Getting to the Bottom of It All

Manifesto

If there is a cause worth standing for it is that of liberating the bottom. It has been sat upon for too long. Is it any wonder that the word "bum" is used to describe both the gluteus maximus and also those who have fallen to the lowest level of our society.

There are those who would try to excuse the lowly position of the bottom on biological determinism. After all, they will tell you, the bottom inherited the shitty end of  the digestive tract. One could only wish that the minds of such individuals were as broad as their backsides.

Bottoms are wearied neither by oppression nor derision. No matter how much abuse they may be subjected to, they cannot help but remain their cheeky selves.

The spanking of bottoms has long been a traditional punishment, which is somewhat peculiar when it is considered that it is rarely the bottom that has committed the offence. The brain is most often the source of evil doings, but the other end of the anatomy become the scapegoat.

Soft and warm and joyously wobbly, like love itself, the bottom will have its day. As it has borne, so shall it be bared. As the tides of the ocean are subject to the power of the moon, so shall the tides of social change by pushed by another kind of moon. If someone would oppress you, bare to them your nether cheeks.

Scribbler's Muse

Enid's bottom deserves to be showered with praise. You can see much more of here at Girls Out West.

Tinto Brass

Tinto Brass is the auteur of the derriere. While his most famous movie is Caligula (1979), the films which truly express his unique personality are his lower-budgeted erotic films, in which he fetishises women's bottoms to the same degree that Russ Meyer celebrated bosoms.

He is famous for saying that, while women often lie, their bottoms always tell the truth.

Frivolous Lola (1998) (aka Monella)

The gorgeous Anna Ammirati stars in this romp set in the countryside of 1950's Italy. Young baker Masetto (Max Parodi) is having trouble persuading his flirtatious fiancé that they should wait until marriage to have sex. If he won't give her what she wants, she just may find it elsewhere. Maybe even with her mother's debauched lover André (Patrick Mower), if only she could be sure he isn't her real father.

This film is full of life and colour. Whether bicycling madly, skirt flying and panties flashing at passing priests, causing Masetto to burn his loaves, or jiving with soldiers to juke box records, Lola is the very personification of joy de vivre. And much comedy comes from watching everyone else have to deal with the anarchy she spreads. But watch out for the theme song. You'll never get it out of your head.

Anna Ammirati

Pinup

Looks like Cupid has scored a direct hit on one of actress, pinup model and singer Jolee Blon's most attractive features. Check out her website for more.

Flicks With Chicks : Pacific Banana (1981)

Alyson Best as Mandy

The Story

Martin Budd (Graeme Blundell) is a pilot for Blandings Airlines. After his employer's wife, Lady Blandings, tries to force herself on him, first during a private flight and secondly in her chauffeur-driven limousine, Martin develops a sexual disfunction. When attempting sex he sneezes and loses his erection. This is depicted by a shot of a windsock deflating. Sir Harry Blandings (Alan Hopgood) sees Martin fall out of the limo and sneeze, while a dishevelled Lady Blandings informs him she has been molested.

Blandings fires Martin, but not before showing him off to his daughter, Julia (Helen Hemingway), and explaining that this is what a sex maniac looks like. For Julia it is love at first sight. After his wife is gone, Harry explains that he knows what she is like and that he will send Martin to work as a pilot for Banana Airlines. On his way there he is picked up by a sexy woman who tries to seduce him. When he finds out that she is Blandings' other daughter Penny he sneezes and goes limp.

Banana Airlines seems to consist of only one plane, and a pretty clapped-out one at that. The other pilot is an inveterate lady's man by the name of Paul Davidson (Robin Stewart) who is engaged to both of the airline hostesses - Sally (Deborah Gray) and Mandy (Alyson Best), but still finds time to cheat on them with a string of other women.

Once Paul, Sally and Mandy find out about Martin's problem they try to help him with it. When the plane is chartered by Candy Bubbles (Luan Peters) to carry a bunch of swingers to Club Candy (her cut-price answer to Club Med), she and her club hostesses lend a hand.

Julia Blandings keeps stowing away aboard the plane and popping up to declare her undying love for Martin, which just panics him even more.

While jealous husbands and jealous hosties pursue Paul, Candy finally resorts to a primitive ritual which involves her baring her boobs and which is liable to arouse not just every man on the island, but the slumbering volcano as well.

But perhaps it is true love in the person of Julia which will, after all, provide the cure for what ails our hero.

