of enthusiastic fumblings, much suggestion of developing depravity and a sense that everyone is at it including the teenagers (and not with each other!). Nicely over the top performance in male lead who is trying to emulate his childhood hero, the circus ringmaster! Plus his sister(?) who is none other than Dyanne Thorne who will later transmogrify into the infamous, 'Ilsa' and 'Olga' is here too with a couple of cohorts later to be seen in 'Olga's House of Shame' So, fun enough to watch and most significant in the development of sex in US movies.

Sleazy, cheesy fun from the sexually-repressed early 1960s. Complete with jazzy soundtrack, freeze-frames, fervent coupling in kitschy bedrooms and silly costumes for the not-so-shocking "shock" ending. Stands out among the pioneering "adult" films.

It is too easy to dismiss "Sin In The Suburbs" as mere camp, Joe Sarno has some serious things on his mind and his efforts show results. His movie resembles Cassavettes and Warhol, but I think Sarno was a better filmmaker than either one one of them; he uses a porno house plot to explore the emotional depths of sexuality.

The Suburban milieu is once again viewed as a repressionland but unlike "American Beauty" it is populated not by walking cheap shots, but by real, unsentimental characters. Sarno's method's sound somewhat like Mike Leigh's; but working one imagines under much greater time and budget constraints, his results are more hit and miss. The wall to wall jazz is a big problem.

The Grindhouse boys once took a Bergman Film and tried to sell it as porno, one can only wonder what they made of Sarno;

Sin in the Suburbs (1964)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A group of housewives are so sad because their love life is a downright bore due to their boring husbands. The neighbors eventually join a sex club where they get more than they bargained for.

Swinging is something that writer-director Joe Sarno dealt with throughout his film career and that's the main plot point of SIN IN THE SUBURBS. If you're a fan of Sarno's work then you know that he often told "dirty" stories but he never really went into straight sexploitation at this point in his career. Instead the director delivered more "art" than "softcore" porn and that's what really sets him apart from others of this era.

I think there are a lot of good things going on in the film but at the same time there's no question that the screenplay itself isn't the strongest and the director actually made a much better swinger film a few years later with THE SWAP AND HOW TO MAKE IT. That film is certainly much better but this one here does offer up a few interesting characters and some decent performances.

As is usually the case, the cinematography is another major plus and there's no question that the film looks quite good. My biggest complaint is that the film just didn't always hold my attention. With that said, some have said that Stanley Kubrick ripped off various elements here and used them iN EYES WIDE SHUT. Who knows whether or not Kubrick actually saw this film but there are some striking similarities.

After her husband leaves her and she is unable to pay the bills "Yvette Talman" (Dyanne Thorne) seduces a bill collector at the instigation of her live-in boyfriend "Roy Minton" (Richard Tatro) to settle the debt. It's at this time that Roy gets an idea to increase their incomes many times over by taking advantage of the fact that the housewives in this particular suburb are extremely lonely and many of them are having affairs to resolve the situation. That being the case, he reasons that--for a certain price--he can introduce them to several different lovers at a discreet location and with certain safety features to protect their identities. Soon his plan becomes a complete success-at least for him. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it I will just say that this was a very risqué film for this particular era. I especially liked the manner in which Roy was cleverly depicted as the devil with his customers appearing as his followers. Likewise, although Dyanne Thorne was unrecognizable to me I thought there were a couple of fairly pretty actresses involved with Marla Ellis (as "Lisa Francis") standing out among them. On the other hand, I found the music--which played incessantly throughout the film-to be quite annoying. But overall I thought that this was a pretty good sexploitation film for the particular time-period and I rate it as slightly above average.