Original subtitles

Mrs. Robison, you're trying to seduce me

In a darkened theater...

moviegoers by the millions indulge their deepest fantasies

And as they watch in a room full of strangers...

they experience the most intimate and personaI act of all

Let the games begin

Sex on movie screens titillates us

Do you mind if I get personaI?

Go right ahead

I don't mind if you get familiar

It tantalizes us

And above all it takes us on a voyeuristic journey...

that satisfies both our hearts

I don't mind making a fooI of myself over you

And our animaI desires

Orgy, have an orgy, orgy, orgy...

And it does it at 14 frames per second

It's strengthening in terms of what lurks inside the human animaI...

waiting to come out under certain circumstances

The unexpected is always more interesting

Danger is much more interesting

Tell me Nicki were you frightened last night?

That's what made it so good

I want to see lover scenes

But I want to see desperate, romantic...

I- can't-have-her-but-I-really-need-her love scenes

Hey, Stella!

Everybody does sex...

but I want to do something that everybody does sell

We are sexuaI beings and...

we should be celebrating it

Having fun, kiddies?

A lot of people just think men just love huge whatever...

but what is sexy to most actors...

is talent

Secondly, humor...

and third, 38 D cup

Today, western society is more sexualized than ever

And throughout the world...

people feed on lurid tidbits of erotic indiscretion

Sex really does sell everything from...

cosmetic to clothes to the music you hear

I think the world is driven by sex because...

it's the most fascinating part of your life

Sex also fills the movie screens of America

But after more than a century...

Hollywood continues to struggle in

deciding how far it dares to go...

in dramatizing the most private and...

controversiaI act of human behavior

What does your therapist say about all this?

I could never tell my therapist

Why not?

Because it's private

I think this is a mistake

There's no such things as a mistake

There's what you do...

and what you don't do

There's released in 2002...

the romantic drama UnfaithfuI...

explored the disastrous consequences...

of a wild, extramaritaI affair

It's kind of an anatomy of an adultery

It's about guilt and suspicion and this sort of stuff

You know when we could end this now

and no one would get hurt

Yeah? I think if we ended this now...

I'd get hurt

So, no matter what someone gets hurt?

Maybe not...

maybe we get tired of each other

God, I hope I get tired of you

It's kind of an emotionaI ride

where you go through...

things that you would love to have happened in your life

I have friends out there

Things that you would be horrified...

at getting through...

and getting away with in your life

You take me to the best places

But candid, sexuaI dramas like

UnfaithfuI...

remain the exception to the rule in modern Hollywood

Yeah, I want you to

At a time when target audiences are more PG-13 than R or NC-1/...

sex in mainstream movies is often

more kiss and tell than show and tell

I think Hollywood sort of had love-hate

love-hate relationship with sex from the very beginning

because they want you to see these movies...

but they also want to see as many ppI as possible to come and see their films

So, they're a little bit afraid of pushing the envelope

Holy shit

You know there's no lock on your door

Hollywood is always going to sell sex

But a lot of times it's just the promise of sex

So are we going to screw soon...

cause I'm getting kind of antsy?

A lot of today's stars have probably done more explicit...

photo layouts for magazines than

they've done actually in the movies

All of a sudden...

No, no, no, I'm not going to do a nude scene

I think it's only in America that people are, you know...

obsessed with is there too much sex?

And never, Is there too little sex?

America have a strange take on

how much is acceptable and what's acceptable

And that when we can go to a movie...

and watch Arnold Schwarzenegger...

blow everybody to bits...

that's ok for our 12-year-olds

But seeing a couple tongue kissing is bad

I don't know where that came from

How's my stomach taste?

The story of sex in the movie is partly a story of morality...

and America's offer uncomfortable relationship with the erotic

Take away the guilt...

and who'd ever want to get laid?

The main impact of Hollywood films has

always been to define what's normaI

And that's nowhere more evident than in human intimacy, sexually

But some directors push beyond perceived sociaI norms

Among the most adventurous is PauI Verhoeven...

who's brought his own erotic passions

to a string of box office hits

I try not to do sex scenes that I don't know about

I try not to do things that I have no knowledge about

How's it feeI to kill someone?

I would just dig into the encounters I've had with women in my life...

and try to fill it in...

in a way that I know is true

The more it can make you feeI like the audience is a fly on the wall

that they're privy to some grand, spontaneous moment...

that's when it works

When you starts sort of being decorous about it...

and putting the sheet here, and putting the ass there...

and moving them around like that it just becomes...

It's disaster, disaster

During the last 2 decades...

sex in the cinema has usually been used...

to show price to be paid for the wages of sin

You want to pretend like it never happened?

Or it's provided a below the belt punch line in a comedy

It also continues to stimulate controversy

It's alright

It'll be our little secret

As studios use sex to target a younger and younger audience

Maybe not so little

But as movie budgets climb beyond the $100 million dollar mark...

studios eager to attract a huge crowd...

often take a play-it-safe approach to sex

And that's given a boost to one edgy rivaI...

Television

In cable television...

you actually are gaining audience by

making the materiaI more interesting... and controversiaI

In 'Sex in the City', you have surprising stuff happening...

every week where you go...

I can't believe I just saw that on television

If you're willing to go out and

actually promote it then sex can sell...

and certainly with our series Queer as Folk...

it's all about sex

If you don't want to watch...

the first amendment is a beautifuI thing

You don't have to...

but it also protects the right of the people...

who do want to watch that kind of a story

But Hollywood hasn't always been shy...

about exploring adult sexuality on the big screen

Film made sex visible

Film made sex beautifuI

Film captured the enthusiasm and reckless abandon

And gave us memories that will keep us warm well into our dotage

When it's hot like this you know what I do?

I keep my undies in the ice box

In the ice box?

See you in a minute

Hollywood's attitude towards the erotic...

has always ebbed and flowed...

amid the changing tides of public morality

I think we should just play it by ear

It's a story and a battle...

that began at the dawn of the 20th Century...

when the first erotic images flickered onto movie screens

From the time that movies first moved...

in primitive theaters and crude peep shows...

sex was on the screen

It shocked and it titillated

It outraged and it allured

One of the first successfuI movies...

was The Kiss

It was a little loop that showed this

middle-aged couple nibbling each other

But it was advertised as:

At last the mysteries of the kiss revealed...