The Director

John D. Lamond was once the king of Aussie skin flicks. He began in 1975 with a mondo style documentary called Australia After Dark. This was to be a look at the sinister and sleazy side of Australian life. The only problem was that in 1975 Lamond found it hard to find anything sinister or sleazy going on to film, so he had to create his own black mass and kinky orgy, the latter scene featuring a well-known gay television personality sporting leather gear. Next came The ABC of Love and Sex : Australia Style (1978) - a softcore sex film posing as as a sex education documentary and featuring women in leotards fondling giant penis statues. Also in 1978, Lamond made his most popular film Felicity, an Emmanuelle imitation about a plucky school girl who travels to Hong Kong and finds herself on a journey of sexual discovery. After that he turned to the popular slasher film genre with Nightmares (1980). Pacific Banana appears to have been Lamond's last real success. He directed a couple more films in Australia - Breakfast in Paris (1982) and A Slice of Life (1983), a comedy about vasectomy, and he wrote and produced a science fiction adventure called Sky Pirates (1986). Since then he's made a couple of obscure thrillers shot in Asia. But his appearance in Mark Hartley's documentary Not Quite Hollywood (2008) and the DVD releases of a number of his films has brought him back into the public eye, and now he is planning to direct two new movies - a noirish thriller and a dramady as well as executive produce some others. Check out this article for more on these current projects.

The Writer

Alan Hopgood is a writer and an actor. In Pacific Banana he plays the role of Sir Harry Blandings. He wrote the script for the famous Australian sex comedy Alvin Purple (1973) which made a star of actor Graeme Blundell. He also wrote its sequel and the television series which followed. He has written for famous television soaps such as Bellbird (1967), The Flying Doctors (1987-1991) and Neighbours (1998-2001). As an actor he has been a regular on Australian television. He played the part of Wally Wallace in 75 episodes of Prisoner. Films in which he as acted include My Brilliant Career (1979), The  Blue Lagoon (1980) and Roadgames (1981). Clearly Lamond thought that, by reuniting Hopgood and Blundell, he might end up with a hit like Alvin Purple. Certainly he and Hopgood were hoping it would be the first of a series. It didn't turn out that way. Hopgood was disappointed with the way Lamond cheapened his script, adding a pie fight sequence, etc. He feels that it was the director's fault that they didn't end up with a successful series of films.

The Actors

Graeme Blundell became a household name in Australia playing the role of Alvin Purple in the film of the same name. This tale of an ordinary guy who is unaccountably irresistible to women was a huge success, taking advantage of the recently created R-rating and paving the way for a string of raunchy romps like Pacific Banana. He has had an extensive career in film and television and even appeared in Star Wars : Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). He has also worked extensively in the theatre and was the author of a best-selling biography of Australian television personality Graham Kennedy.

Robin Stewart is an English actor perhaps best known for his role as Mike Abbott in the sitcom Bless This House (1971-1976) starring Sid James and as Leyland Van Helsing in the Hammer Films / Shaw Brothers collaboration The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974).

Deborah Gray adorned the cover of Australian Playboy in March 1981 as well as appearing in three other issues of the magazine. She became famous in 1977 playing the character of Miss Hemingway on the notorious Australian soap Number 96. Miss Hemingway was a serial exhibitionist who would appear in public in a long fur coat only to drop it and reveal that she was completely naked underneath. Her public exposures and trips to the psychiatrist in hopes of finding a cure for her behaviour were  a highlight of the show towards the end of its run. As well as playing the role of Sally, she and Luan Peters co-wrote and sang the film's catchy theme song. She went on to have a pop music career in the late seventies. Now she writes witchcraft books and has put out a jazz album.

Alyson Best appeared on a number of television soap operas, including having a main role in the short-lived Holiday Island (1981) of which her bikini-clad form was the major appeal. She also appeared a number of movies, including Harlequin (1980), with Robert Powell and David Hemmings, and Paul Cox's brilliant Man of Flowers (1983). She had a very appealing girl-next-door quality and often got her gear off on film. John Lamond claims she walked around nude for much of the time they were filming Pacific Banana. She hasn't acted on television or film since 1986.

Helen Hemingway was born in 1953. This would mean she was 28 when she played the role of Julia Blandings, running around in a school uniform. So the voice over narration which describes her as "mutton dressed up as lamb" is accurate. Her acting career was a fairly modest one. She appeared in three television series and two movies. The other movie was the cult horror film Patrick (1978). A pity. After seeing her sexy and charming performance in this film I would have liked to see more of her.

Luan Peters did a lot of television in Britain including two appearances on Doctor Who. She also appeared in two Hammer vampire films - Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971).

Hedley Cullen who has a brief non-speaking role as an airline passenger who leeringly looks up Deborah Gray's skirt was better known as Adelaide television horror host Deadly Earnest.

The Review

John Lamond's movies are not what you would call high-class cinema, but unlike many other auteurs who chased the drive-in dollar he kept the production values high on his movies. They might be dumb exploitation movies, but they always looked good. And Pacific Banana is no exception. The girls are gorgeous and artfully photographed. The scenery often spectacular. And the acting is good enough for the requirements of the script. Graeme Blundell, in particular, has always been a fine comic actor. The gags in the film, and especially the campy narration, are more likely to induce groans than giggles, but it really doesn't matter. The characters are likeable, the actors and actresses good looking, and watching them fly around a number of Pacific islands having sexy adventures is a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half.

