Strange New World: Sex Films of the 1970s - Softcover

Abbott, Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1505670179 ISBN 13: 9781505670172

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Black and white / 710 pages / Adult content and strong language (to read Comments click on 'See all Reviews')

To look at the world of the past through films can be a sobering insight into how things have changed, but to look at the world of the 20th century through sex films is to witness a world that is almost inexplicable. In no decade is this experience more bizarre than the 1970s, and yet it is less than half a century in the past. Was society really so strange and different only forty years ago?

These films were often not pornography, as we understand the term. But what were they? Who made these films and why, and who were they made for? What did they say then, and what do they tell us now? In some cases, what were we thinking?? But in others, what have we lost? Nothing even remotely like these films is being made today. What has replaced them, and how, and why?

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JON ABBOTT, born in 1956 and a teenager in the 1970s, looks back at the era through over two hundred films exploiting sex and nudity, some of which he loved, and some of which he... liked a little less! This opinionated and fact-filled history looks at the strange new world that adults of both sexes and all ages found themselves in during the 1970s and surrounding decades, from the 1950s to the present day.

It looks at films from all around the world, including America, Britain, France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Czechoslovakia, China, and Japan, at sci-fi, horror, crime thrillers, comedies that weren't funny, and serious-minded films that were hilarious.

Some of the best-known masters of sexploitation are well represented--Stanley Long, Greg Smith, Joe Sarno, Russ Meyer, Mac Ahlberg, Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Tinto Brass--as are some of the sex films' most beautiful and prolific practitioners--Sylvia Kristel, Gloria Guida, Lina Romay, Maria Forsa, Edwige Fenech, Felicity Devonshire, Christina Lindberg, Joelle Coeur... and such mainstream movie names as Jane Fonda, Jenny Agutter, Julie Christie, and Pam Grier.

JON ABBOTT has been writing about films and TV for over thirty years in a variety of publications, trade, populist, and specialist. This is his fifth book.

Look out for the 150 page color supplement to this title, The A--Z of Bad Girls, a Naked Pulp special.

About this title

About the Author

Jon Abbott was born in London, England in June, 1956.

Thanks to Huckleberry Hound and Supercar, Jon Abbott has been writing professionally about popular culture for around thirty years, during which time he has written over four hundred articles on American film and television for over two dozen different trade, specialist, and populist publications in the U.K. These have included City Limits, Television Weekly, TV Comic, Video Today, Starburst, Stills, Media Week, Adult Movies on Video, What Video, What Satellite, TV Zone, Time Out, The Face, The DarkSide, Video Buyer, Video World, Cult Times, Comedy Review, SFX, Home Entertainment, Infinity, and Dreamwatch. 

He has a wide range of interests in 20th century film, television, and music, including gangster films ranging from Cagney through to Corman and Scorsese, classic cartoons, 1950s sci-fi movies, 1960s TV and comics, and 1970s cinema. 

He is particularly fond of the work of Laurel and Hardy, Phil Silvers, Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Termite Terrace, Tamla Motown, the Beatles, Hanna-Barbera, Irwin Allen, Gerry Anderson, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Elvis Presley, Clint Eastwood, Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, and Stephen J. Cannell. He's also a fan of Tom and Jerry, Republic Serials, The Untouchables, The Outer Limits, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Man from UNCLE, the Daleks, the Adam West Batman, the Emma Peel Avengers, The Invaders, the original Star Trek, Godzilla and Gamera films, pulp magazine covers and pop art, cheesy, sleazy sex films ( and good ones), shameful Italian comedies, Chinese gangster films (especially with Chow Yun Fat), Fawlty Towers, Frasier, and The Sweeney.

Despite the above, he doesn't live in the past, because he's bought the best of it into the future with him, and he prefers his i-pad, i-pod, DVDs, and big screen TV to vinyl, censorship, and two-channel television.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1505670179
• ISBN 13: 9781505670172
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 710