Science said kissing is dangerous...

but we will show you in startling revelation the every detaiI

Well, that...

little reeI ran for 10 years in New York

Some viewers protested

But millions more patronized

Most were hungry to explore the forbidden...

and journey to secret places they'd never seen before

One of the places they wanted to explore most...

was the bedroom

And thanks to movies a cinematic Kamasutra was born

The audience was primarily immigrants...

people who in many cases didn't even speak English yet

Yet, they're watching these images on a screen...

larger than life...

and they're seeing:

Oh, this is how things are done in America

By the 1920s...

Hollywood had created their first sex God...

and Goddesses

Thata Vera was our first reaI sex symboI

And she was a Hollywood creation

She portrayed a woman with a sexuaI agenda of her own...

who would prey on men

This was shocking to America and...

it was also entrancing

She, her films made millions of dollars

Valentino came in the era of arrow collars...

clean-cut Americans

And here comes somebody who is slinky and...

brilliantine hair...

and it's a whole different kind of ethic

He was so popular that...

young men referred to themselves as...

Sheiks and girlfriends as Shebas

During Hollywood's infancy...

and its flickering creations first began to speak...

Shut up

Movie makers realized that audiences were most comfortable with sex...

if it was clouded in a biblicaI context

Take off your clothes

Get in here and tell me all about it

For having outrageous sexuaI situations...

in a sanctioned environment...

you know there is absolutely nothing better than Bible stories

And they were seized on most spectacularly...

by director CeciI B. Demille...

who in movies like Sign of the Cross was able to...

do sort of advanced, cinematic, sadomasochism

Delicious debauchery

To me, 'The Sign of the Cross' is the most...

In many ways, the most...

shocking of all the pre-code movies

We have this dance

Dance, dance the baked moon

This woman does the dance of the naked moon...

and she is caressing this innocent, virginaI, Christian character

And it's very sensuous

And the people who are watching her dance...

are shown to be visibly aroused

But during the 1930s...

not every director hid behind the skirt of religion...

to turn a spotlight on sex

Some dared to show more than a hint of bare skin

In films like MGM's 1934 adventure tale

Tarzan and his Mate

Wait Tarzan

The movie starred Olympic swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller...

and Maureen O-Sullivan...

who was body-doubled for a Risque swimming scene

Darling, you're very...

During the 30s...

you had movies where sex was front and center...

and went punished and was tremendously enjoyable...

to the participants

Now that I've met you sociably...

what shall we talk about?

Do we have to talk?

I'll stop a car and I won't use my thumb

Sex was also front and center in severaI sophisticated dramas

May I see you again?

If you don't take me out someone else will

Of human bondage brought stardom to better Davis...

in the roll of a Wanton waitress

Some people would do better to mind their own business

Who uses sex to manipulate a sensitive doctor...

played by Leslie Howard

You disgust me

Me?

I disgust you?

You cad, you dirty swine

I never cared for you, not once

I was always making a fooI of you

You bored me stiff, I hated you

It made me sick when I had to let you kiss me

I only did it because you begged me

You hounded me

You drive me crazy

And after you kissed me...

I always used to wipe my mouth

Wipe my mouth!

In the early 1930s as depression-era...

audience yearned for excitement and escape

A new generation of sexy screen sirens tantalized moviegoers

There were beautifuI women, sexy women,...

the sexiest women in the world on the screen

Scandals, they're everywhere

They're in the air and who put them there?

You, you and you, you nasty man

There was Fox's resident vamp Alice Faye

New Yorker?

Not native, I was born in the Virgin Islands

You must have left there when you were quite young

Alice Faye was a combination of sexuality and vulnerability

You know there was a lot of Marilyn Monroe in her

Don't you want to seaI the bargain with a little kiss?

While Alice Faye was steaming up the set at Fox...

MGM had platinum blonde firecracker Jean Harlow

Harlow achieved stardom in the early 1930s

Striking sexy poses for photographers

and movie cameras in hits like Red dust...

costarring Clark Gable

Can't a girI take a bath in privacy without...

Good morning

I would have loved to have known Jean Harlow

I would have loved to have known Chrole Lombard

I don't like that, shit

They had a great sense of humor

No, not only does it make me have something to think of...

something to think of...

I got that far, holy, Jesus Christ

It was Carole Lombard who was the Queen of screwball comedies

Who showed just how fabulously sexy absolute silliness could be

Just sit right down there like a good girI

And in just a minute you'll forget that you had any troubles

I thought so, let that be a lesson to you

Paramount Pictures also shaped an erotic icon out of German-born siren...

Marlene Dietrich who daringly targeted both men and women...

with her sexuaI allure

But above all...

there was Mae West

You're an universaI sort of person

Yeah, I've been accused of that

Queen of the sex quip

I am delighted, I have heard so much about you

Yeah, but you can't prove it

Who shimmied her hourglass figure

from Broadway to Hollywood

Haven't you ever met a man that can make you happy?

Sure, lots of times

And took suggestiveness as far as it would go

You were wonderfuI tonight

I'm always wonderfuI at night

Yes, but tonight you were especially good

Well, when I'm good I'm very good

But when I'm bad, I'm better

Mae West kidded sex

I've got to be getting back to the mission

Sally's father is waiting for me

That ought to be interesting

And no one was used to that and it really ruffled a lot of feathers

People were very upset about that

But of course her films made a huge amount of money

oh, mama

Mae West single-handedly saved Paramount Studios

Suckers

And once again Hollywood learned the basic lesson when in doubt...

go to sex

Why did you admit knowing so many men in your life?

Well, it's not the men in your life... that count

It's the life in your men

While Mae West was finding comedy in man's favorite sport...

European filmmakers were also

creating milestones in screen sensuality

In 1933 audiences around the world were stunned

And stimulated...

by one of the boldest depictions of sex...

ever put on movie screens

Ekstase made in Czechoslovakia...

cast a stunning brunette named Hedy Kiesler...

in the story of a bride who embarks on a secret affairs...

after learning that her husband is impotent

We deny that Ekstase is either indecent or immoraI

After two years of legaI warfare...

Ekstase is now in this country with...

the approvaI of the United States Government

Ekstase was talked about endlessly

Because of its sexuaI content and because it made...

the unknown Czech actress

Hedy Kiesler into Hedy Lamarr

It has a scene of her running naked through the woods

It has a scene of her...

reaching climax

Her face during orgasm...

40-feet high on a silver screen...

