THE LOST FILMS OF HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
Blu-ray / DVD. Vinegar Syndrome.

When it was revealed that the final three missing Herschell Gordon Lewis films had finally been located, it sent a ripple of excitement through exploitation film fandom. Not that anyone expected the films to actually be any good, of course – but to finally have them available, when just about everyone had given up hope of ever seeing them, was great news. A successful Kickstarter campaign to finance the HD restoration later, and here we have The Ecstasies of Women, Linda and Abilene and Black Love on Blu-ray, and looking better than anyone could possibly have hoped. I couldn't think of a better way to start for new label Vinegar Syndrome (who also have a whole slew of amazing stuff lined up for the future). As for the films themselves – well, we're not talking great art here, but each one has it's own unique appeal.

The Ecstasies of Women, shot in 1969, is a lightweight sex comedy, that is set around a topless go-go club where four very drunk guys have gone to celebrate Harry's stag night, before he gets married in the morning. As the night goes on, they chat up surprisingly friendly topless dancers while Harry (Walter Camp) flashes back to sexual encounters of his swinging days of freedom aboard his house boat, the Floating Brothel. There's Annette (Jeanette Mills), who he picks up in a bar run by Russ Meyer regular Stuart Lancaster, Vixen star Vincene Wallace who picks him up on the beach, and super-cute Sharon Matt, who climbs into his car. All end up back at the Floating Brothel for some softcore fumbling with the remarkably unlikeable Harry. Meanwhile, back at the club, everyone is wasted, including monotone hippy stripper Summer Frenzy (Bonnie Clark), who seems to have taken a fancy to Harry. After a limp orgy back at Harry's boat with the guys and the dancers, out hero decides he doesn't care for the idea of married life after all and does a runner with the stoned Summer. He might've been better coming to that conclusion while with Ms Matt, I have to say. Maybe he did – their sex scene is oddly cut short, so who knows what happened after they'd finished humping. Maybe she came to her senses...

As basic a film as you could hope for, The Ecstasies of Women is pretty jaw-dropping, if only for how clearly wasted everyone involved in the club scenes is. These guys are not good enough actors to fake it so effectively, and watching them stumble over their lines (there was clearly no time for retakes, so fluffed dialogue remains intact) and then over their own feet is unintentionally hilarious. The sex scenes are fairly tame, but the general atmosphere is more akin to Lewis' pre-Blood Feast nudie films than the usual end of the decade softcore, giving it an odd charm.

You do get the impression that Lewis wasn't comfortable with softcore, and that's reinforced by Linda and Abilene, the closest thing in this collection to a 'real' film, in that it has characters, sets and a story. Designed to cash in on the current trend for sex-westerns, this 1969 movie also stars Sharon Matt, but this time in the lead role as Abilene, recently orphaned and living out on a remote farm with her brother Tod (Kip Marsh). For the first 40 minutes, the only thing to remind you that this is a sex film are two brief skinny-dipping scenes, the rest of the 'action' being filled with the pair moping around their farmhouse doing nothing. It's almost existentialist in its minimalism. Eventually, remembering what the film is supposed to be, Lewis gets down to the sex – firstly in the form of the pair's incestuous longings finally being expressed – again and again and again – and then with the introduction of bar floozy Linda (Roxanne Jones), who has a distinctly un-old West pair of stiff looking implants, and Rawhide, a supposedly filthy cowpoke (he's actually quite clean looking) who rapes Abilene, leading to a final showdown.

The sex is rather tame – most softcore of the time was getting raunchier in the inevitable lead up to hardcore a couple of years later, but here, Marsh rarely even takes his jeans off during the sex scenes. Of course, it makes up for that with the taboo nature of most of the sex on offer!

Pluses for the film include Sharon Matt, who has the emotional range of a log but is really cute and has a very sexy body, the music score – perhaps more suited to a Fifties film noir than a sex film – and a chance to see the notorious Spahn Ranch in action (the Manson Family were in residence while the film was being shot). The film looks great, on the whole – a few early exteriors are a bit fuzzy and grain-heavy, but otherwise, this is remarkably pristine. And while not entertaining in a conventional sense, Linda and Abilene is oddly compelling as you sit waiting for something to happen. It's almost hypnotic.

Things change for Black Love, shot in 1971. Inspired by the likes of Black is Beautiful and other 'white-coater' pseudo sex education films, this is a jaw-dropping movie that tries to pass itself off as a scientific study of 'the experience of black love', and starring 'people who in almost every way are exactly like you'. And I can certainly believe that real, non-professional performers were hired for this, as some of the cast are distinctly unattractive – though they more than make up for it in awkwardness, with frequent corpsing and stopping to follow obvious off-camera instructions. The sex, however, is unrelentingly hardcore, making this Lewis' one and only porn film. And it's easy to see why he didn't follow in the footsteps of people like Ray Dennis Steckler into a career making anonymous porn throughout the decade, because he's terrible at it. The film is badly lit, uncomfortable and about as erotic as a dead fish. The film ends with a scene where a decidedly unattractive couple get down to clumsy sex while she has rollers in her hair – that's the level of erotic sophistication on show.

And yet once you accept that this is going to be as unsexy as porn could get (and I doubt anyone is buying this collection for onanistic reasons) then Black Love becomes astonishing. It has a wild, funky score that plays continually – with odd pauses where the music ends and then has to start again – and has some hilarious moments of stupidity. The best bit is probably the nightclub scene, where a bunch of people dance, first full clothed, then topless, then naked, while the narrator eagerly explains that, yes, black people come in all shapes and sizes. Well, who knew that? Almost as good is the vaguely arty shot of a couple of a revolving platform, standing in extraordinarily awkward poses for ages and looking as though they want to die.

But it's the narration that really makes the film – it's a relentless, rather shaky voice-over that uses the word 'black' every few seconds, lest we forgot the theme of the film, and does its best to convince us that 'black love' is somehow exotic, strange and unique. For instance, apparently, black people like to change position during sex and are into foreplay – unlike white folks, for whom such things are presumably unthinkable. It's this ludicrous attempt to justify the film that lifts Black Love out of the lacklustre and into the world of the camp classic. One to watch with a crowd, I'd say, even if the HD quality often renders the flatly lit close-ups gruesome.

As well as the three films, the disc includes trailers – which are great, of their time and display all the damage and destruction you might have expected from the films. Packaged as a two disc Blu-ray/DVD set, this release comes with an informative booklet alongside replica timing cards for each of the film prints – a nice touch. My package also included fantastic button badges for Linda and Abilene and Black Love, as well as the collection itself – no idea if these come as standard with all orders or not.

The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis prove to be well worth the wait. Lovingly restored, the three films show a side to the Godfather of Gore we're not used to seeing, and each is entertaining in its own weird way. An essential purchase.

DAVID FLINT

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