The Book

There was a tie-in paperback based on the film written by someone with the unlikely name of Aldor Flagg. It isn't very good. The plot differs in some areas from the movie, but it really has nothing to offer as the film's appeal is in its visuals and not in its plot or dialogue.

Peeping Movie 1 : Just Looking (1995)

The other night I sat down to watch a movie. It wasn't this movie. It was another peeping related movie. But about 15 minutes into the movie it stopped. (Don't worry, I now have a copy that works, so I'll get to writing about that one soon. On the other hand, given that it was directed by Doris Wishman, the woman responsible for such notorious cinematic atrocities as Deadly Weapons and Nude on the Moon, maybe you should worry.)

So I started watching this movie instead. The only problem was that it was not the movie I thought it was. In 1999 Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld) directed a movie called Just Looking which was about a fourteen year old boy who vows that, before the end of the summer, he will witness a man and a woman in the "act of love". The trailer looks great, it's set in the fifties, Gretchen Moll is in it and it has been praised for its nostalgic charm.

That's the movie I thought I was watching. So I was a bit taken aback when the first fifteen minutes were all about this nerdy guy in his thirties living in what, in the 1990s, passed for the present day. He was obsessed with watching the lady next door get undressed, but otherwise I couldn't see how this was going to turn into a story about a boy coming of age in the 50s. Surely, I thought, this is just a prelude and at some stage he will start reminiscing about when he was a boy back in the fifties. The fact that a 33 year old in the 90s would not have even been born yet in 1955 never occurred to me. I'm just not that good at maths.

It was about the 25 minute mark that I realised that this just couldn't be the Jason Alexander movie. So I looked on IMDB and discovered that the 90s produced two movies called Just Looking. The one I was watching was the earlier of the two. A chick flick of no particular reputation.

Ah, well. It was about peeping. It had some boobies. All was not lost.

This Just Looking is the work of one Tyler Bensinger. He wrote and directed it. He never directed anything else. But he did write (and sometimes co-produce) episodes of television series like Beverley Hill 90210, Cold Case and Parenthood. Which probably explains why this movie comes across like a tele-movie. Maybe it was a tele-movie, but IMBD doesn't list it that way.

Jim (James LeGros) is an architect married to Mary (Michelle Forbes). They have a young daughter. Everything is fine, except that Mary seems more interested in her work for a travel agency than in making love with Jim. When she praises the youthful looks of her best friend and coworker Sherrie (Ally Walker), Jim says the Mary herself has a great figure. She laughingly calls him a liar, and politely rebuffs his offer to take her mind off her study with a little hanky panky.

"If only it was taboo for a man to have sex with his wife I think we'd all do it more often out of the sheer perversion of it," he tells himself as he pours a glass of milk in the kitchen. He can't stop thinking about the girl who lives across the way. Earlier that day, while playing on the balcony with his daughter and his neighbour's kids, he'd seen her undressing through her bedroom window.

The next day Mary and Sherrie are studying in a cafe. Sherrie is reading Mary's notes because she spent the class reading a dirty book.

She tells Mary that she spent the previous night making love on her boyfriend Craig's boat.

"It's amazing," she gushes. "I mean you don't even have to move, you know what I mean. The waves just kind of rock you back and forth. I had one of those exploding orgasms. You know the kind that just rocks you down to your toes."

Mary tells her she might want to speak up as the people at the next table might not have heard her.

"I don't care who hears me," she says. "I'm in lust."

When Mary gets home in the evening Jim suggests they rent a movie. She says she wants a scary one, but Jim admits he was thinking of something more "exotic". "Don't you think of anything else?" she chides him.

Later that evening he sees the couple across the way making mad passionate love.

He is holding his daughter's rag doll Tiffany in his hands, and his excitement is such that, without realising it, he tears it apart.

Aroused by what he has just watched, Jim crawls into bed with his wife. He tries to wake her, but she just rolls over and goes back to sleep.

In his imagination the woman he has been watching through the window turns over, looks him in the eye and calls his name.

When a colleague leaves, Jim has a chance at promotion. He tells Mary, but they are interrupted by their daughter complaining that her doll Tiffany is missing. Jim insists that he will buy her a new one. Mary thinks it is time she learned to look after her toys, but Jim says it might not have been her fault. Perhaps a squirrel stole it. 

Jim has brought home a spicy movie to watch with Mary, but she finds it laughable.

He then hands her a present.

It's sexy lingerie.

"Oh, the things I do for you," she says. Clearly she feels it is more of a present for himself than for her.

When he tries to bite through her suspender, he gets his teeth stuck.

Much to her amusement.

Jim goes back to peeking at the girl across the way through toy binoculars.