Breathtaking, it's still powerfuI to this day

But back in America...

opposition was growing to such freedom of expression...

and in 1934...

after years of protests...

the Catholic Legion of Decency stunned Hollywood...

by threatening an industry boycott if

studios didn't clamp down on sex

The power they had rested in the fact that at Sunday mass...

they could tell millions of the Catholics...

that on pain of undermining their souI...

they must not go to the most movies that the legion was condemning

Studios had long turned a blind eye to...

production code guidelines created in 1930...

that were supposed to be enforces by America's ex-postmaster GeneraI...

Will Hays

The code sets up high standards of performance for motion pic producers

You want entertainment... wholesome, interesting and vitaI

This the motion picture industry is pledged to provide

There had been a code

But no one followed it untiI around 1934

And that's when Hollywood decided to police itself rather than have...

the powers-that-be come in and do it for them

The code was now strictly enforced under the watch of...

a Roman Catholic ex-newspaperman...

named Joseph Breen

SexuaI situations were now strictly forbidden

And after a string of saucy hits like...

I'm No AngeI

Mae West was among those whose wings were seriously clipped

Don't forget, come up and see me sometime

There's no Mae West after the code

I mean they don't have the bite...

the snap, the originality of the one's before

Sex in American film became relegated

to the world of exploitation movies...

made on the cheap and thrown in fly-by-night screening venues

But no one could keep sex out of...

Hollywood films completely

And despite the puritanicaI rules...

of the production code...

moviemakers would find subversive ways...

to keep sex alive on the big screen

Here's the gorgeous, tantalizing lady Eve

Now watch her go into action

During the 1930s and 40s

the rigid restrictions of censors couldn't stop Hollywood filmmakers

from talking about sex

Once filmmakers couldn't be as brazen in the way they treated sexuality...

they actually got sneaky either with images or language

So you found...

things like smoking got to be very sexualized and...

you know...

they went crazy with double-entendres

Nice chassis, Joe?

Classy chassis

Yeah, and it all belongs to me

I'd be glad to finance it, baby

Who do you think you're kidding?

You couldn't even pay for the headlights

But by December 1941...

sex on the screen was about to enter a new era

In the aftermath of PearI Harbor,

US soldiers left their wives...

and sweethearts to help crush the axis forces of Germany and Japan

As forlorn soldiers escaped...

their misery and fantasy images from Hollywood

Studios offered up an increasingly voluptuous bevy of starlets

That's all the music I have

I don't know what else I could possibly do for you fellows?

the result was a generation of pinup superstars...

whose widely circulated photos were even more sexually provocative...

than their latest films

Pinup pictures made such an influence on me that...

I actually started hanging them... on my bedroom wall

And it was an early act of rebellion in my home

On movie screens actresses were becoming objectified as...

symbols of desire...

in the form of curvy pinup Queens like Betty Grable...

Rita Hayworth

And Gene Tierney

Good morning

Good morning

One of the most notorious pinups of the day...

was the prot�g� of billionaire film producer Howard Hughes

In 1941, Hughes ignited a scandaI and...

seized headlines

by casting Jane Russell in the western drama

The Outlaw

Censorship battles over the The Outlaw waged for two long years...

before the film finally reached theaters in 1943

Howard Hughes thumbed his nose at the code

Joe Breen requested that 3/ separate breast shots of Jane Russell...

be cut from the film

He found it the most offensive thing he'd ever seen

Look at that

Hughes released the film, a judge said:

Jane Russell's breasts hang over...

the landscape like a thunderstorm

And Hughes hired a plane to advertise the movie in San Francisco...

that just drew two smoke rings... with a dot in the middle of each...

and everyone knew what those referred to

By the war's end...

the sociaI roles of men and women were exploding...

both on and off the screen

For about 4 years, women had been on their own at home working or...

left behind without their husbands or fiancees

Young women's sociaI liberation would come as a shock...

for many returning Gls...

whose sexuaI perspectives were also altered by years of extramaritaI affairs...

in Europe and Asia

During World War II...

there were 600000 babies born out of wedlock

There was a very secret study that men overseas...

80% of the men overseas...

had sex overseas

So all the rules were off

The was had done more than tear men and women apart

It had created a tense and confusing dynamic between the sexes

A chaos reflected in a new movie genre...

film noir

In film noir...

women were men's equals both in and out of the bedroom

Frank, Frank listen to me

I'm not what you think I am

I've made a big mistake in my life

And I've got to be this way just once to fix it

They hang you for a thing like that

But not if you do it right

And you're smart, Frank

You'll think of a way

Plenty of men have

Film noir also helped open the door for...

other tales of adult sexuality

Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd...

told the tale of a struggling screenwriter...

who trades sex for money from an all but

forgotten movie star

Has it ever occurred to you that...

I may have a life of my own

That there may be some girI that I'm crazy about?

Who? Some carhop or dress extra?

What I'm trying to say is that I'm all wrong for you

You want a Valentino

Somebody with Polo ponies, a bit shot

What you're trying to say is that you don't want me to love you

Say it, say it

Listen, baby

When we first met you and me

You thought I was common as dirt

In A streetcar named Desire...

you had southern Belle

A little bit beyond her prime...

played by Vivien Leigh...

and you had a sort of sexy lout played by Marlon Brando

So themes like nymphomania and rape...

were suddenly serious drama on screen

Hey, Stella

1950s pop culture was also sending sexually charged messages...

in the pages of pulp fiction...

from authors like Mikey Spillane and magazines like...

the celebrity scandaI sheet:

ConfidentiaI

And by 1952, one star had emerged as the pagan goddess of full-bodied...

American eroticism

Hi

Marilyn Monroe

She was the sexuaI icon of her particular time

And became...

I think the sex-star of the century

Get me some orange juice, George

She was a symboI of sexuality with no price

With no adult judgment...

with no adult relationship...

really...

She was a child-woman who...

provided sex without judgment

You smell like a dime store

just anybody handy as long as he's a man

In 1952 Marilyn's career got an unexpected boost...

by revelations that Monroe had posed nude for a calendar years earlier

Those images were unveiled in the nation's hottest, new men's magazine...

created by enterprising hedonist...

Hugh M. Hefner

Playboy...

was one of the early shots fired in the sexuaI revolution

You know, we made the point that life is more than simply a veiI of tears

It should be a celebration

The centerfold was a reflection of sexuaI liberation for women...

because what it said was...

nice girls like sex, too

And that in the 1950s was a truly revolutionary concept

I mean I wouldn't be Iying on the floor in the middle of the night...

in some man's apartment drinking champagne...

if he wasn't married

Marilyn Monroe rose from the ashes of scandaI to become the most desirable...

and desired actress in Hollywood

That image was reinforced in sexy hits like Billy Wilder's 1955 comedy...

