people in their late 30s trying to “dig what the kids are into, maaaan”, and its storyline, such as it is, may be bleak in the extreme, but its beauty remains undeniable.
The obscurity of a film, rather like that of a record, can often give it kudos among collectors that it doesn’t necessarily deserve. Thankfully, Permissive lives up to everything you might have heard about it. But off course, not every great film is necessarily that
move towards jazz-rock with Chapter Three a short time later: the music was definitely a far cry from the bluesy pop of his band’s recent hits.
Was the film any good? It’s difficult to tell with Franco, a director who one tends to judge on his own merits. Put it this way: he’s made worse. But then again, that might just be like saying that akin to Liz Stride, Mary Kelly was a very messy murder victim. Whatever one may think of his work, it is immediately recognisable: put it on, and everybody will instantly shout “JEEESUS!” at the television… One thing’s for certain though, Venus In Furs, which was filmed in both Turkey and Brazil among other places, isn’t, despite its London production team, the most British-looking of Britsploitation movies. But it does highlight a sea change in context from ‘swinging’ (the non-sexual usage of the word, although, from the stories one hears, you never know) to full- blown “freak-out”, and it’s this direction in which we are now headed.
As the decade turned, the hair grew even longer, the music became more progressive, and the plots racier, yet at the same time infused with a gritty realism. This approach is best demonstrated in the late Lindsay Shonteff’s ultra-seedy tale of groupie abuse Permissive (’70), unquestionably THE holy grail for acid folkies, which crams three great acts into one movie: Forever More (managed by Simon Napier-Bell, and for whom the film was intended as a vehicle) Titus Groan, and Comus. Yes, Comus. Not only did Wootton and Co. provide half the incidental music, and appear in several party scenes, but they went on to score two more of Shonteff’s sleazy actioners, The Big Zapper and Zapper’s Blade Of Vengeance, after they had officially split up. Permissive has regained cult popularity in the last three years (especially after Circulus’ Mike Tyack named it his favourite film) and a DVD reissue, targeted at Shindig! readers, with full artwork and some decent interviews, is badly needed. Its ludicrous dialogue may originate from
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obscure. Many with horror (rather than sex- based) content made regular appearances on the box, where it’s OK to bewitch or behead young maidens as long as you don’t visibly deflower them.
In The Sorcerers (’67) for which Lee Grant & The Capitols provide the Birds-flavoured opening song, the swinging kids of “today” are presented, as they had been in the much harder-to-see The Party’s Over (’65), as a thoroughly unpleasant lot, denizens of a world in which the only decent person turns out to be 80-year-old Boris Karloff.
Similarly, Haunted House Of Horror (’68) has ‘teenagers’ Mark Wynter and Frankie Avalon meeting unpleasant deaths when their gang decamp from a party which has become a “tired scene” to a nearby mansion for a ghost hunt (like you do). Apparently, a la The Beatles in, or rather not in Painted Smile, distributor Tony Tenser thought the proposed leading man – one David Bowie, fresh from director Michael Armstrong’s horror short The Image – to be not famous enough. How different things could have been.
Of more importance is the soundtrack, provided by Erith bad boys The Pretty Things AKA The Electric Banana who, thanks to their association with music library DeWolfe, are the definitive British horror exploitation band. In Armstrong’s film, ‘I See You’ plays as
Frankie Avalon keeps his eys peeled for The Electric Banana in Haunted House Of Horror (top); There they are! Sally Geeson and Norman Wisdom digging a bit of ‘Alexander’ in What’s Good For The Goose (above); Sal Valentino of Stoneground in Dracula AD 1972 (right) and the grim realities of groupie-dom, 1970 style, in Permssive (below).
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