Blue Movie

What if a stag film, one of those cheaply made, low-grade film quality adult boff movies, were made with a big budget, with big name stars, at feature film length? That's what Boris Adrian, a.k.a. King B or simply B, a well-respected star director who's won Oscars with his revolutionary and visionary styles who has entered a creative drought for the past two years, wonders aloud to Sidney Krassman, his gross, hefty, and profane producer after an evening spent watching stag films at the home of eccentric, vivacious, multi-handicapped Teeny Marie.Sid gets three million dollars for production costs. Yes, Boris's movie will be made, but the proviso that it will be filmed and exclusively exhibited in Liechtenstein, that postage stamp sized principality sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria, with the government providing the funding. That would be a boon to a country with the lowest per capita income in Western Europe.The movie, titled The Faces Of Love, is to be an anthology of erotic love, of twenty-five minute segment stories. Getting the budget money, and production crew is no problem. What about the performers? To that end, Boris procures Angela Sterling, an actress clearly based on Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield, and America's top draw, someone who wants to be seen as more than just a T & A actress, the French lesbian actress Arabella, and prim but pretty British actress Pamela Dickensen. The only big trouble may come from Angela Sterling, who is also the mistress of Les Harrison, vice president of Metropolitan studios, and whose presence on Boris's movie was the result of a breach of contract from a movie funded by Metropolitan. The movie would take advantage of some recently lifted restrictions and challenge some movie taboos, with each story representing a theme such as miscegenation/multiple partners, the first experience, which is a lesbian one, a priest and a hooker, and brother with sister.As this was written in 1970, four years after the demise of the notorious and increasingly irrelevant Hays Code and two years after the imposition of the MPAA ratings, Blue Movie is well-placed, coming out at the dawn of a brief newfound cinematic freedom.Sprinkled with lots of four-letter words, mostly by Sid, with plenty of explicit passages and even a few chapters, funny characters such as Feral, a Senegalese extra whose equipment gets many reactions, Tony Sanders, the writer who's a veritable goofy but creative genius, and of course Sid, who's crass, vulgar, but funny. He tells a topless and quite chesty waitress, "Do you have a cold?" When she asks him what makes him think that, he says, "Oh I don't know why. Your chest looks all swollen." Boris's laid back, thoughtful personality makes him a pretty appealing character. The bash at big studios is apparent. Some chapters depict the actual shooting and discussion of scenes in the film, special apparati used in adult scenes, which film buffs may appreciate. The book ripples with

Terry Southern was one of the 60's bad boys, politically to the Left, not quite avant garde, a "dirty" writer. He has penned a hilarious story about the making of a porn movie. There is nothing to say but that the characters are as outrageous as the action and this is NOT a book that goes from one ribald act to another. It is (truly) about making a "blue movie". I still smile when I think of the dialogue (quote unquote) as the evil, Yankee soldier prepares to deflower the helpless, Southern beauty. The book has a very satisfying ending.

This was my third trip through Terry Southern's version of Hollywood, and I rarely reread. This is one hilarious novel. Funny, erotic, surreal, offensive, all the things a good book should be. The main premise of the book is simple: what if Hollywood's greatest director decided to make a high-budget porn film. Good actors, good lighting, good writer, good director (of course), everything missing from garden-variety smut.They are able to secure funding and Southern takes us through every step of the filming process. Casting, all the behind the scenes politics, rewrites, and especially the shooting. Southern writes explicitly of all the action that is to take place on screen. So, if you are offended by explicit descriptions of varied sex acts, then this book is not for you. Everyone on this film is obsessed by sex, and there is as much going on off screen as there is on. If that were all this book had to offer, I would say skip it, but Terry Southern is a man who can write. This may be smut on the surface, but underneath, it's literature. He knows when euphemism will work better than directness, and when to "cut away" from a scene--when enough is enough.So, if you are interested in what happens during the making of a film--of any kind--then read this book. If you are interested in good writing, then read this book. And, especially, if you want to have a good, rollicking time, then read this book.

Easily Southern's best novel. I must admit I was disappointedwith CANDY and THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, which I read before this book,.... but BLUE MOVIE delivers the goods with an ourageously sleazy andunfailingly funny portrait of Hollywood power brokers and their sexualhangups. All of the Big Players get their lumps: the Big Studio Head,the Pretentious Director, the Stoned Writer, the Ambitious Starlet,etc. The real strength of the novel is that Southern manages tohumanize his caricatures, thus rendering his satiric bite even morevicious. (Ya gotta love Sid Krassman --- truly a crass man.) Those whobelieve in the V-chip and warning labels on rock albums should stayaway, but for those who like a read on the wild side, BLUE MOVIE willleave you in more stitches than DeNiro as Frankenstein's monster.

The Dirtiest Book Ever Written? Perhaps. In terms of its content, Blue Movie puts the Marquis de Sade to shame. Not only is it more prurient than the good Marquis' works, but its a lot funnier. As a result, every reader to whom I have recommended it has said that it is the funniest book they've ever read, but not at all dirty.