The Sever Year Itch

Do you feeI the breeze from the subway?

Isn't it delicious?

The Marilyn phenomenon opened the flood gates for...

a bevy amply endowed screen sirens

Here comes another one

I'm all excited because you're loving me

One of Marilyn's biggest would-be rivals was Jayne Mansfield...

who burst onto screens...

in hits like Will Success SpoiI Rock Hunter

No, no, no, darling

When you get to my shoulder you have to kiss me on the lips

Arguably Mansfield's finest 2 hours on film was the raucous...

rock and roll comedy The GirI can't help it...

which pushed suggestiveness to the limit with outrageous sexuaI site gags

Rome wasn't built in a day

She aren't Rome, what we're talking about is all ready built

The aggressive sexuality of Jayne and Marilyn showed the further erosion...

of the power of censorship

Honest, it was just like electricity

And as the era of Dwight D. Eisenhower prepared to surrender to...

a new age of sexuaI abandon...

Hollywood was becoming bolder

Ok, it's on Mr. Murdoch

Now you and Miller watch

Watch it good

We have to watch the television

By the Mid 1950s...

America was proudly reveling in images of prosperity

Soldiers turned civilians had pushed their wives out of the work place

And back to the kitchen

illicit sexuaI desires inflamed by the war years had seemingly been paved over...

by the asphalt of suburbia

But even at home as families huddled around their new television sets

Americans couldn't escape images of sex

Every week on ABC TV

I'm a jalopy jockey with a flair for hot rods and cooI blonds

Surfside 6, the year's newest,

most glamorous address in Miami beach

But although TV showed its share of nubile women...

and bare-chested men...

it was hampered like Hollywood by...

a strict production code

I really do think that the originaI notion that...

your parents only had enough sex...

to produce you...

came from watching TV in the 50s with Leave it to Beaver and so on

What's he doing here?

Daddy, he just...

I warned you Mary Ellen about boys showing up around here

Television so traumatized Hollywood...

that any idea for how they could save their industry

They were going to take advantage of and it did occur to them quickly

That sex was going to be a good way to sell movies

Are you getting out of that bed or am I coming in after you?

You wouldn't dare

No screen couple danced the moves of erotic courtship...

more cleverly than Doris Day and Rock Hudson

Look, I don't know what's bothering you...

but don't take your bedroom problems out on me

I have no bedroom problems

There's nothing in my bedroom that bothers me

That's too bad

In a series of romantic comedies...

Doris and Rock relied on Sly Innuendo over explicitness

The result were among the biggest hits of the era

The Doris Day and Rock Hudson comedies do have a sexuaI edge to them

If he only knew what I was thinking

And illustrate the old rule, what is sexy...

is tension between people

Excuse me, I better go to the power moon...

I mean room...

Fix my lipstick

AII I think of when I think of Rock Hudson...

and Doris Day are those split screens

No, I always keep tomorrow night open

I mean I hadn't planned a thing

I'd love to have dinner with you

There's always talking on the phone or they're in the bathtub

Sure turned out to be a friendly town

You'll find that most people are willing to meet you halfway...

if you let them

They're not together

So there's the implication of sex

The Doris and Rock comedies also underscored...

a key sociaI theme of 1950s

Nice girls didn't have sex...

at least not before marriage

But men were understood

to be sexuaI satyrs forever on the prowI

You treat a dame like a lady

And treat a lady like a dame

It was a very hypocriticaI and hurtfuI set of values that...

assumed somehow or rather that boys...

will be boys but women had better be something beyond reproach and...

not the daughter's of eve...

not human beings

You claim he's over sexed and he claims you're

Well, I'm not under sexed

As grownups savored the chemistry of Doris and Rock...

teenagers had their own version of Day and Hudson

Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon

Two youngsters in love you'II love

You know the only thing I've studies this semester is you

Well, I hope you don't flunk

The beach party series offered another movie universe of sexy female virgins...

and lusty males on the hunt for pleasure

They like to be formally introduced

But not every woman offer on the screen

was heeding society's message...

to just say, No

Would you ever marry a girI...

who wasn't pure?

Believe me baby, I have nothing but respect for you

In the later 1950s...

a few darling films gave explosive examples of what happened...

when sexuaI urges were given free reign

Aren't you afraid people will think you're a little fast?

Allison

According to my philosophy what other people think will not pay the rent

So if you're accused of being fast...

you might as well run that way you get to all the good things first

The 195/ drama Peyton Place...

based on the decade's most shocking bestseller

Featured severaI female characters hungry to satisfy their erotic needs

Want to make love to me?

Yes, yes

In a town whose quiet fa�ade shades a see thing caldron of desire

You're just like your father about sex

In that way you're just like him

Don't you say things about my father

He was a wonderfuI man

WonderfuI

And fine and good to you and that's what you told me

So don't blame him for anything

WonderfuI and fine and good...

that's what I told you?

Well, I lied

I lied about him because I was ashamedof him

And of myself

Then why did you marry him?

I didn't

And he didn't marry me because he already had a wife

He had a wife

There were two abortions, one murder...

successive rapes of a 14-year-old schooI girI by her stepfather

About time I started teaching you something

Lucas, Lucas, let me go...

Lucas, get...

I never had nothing I ever wanted

Never had a beautifuI woman

Peyton Place was really a shocker and a blockbuster

Well, if any man would seriously ask me

I'd run away and become his mistress

Even Pedophilia became cinematic fair game...

when director Stanley Kubrick pulled off the unthinkable in 1962...

by filming Vladimir Nabokov's controversiaI noveI Lolita

It was basically jailbait

Even the presence of a subplot about a 15-year-old having sex with a grown man

Would have been out of the question

Here it was the subject of the entire movie

So it was quite revolutionary

How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?

How did they ever?

But if American directors were getting bolder in depicting sexuaI desires...

Europeans weren't pushing the envelope

they were setting it on fire

Here is the drama of the life and loves of a young girI of today

Tormented by the desires that sweep her from a lover she yearned for

That blazing eroticism was epitomized in France's hottest export...

since the statue of liberty...

Brightte Bardot

Stop laughing

In Europe there is much more respect...

for the mystique and allure of sexuaI woman

And in point effect all of the great European art directors have...

as kind of muse figures

very, very glamorous women whether you're talking about...

Jeanne Moreau or Catherine Deneuve

If you touch me I'll kill you

Greater glory bringing their raw sexuality to Hollywood

Among them were two Italians who exuded power and controI...

Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren

She was gorgeous

She was glorious

She was magnificent

She was all the adjectives you could give her

She was so full of sort of earthy qualities

Juice of human, feminine, powerfuI...

seductive woman

Everyone became aware of her

But even Loren and Lollobrigida...

were overshadowed in Hollywood...

by a former MGM starlet once known for squeaky-clean film roles

I don't mind making a fooI of myself over you

Elizabeth Taylor's absolutely unique and profound beauty...

which was at peak during Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and...

Suddenly, Last Summer

It was really the key to hyping of sexuality

which was all ready plenty overheated by Tennessee Williams...

in the originaI materiaI

But it was made contemporary and...

exceedingly palatable simply by her beauty

In 1960, Taylor took on her most explicitly erotic role so far

Playing a high-priced call girI, Butterfield 8

The performance netted Taylor her first academy award

Now look, you have a price

We all have and I can go pretty high

Command performances leave me quite cold

I've had more fun in the backseat of a 39 Ford...

than I could ever have in the vault of the Chase NationaI Bank

For me, the great image of her standing

in a white slip from Butterfield 8

communicates much more than lets say...

MeryI Streep can communicate by language

A good night sleep will be the best thing for you

But Butterfield 8 was just a warm-up for Elizabeth Taylor...

who was about to shake up America with a sandaI...

that entered the realm of Hollywood legend

By 1962, the Hollywood Hays code was on its last shaky legs

Trembling before the might of Europe's sexually charged cinema

J.F.K was in the White House

The rat pack was swinging on movie screens...

and on the stages of Vegas

And as American males traded Playboy's latest party jokes...

two Hollywood stars...

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton...

were helping to bring down the censor's wall of Jericho

You will kneeI

I will what?

On your knees

Cleopatra had started as a biblicaI epic...

in the tradition of Ben-hur

But production was overshadowed by one of the biggest sex scandals of 1960s

Taylor and Burton's infamous, extramaritaI romance on the set

There was just a sensation worldwide over this

They were on every magazine cover...

every newspaper

Congressmen in the United States got into it

The Pope got into it

The Vatican got into the act saying that she was a bad influence...

on the world in generaI and that...

her children should be take away from her

But a scandaI that would have destroyed most actresses' careers

Only fueled the flames of Taylor's fandom

The more the world gossiped...

the more successfuI Cleopatra became

Making it the 1st Hollywood blockbuster to benefit from...

its stars' off-screen indiscretions

Not to be outdone by Elizabeth Taylor...

Marilyn Monroe sought to push the Queen of the Nile off her throne...

by baring all before the Hollywood cameras

Come on, the water's so refreshing

You know, after you finish doing...

We had a bodysuit for her...

where you look nude in the water

And after two, three takes she just tore it off

And did it, did it without anything else on

Norma get back, get back

The notion of a nude Marilyn on the big screen had tantalized moviegoers...

ever since the release of her infamous calendar pose a decade earlier

But ironically, that image would never reach screens during the 1960s

Cut

Filming on the comedy, Something Got to Give...

was never finished before Marilyn's mysterious death from a drug overdose

Nudity for Marilyn Monroe...

always represented a certain form of freedom

One should credit her with a whole change in attitude...

in the pop culture related to nudity

The year of Marilyn's passing also...

saw the arrivaI of a new sexuaI icon

I have to leave immediately

Just as things were getting interesting

1962 was the year of Dr. No

The first big screen bow for author...

Ian Felming's high-living secret agent Bond

James Bond

For someone to become a sex symboI of true internationaI impact...

they have to appeaI to both sexes

Women like Sean Connery, man like Sean Connery

Sean Connery as James Bond in...

Thunder Ball

As played by Sean Connery...

James Bond was the epitome of sexuaI virility and power

And the Bond series with its seductive bevy of beauties...

became one of the 1960s most alluring, worldwide phenomena

If you were a Bond girI...

you were sort of like hot...

the hot new, you know...

tamale around

One might call Marnie a sexy mystery

That is, if one used such words

The films of Alfred Hitchcock had always been packed with sexuaI innuendo

And some would say perversity

In 1964, Hitchcock tapped Sean Connery...

to help full of his most controversiaI movie yet, Marnie

Marnie is about a woman who steals compulsively...

in response to her sexuaI frigidity

Getting power over men by stealing from them

But I do want to go to bed, Marnie

I very much want to go to bed

No

This woman is ragingly frigid

And frigid in the presence of Sean Connery

who was never ever looked as good in film as he does in this film

So it made the movie, actually...

work tremendously well

You know when he gets a good head of steam and basically rapes her...

the audience is into it

They can't quite imagine that would be unpleasant

During the mid 1960s...

the recently married duo of Elizabeth Taylor and RichardBurton...

were also teaming for a series of sexually charged films

It culminated in the most acclaimed movie of their career

Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf?

Virgina Woolf, Virgina Woolf

Who's afraid of Virgina...

Adapted from Edward Albee's searing play of maritaI warfare...

Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf?...

was so raw in language and subject matter

Its release effectively shattered the rule of the Hollywood production code

Don't encourage her

Encourage me

Go on

I warned you, don't encourage her

He warned you

Don't encourage me

I heard him, tell me more

Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf?...

didn't bare any skin

But it did reveaI its characters' sexuaI souI

And the America movie making would never be the same

Hump the hostess

Just shut up, will you?

After Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf?...

the dam started to crack

And then to burst wide open

And suddenly you had for the first time...

the ability to use four-letter words...

to be a little more graphic in the depiction of sex

All those taboos were washed aside for better or worse

Dealing the finaI blow in a three decade battle over censorship...

Virginia Woolf would bring Hollywood's prudish production code...

to its knees

I'm Chuck Heston

And I'd like to talk to you for a minute about something

I think you'll feeI is worth talking about

Especially if you're the parents of young children

The theater owners of America along with the producers and distributors...

of films in this country have worked out...

an advisory system of movie ratings

By 196/, a new sexuaI morality was...

sweeping both America and Hollywood

Censorship was being swept aside...

in an era of rebellion against the Vietnam war...

and authority of any kind

The 60s was free love and all this wild stuff and there was this sort of equality

And if, you know...

I want to sleep with 10 people I can

Moviegoers wanted what was raw and reaI...

and Hollywood could finally dramatize those desires...

thanks to a new movie rating system

The PG-rating in a picture is a speciaI alert for parents

That means that the film contains some materiaI...

which you as a parent may possibly find unsuitable for your children

Hump the hostess

Just shut up, will you?