One evening he is caught by his neighbour Chuck (Kurt Fuller), who thinks he is playing at soldiers. "We're all fuckin' crazy as hell, you know that," he says, and tells the story of his brother who used to blow up cats by sticking explosives up their bums.

Jim's boss Darlene Carpenter (Marg Helgenberger) interviews him for the new job. But he can't put out of his mind his work colleague's advice to not look at her tits.

He looks.

And Darlene says she doesn't think he is ruthless enough for the position.

Meanwhile Sherrie persuades Mary to consider a new look.

When Jim gets home Mary tries to console him about not getting the job. But he is trying hard to pretend he likes her new short haircut.

Sherrie tells Mary she doesn't want to live without passion in her life. Mary says that just because she doesn't break out into a sweat when she sees Jim it doesn't mean their marriage has no passion.

Mary finally meets Sherrie's hot boyfriend Craig (Steve Weber).

When Mary gets home she decides to put some passion into her marriage. But unfortunately Jim has just been having a wank.

So even though she uses the ice cube trick from Sherrie's dirty book, Jim experiences "technical difficulties."

Jim has more bad luck when his wife's friend Alicia (Mary Mara) walks into the video store just as he is about to rent a porno video. He hides it behind his back, but...

...the manager loudly praises his choice of film. "Good choice," he says. "Very popular. Some Like it Hot and Juicy!" Alicia smiles as she goes out the door.

This leads to a heated argument between Jim and Mary.

Jim says that the only reason he rented a porn film was because he was feeling horny and didn't want to be rejected by Mary. She accuses him of acting like a child.

"Well, I guess I'm just not ready for middle age yet," he replies.

"Did you just call me middle aged?" she asks. "Because, if recall correctly I'm not the one who experienced technical difficulties last night."

That night Jim walks in on Mary watching the porno. She asks him if he wants her to be like the porn stars. He tells her he doesn't.

"If that's what you want I'd do it," she says bitterly. "I'd probably have to get a boob job though, and some lyposuction. Definitely a brain reduction."

"If you want one of those girls so badly, why don't you go out and find yourself one?" she asks.

"Maybe I will," he says sadly.

"Well, maybe I will too," she replies.

Mary goes to Craig's place with Sherrie.

Craig nudes up and goes in for a swim. Sherrie points out the tattoo over his butt to an embarrassed Mary.

Mary is even more shocked when Sherrie tells her than she told Craig that she and Mary had "fooled around" with each other.

She says it turned him on so much it was "almost scary." She also decides to go skinny-dipping.

Meanwhile, Jim is back watching the couple across the way make love.

Mary strips to her underwear and goes in for a swim with Sherrie and Craig. But she gets uncomfortable when Craig puts his arm around her.

Things are getting hot and heavy in the apartment Jim's spying on. He decides to use his daughter's monitor toy to listen in on what the couple are saying.

It works for a while, though he discovers the pair are foreigners who don't speak English. But when a squirrel knocks it off the ledge into the couple's apartment, he has to try to retrieve it.

Mary returns unexpectedly with Craig, who starts trying to kiss her. Jim runs over from his position at the window and yells, "Stop kissing my wife." He asks Mary why she was kissing another man.

She explains that she wasn't kissing him. He was kissing her. Then she asks him why he was hanging around that window.

And then she sees why.

And Jim sees what she sees.

And the sexy neighbour sees that she's been seen.

Sherrie is kind of pissed off, because Craig told her that Mary came on to him. She doesn't believe it though. She knows he is no good.

But for Mary and Jim things work out.

"I think sex is terribly overrated," says Mary. "It just kind of gets in the way."

"I personally can take it or leave it," admits Jim.

"I mean who could expect to have good sex after ten years anyway," she adds.

Then she give him that look.

And drags him into the bath with her.

The film is nothing terribly special, but it did make me laugh a few times and the women were sexy. And James LeGros is a talented comic actor. He reminded me of a young Robert Morse.

It's ultimately a very conservative film. Marriage is held up as the ideal. Poor Sherrie is looking for ground-shaking orgasms rather than wedlock, and so she is bound for heartbreak. Our married couple may be tempted to stray, but they never really do. But this is pretty much the standard formula for marital melodramas, which, in spite of all the comedy, is what this is.

If I were going to write a story along these lines I'd have Mary catch Jim perving at the neighbours, grab the binoculars away from him to have a look herself and find herself mesmerised by the guy's naked bod. And so Jim and Mary would be reunited by a shared love of voyeurism, fucking and wanking each other happily while perpetually peeping. But that sort of thing doesn't happen in Hollywood.

Another Great Voyeurism Story

Surf on the Beach by Cherry Sweets

Since I did my main posting on peepers I discovered this wonderful story about a bird watcher who gets more than he bargained for when he spys a woman sunbathing topless.