Sin in the Suburbs

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.

When you watch this movie, test this hypothesis: with a little bigger budget, some proper editing, and a little more time, 'Sin In The Suburbs' could have been a great film. Kudos to Joe Sarno.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1 Casting - 1/1 Directing - 1/1 Story - 1/1 Writing/Screenplay - 1/1

Total Base Score = 5

Modifiers (+ or -)

Believability/Consistency: -0.5 Extraordinary Actor Chemistry: 1 ( Judy Young aka Alice Linville & Dyanne Thorne aka Lahna Monroe ) Distractingly Poor Editing: - 0.5

Total RealReview Rating: 5 (If, on a quantum level, multiple 5's can have various degrees and sizes, then the 5 attributed to 'Sin In The Suburbs' is a HUGE 5.)

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;

I love it when I see a little film like this that no ones ever seen. Theres something about the sets which really throw you in to America 60s suburban life; the curtains, the architectural lay out of the houses. It provides something a big budget polished hollywood movie can never provide. There is a striking similarity to Eyes Wide Shut the film Kubrick died before finishing. The theme is definately perverse, but its a pretty tame movie really by todays standards. Can't recommend it enough, its a cult classic in my book

With very limited resources at this disposal (the budget, shooting time, and acting talent were clearly in short supply), Sarno has combined a poor plot with an almost anthropological approach to encapsulating the fashions (hair and clothing) and the physical landscape of domestic split-level commuter suburbia (Long Island, perhaps?) in the mid-1960s.

The visual titillation is very minimal, alas, so this isn't much of a sexploitation treat, but it does serve as almost a work of cinema verite, brought about by lack of resources for depicting anything beyond recording that physical milieu directly and accurately.

There is also some attempt as social commentary -- everyone's house is the same, and all the breadwinners (male, of course) take the 7:21 train into the city and return on the 6:35, while their wives stay home and try to fend off boredom). Too bad that Sarno wasn't given enough resources to develop and capture a vision.

As it is, this is sort of a proto-indie movie, wherein the filmmaker was allowed some degree of personal expression within the straitjacket of the highly inhibited sexploitation genre of the era.

SiTS would have benefited from more flesh, and more fleshing out. A nice curiosity nevertheless.