Now an R-rated picture definitely contains adult materiaI

That's why children 16 years old or younger are barred

Again, you have to decide whether you want your children...

to see such a film under those conditions

The X-rating of course is reserved for films that are totally adult in content

Oh, my God

Well, that's the rating system

It's designed to help you as parents to reach informed...

and responsible decisions about your children's movie going

Under the old Hays code...

adultery was a deadly sin that never went unpunished

But in the 196/ comedy, A Guide for the Married Man...

many of Hollywood's most famous faces indulged in...

the once forbidden act with gleefuI abandon

No matter what she knows or thinks...

she knows deny it

But what if she really knew?

You deny it

But what if she...

Deny

But what if she...

Deny, deny...

Oh, Charlie

How could you?

What?

That

When?

When I came in you and she were...

Who?

You know very well who

That, that woman there

Where?

Charlie!

What?

You and that woman

What woman?

The one that just left

When?

That same year the 1960s most scandalous noveI...

Jacqueline Susann's, Valley of the Dolls...

was bought to the screen

AII I know how to do is take off my clothes

The story of three ambitious, young women...

and their sexuaI dalliances

was filmed with every salacious detaiI intact

Gabrielle, the wine almost fell in my shoes

Art films...

nudies...

that's all they are...

Nudies

It was shocking, it was racy, it was fun

Having fun kiddies?

Don't mind me

Go right ahead

I'll watch

You'd better run you little tramp

All right Faggot...

start explaining

You need glasses needy

She's hardly built like a boy

You're crazy

I was sometimes embarrassed

You bastard

For my taste, it was far too much

I was far to much larger than life

Boobies, boobies, boobies...

Nothing but boobies

Who needs them?

I did great without them

Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me

Aren't you?

Sex was also front and center in...

The Graduate

A sophisticated comedy that bought instant stardom to Dustin Hoffman

And a provocative new image Foramen Bancroft

Mrs. Robinson...

do you think we could say a few words to each other first, this time?

I don't think we have much to say to each other

In The Graduate...

Hoffman's character not only beds a married, older woman

He also falls in love with her daughter played by Katharine Ross

The result was one of the milestone movies of the 1960s

Dustin was not the typicaI, classic, leading man guy

Are you in a rear position?

Yes, I am

No, I'm frontaI

And that Mike Nichols cast him in the The Graduate...

made it be okay...

to not look perfect and still be...

a sexy human being

I am being honest

I am doing what I feeI like doing

Well, what do you feeI like doing?

Orgy, have an orgy, orgy, orgy...

Bedroom etiquette was even trickier in the 1969 sex comedy...

Bob & CaroI & Ted & Alice

Director PauI Mazursky's look at

two pairs of married swingers

Alice, I could go to bed with you

Well, I'm not going to bed with anybody

Why Ted?

Why not?

I know you too well

If Bob says it's all right...

and Alice says it's all right...

and I say it's all right

The teasing of the Rock Hudson and Doris Day movie...

and lots of others...

were all put to rest when Bob & CaroI & Ted & Alice came along

And changed the face...

the very souI of comedy having to do with sexuality...

forever

The last day on the set in Los Angeles

They wouldn't take off their underwear

I said:

Dyann, what is this with the brassiere?

And she said:

No, I'm not doing that

Natalie was not going to be the one to jump into the cold water by herself

And she said absolutely not

And there we were with one of the great moments, potentially...

of American film

Fine, cut, print, go to the dailies and it's exactly right

Hey everybody

Game time

A different kind of truth came sizzling to the screen in The Boy in the Band

The first Hollywood film to focus on life, love and sex in the gay community

It's my right to lead my sex life without answering to anybody

I'll be your topless cocktaiI waitress

Boys in the Band had been a Broadway play...

that translated to brilliant movie that...

showed gays as regular people

Not as freaks, not a slideshow

Not as strange people on the periphery of culture

But as human beings...

this is Hollywood at its best

I'm Joe Buck from Texas

Enrico Rizzo from the Bronx

Hollywood's sexuaI freedom climaxed in 1969...

with a film that achieved the unthinkable...

mainstream movie with a list stars and an X rating

I am not a for reaI cowboy

But I am one hell of a stud

Midnight Cowboy was about a hayseed who comes to New York city...

thinking he's going to make a fortune as a male prostitute

And pays for that naivet� in every possible way

It was just a remarkable film for Hollywood to make

You aren't got no $25 on you?

No

What are you going to do to me?

Well, what in the hell do you think I'm going to do to you?

What do you want me to do with you, boy?

Do you want me to beat on you?

Is that what you want?

No, no, no...

Midnight Cowboy showed male gigolos...

and a male friendship that bordered on sexuaI

This was a first and almost an only

Just as shocking as Midnight Cowboy story...

was the fact that it became the first and only X-rated movie...

to win the Academy Award for Best Picture

Months later in 19/0, an X rating was also branded on another big studio film...

that outraged both critics...

Gotcha...

and audiences

Gentlemen, I'm Myra Beckinridge

Uncle Buck your fag nephew became...

your niece 2 years ago in Copenhagen

And is now free as a bird and happy in being...

a most extraordinary woman in the world

Myra Breckinridge starred RaqueI Welch...

as author Gore VidaI's hero turned heroine...

who takes a wild ride through Hollywood

After a sex change turns Myra from a He to a She

It must be demonstrated to you practically...

that there is no such things as manhood

It died with Burt Lancaster and...

Vera Cruz

Your manhood was taken by ErroI Flynn and Clark Gable

I am only going to supply you with the finishing touches

Charge

Myra Breckinridge was the boldest career move...

for RaqueI Welch...

who by 19/0 was the reigning sex Queen of her generation

Introducing the fabulous RaqueI Welch

The sensation star-discovery of this or any other year...

in One Million Years B.C.

Welch represented a different female erotic icon

A sexuaI conqueror who belonged on top as much as any man did

RaqueI Welch was highly sexuaI...

highly intelligent, but kind of Amazonian

The great poster image of RaqueI from A Million Year B.C...

seems to me one of the supreme images of women of the 20th century...

because what it represents is primevaI woman

I was anointed the sex symboI of that era

And I was socially, politically correct

Turn your head to the side and cough

This was the age of girls burning their bras

Taking off their makeup

The whole shift in the roles of the sexes were changing

In the western 100 Rifles...

RaqueI also broke new sexuaI ground in Hollywood...

with a steamy, interraciaI love scene...

between the actress and football star turned actor Jim Brown

No, no, please

Not like this

Not with you

I was worried that it...

was going to be a big gimmick and then...

I said:

Well, I know he's a legendary football player, but...

you know...

we have to do all these intimate scenes...

and things and what's that going to be like?

The tension between them became so volcanic...

because of the pressure that was being put on them to be...

Well, these two animals...

you know, this panther and this tiger...

analogies that you could use of two sexuaI animals...

that are going to be on screen

Everything you always wanted to know about sex

I think it could work...

if we gave it a chance

It's most distastefuI in view to the fact that the sheep was under 18 years old

So, what

You've been a naughty Rabbi

Blasphemy

After the wild, liberating sexuality of the 1960s...

the 19/Os would bring an even more adventurous edge to sex in the movies

Come in here

Bree DanieI, girI on the brink

Somewhere among her clientele is a freak who murders call girls

Audiences were embracing erotic stars ranging from...

Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland in Klute...

to Ruth Gordon in the May-December sex comedy...

Harold and Maude

Where's my old lady?

If you look at the /Os, you saw a moment...

that can only be described by the word candor...

A physicaI candor

Stars said we aren't going to stop at the bedroom door

We're going to show what happens on the other side of that door

As Hollywood pushed the sexuaI limits for mainstream moviegoers...

The X-rating allowed smaller filmmaker...

to go even further

Leading the pack was ex-playboy centerfold photographer...

Russ Meyer

His low-budget...

independently produced movie Vixen...

crossed over into neighborhood theaters

And grossed a massive six million dollars

It wasn't anymore in those houses that...

men would sneak in with hats and raincoats

It was in houses where people stood around the block...

waiting to get in and were embarrassed

The grosses were so enormous Hollywood sat up and took notice

In 19/0, 20th Century Fox hired Meyer to direct...

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls...

written by a young, Chicago film critic named Roger Ebert

I was a fan on his films all the way back to...

The ImmoraI Mr. Teas

And of course Russ was also...

an outsider...

so we kind of took over the asylum

FeeI it my pretty?

The night is filled with magic

Mark my words little dove

The night is speciaI

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls...

is one of the most successfuI movies in the history of 20th Century Fox...

in terms of its cost versus its income

It cost $900000and it grossed around sixty million dollars

Come on

Sorry to disturb you

It's cooI, baby

He had gays and lesbians

We had dominant females

We had bondage

Let the games begin

We had an orgy

The movie, basically, had everything in it but the kitchen sink

I'd like to strap you on sometime

The big element of Russ Meyer was his outrageous sexuaI situations

His use of sexually voracious women

You kids are supposed to be swingers

I think it would be a gas to make love on the beach

In his movies, the women are always in command...

and the men are the mindless sex objects

The raw, urban cinema nicknamed blacksploitation was also...

bring heavy doses of sex to moviegoers

I know what you want to do...

and you're going to get it

It surprised sleeper hits like Shaft...

and Super Fly

When it comes to women they come to him

But it's still not enough

The sex scenes in the blacksploitation movies...

were long and extravagant

What people might now call softcore porn

But that was in keeping with the dominant sociaI perception...

that black people are sexuaI beasts anyway

When he's baddest...

What do you want for breakfast?

He's the best

What do you think?

The classic genre of the horror film was also getting a fresh transfusion...

thanks to the sexuaI freedom of the day

Vampire lover...

perverted creatures of the night find their victims everywhere

England's Hammer Studios had long featured...

a sure-fired recipe of bosoms and blood

It targeted an audience of mostly adolescent males...

drawn in by the promise of gothic horror and suggestive sexuality

Now the Hammer formula broadened to include skin...

and more explicit eroticism

The first ones were very sort of...

They were more naughty sexy

Take her with you

He'll do terrible things to her if you don't...

terrible things

And then as they started coming into the /Os and all of a sudden...

they had to sort of deaI with nudity

Drink the blood of the virgins and turn them into zombies

One of the top-selling...

genres or sub-genres of low-budget movie making is female vampires

And female, lesbian vampires even more popular

The two producers wanted to...

have a bit of a sexy film here

You know, about lesbians and all this sort of thing

I thought...

it was a love story

You must die, everybody must die

These actresses were all there was a certain sexuality that most of them had

Certainly Ingrid, myself...

we were chosen for that I think

There was a certain, definite, sexuaI base to all of us

And it came through

You got toothpaste all over your mouth

Eat it off

Sex was a key ingredient in a more upscale horror film

19/3's Don't Look Now...

starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie...

told the story of a couple haunter by...

the ghost of their dead child

A sophisticated thriller

It also offered a movie first...

an explicit sex scene featuring two internationaI film stars

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don't Look Now

Have what has to be in the top 10 sex scene of all time

But it's more than sex...

the scene begins with her dressing after the sex...

that as she buttons the buttons on her blouse to go out for the evening...

she recalls specific moments in the sex act

And that this is the sex act that is the first step towards healing...

after the loss of a child

It's grief sex

It's healing sex, it's naked, it's adult sex

Both in America and Europe...

other major film stars dared to bare all...

in a series of sexually charged hits that blended the artistic and the erotic

Films were...

actually more liberated sexually at that time than they are now

It's like we're breaking boundaries

We're pushing the end of the envelope

A strong man

A weak man

Tell me what to do

Tell me what to do

No

The Night Porter

But in 19/2, cinemas most explicit sex scene's...

were all upstaged

By an ultra, low-budget porno movie...

that made Hollywood's sexiest films look like Sunday schooI

I try, but I choke

Well now, I hear it's a matter of discipline

You have to learn to relax the muscles

You have to regulate your breathing to the movement of your head

Deep Throat starring Linda Lovelace

launched a new era of porno chic

ultimately grossing over 600 million dollars

Its title even became part of popular culture...

when it was used by the secret Whitehouse informer...

who blew the lid off water gate

Deep Throat was the subject of Johnny Carson jokes

Ed McMahon would pull up in a limousine

Jack Nicholson could be seen going to see this movie

We all said sex was cooI

Inspired by the mega success of Deep Throat...

hundreds of would-be filmmakers jumped on the adult movie bandwagon

Hollywood was now competing and sometimes...

blown away by hardcore porn

Deep Throat was the rage...

and Behind the Green Door...

I believe was the rage and everybody was supposed to see it

Behind the infamous green door...

she was made to perform the most bizarre sexuaI experiment ever...

conceived in the twisted mind of man

The seeds of the sexuaI revolution were in full bloom

And for the next few years, celebrity and sexuality went hand-in-hand

As stars stripped down for the camera...

and celebrated in the private enclaves of the playboy mansion

The /Os was one long party

And the chaos of the 60s gave way to...

a kind of celebration that certainly had its excesses

But when you talk about the sexuaI revolution...

it was the time of Eden

That Anything Goes sexuality was also reflected...

in the androgynous world of rock and roll

And that image traveled to the big screen with singers...

turned actors like...

David Bowie...

Mick Jagger...

And Tim Curry...

star of the classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The biggest shock to all of us...

was that Tim Curry dressed in ripped fishnet...

was going to be such a turn-on

So come up the lab

And see what's on the slab

I see you shiver with anticipation

Women would be sitting in the audience

Excuse me and the guy sitting next to the girI would go...

Yes, I see what you mean

Stop

So soft

I mean help, Brad

Brad's probably asleep by now

Do you want him to see you like this?

This movie has...

some explicit sex in it...

which nobody and I repeat...

nobody has ever had any problems with

Janet

And I find that astonishing

We actually have a scene where a man goes down on another man

There's no crime in giving yourself over to pleasure

Brad, you've wasted so much time already

Janet needn't know

I won't tell her

Well, you promise you won't tell?

On my mother's grave

Nobody from day one through to the present time...

has ever mentioned it because somehow or rather...

there's an innocence about it

Such a perfect specimen of manhood...

so dominant

To the chief of studio security...

from head of production of...

Gore VidaI's Caligula

No journalists, photographers, friends or even family...

of those involved on the production will be allowed on the set

As the disco decade of the 19/Os came to an end...

moviegoers were shocked and outraged by a film...

whose award-winning cast was overshadowed...

by a non-stop barrage of sexuaI depravity

We have lots of...

sex in the film

Caligula from a script by Gore VidaI...

starred Malcolm McDowell...

Peter O'toole...

and sir John Gielgud

But the film's true guiding force...

was producer Bob Guccione...

founder of Penthouse magazine

In order to make this film historically accurate...

we decided to show life in Rome exactly as it was

Guccione came in after all the actors had left the sound stage...

and filmed a lot of X-rated sex scenes full of everything...

imaginable and unimaginable

Action

Critics called Caligula the first...

15 million dollar porn epic

Dripping with gratuitous sex and Gore...

Caligula became so infamous...

few mainstream theaters would show it

He dealt with the difficulty of certain movie chains not wanting to show...

Caligula by building speciaI theaters...

for Caligula to be shown in

Caligula-themed theaters

This is pornography, this is pornography

And we think this is absolutely vitaI to the success of the film

But Caligula would be the last righteous BacchanaI...

before a new era of conservatism settled across America

Preserve, protect and defend

The Constitution of the United States

The Constitution of the United States

The 1980 election of president Ronald Regan...

ushered in a new age of the religious right and moraI outrage...

over what many saw as a society fixated on porn

So help me God

The religious right...

the moraI majority helped get Regan elected

And paid them back with Meese Commission

And the Messe Commission in turn did a cross-country witch hunt

Led by Attorney GeneraI Messe...

the commission's study of pornography in America had swift...

and sweeping consequences

Almost overnight magazines like...

Playboy and Penthouse...

were purged from convenience stores

Red-light districts like Boston's infamous combat zone were shutdown

And after a decade in the mainstream...

sex was going underground shifting from...

movie theaters into baby boomers' living room

Thanks to the advent of a new sex toy- The VCR

People became a little bit more uncomfortable...

with the open presentation of sexuality

You had a very good movie like Body Heat

Extremely well done...

that did not do well at the box office

What are you looking at?

Your muscles

Instead, studios targeted...

sex-starved teenagers

My heart beating so fast

Mine too

With softcore eroticism like 1980s The Blue Lagoon

Kiss me

You're all sticky

The film starred Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields

in a story mixing Adam and Eve innocence with sanitized sex...

and brief nudity courtesy of a body-double for Shields

I've seen you playing with it...

and I'll tell your father if he ever gets here

You, I hate you

You almost hit me

Take it back, take back what you said

I've seen it at all

What happens after you've been doing it a long time?

Shut up, that isn't fair peeking

I don't peek on you

That's a lie, you always staring at my buppies

Goochie, oochie...

Stop that Richard or I'll never talk to you again

Hoochie-goochie, Hoochie-goochie

See them jiggle, wiggle a chest

Get ready for the wildest, sexiest, craziest...

most intellectually stimulating movie of the year H.O.T.S.

It will make your temperature rise

But during the 1980s...

Hollywood mined even greater box office gold...

thanks to an explosion of teen sex comedies

Fraternity Vacation...

the comedy in a class by itself

On the heels of 19/8's AnimaI House

Movie screens were barraged by tales of horny adolescence...

on a frenzied search for their first sexuaI conquests

You had the enormous success of raunchy comedies

Lauderdale

All right

Because they were new

They were something new

For millions of teenagers...

Porky's styled comedies were the closest thing to experience sex

And act rarely shown, but endless teased

We can't show you more of the shower scene

Tommy, what are you doing?

Because what they're looking at isn't watered down

Not every title in the teen genre aimed below the belt

A few broke the mold by blending comedy...

with sensitive looks at adolescent issues

You're really a good kisser

Yeah? So are you

1982's Fast times at Ridge Mont High...

combined an insightfuI script by

Cameron Crown

Are you really 19?

Yeah, Yeah I am, I'm really 19

With a cast of nubile newcomers...

among them Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Jason Leigh

There are, like...

variables that I might not be good at

Like what variables?

Like, you know...

giving blow jobs

What's the big deaI?

Yo, check it out

Relax your throat muscles

Don't bite

Try it again

Good, push it slowing in and out

You got it

In 1983's Risky Business...

a new screen heartthrob was born

The moment Tom Cruise slid into frame wearing little more that his BVDs

Tom Cruise was immensely likeable in it

So that he could slide out doing his musicaI number in his underpants and...

seem both sexy and adorable

Cruise's charm also powered another sex-themed hit...

All the Right Moves in which male...

not female nudity...

became the most talked about ingredient

I love you

I love you too, Lis

As teen sex films both good and bad...

prevailed at the box office...

a few filmmakers sought to bring...

a more complex form of sexuality to the screen

Gay-themed dramas were not new in Hollywood

But in contrast to the positive images shown in...

The Boys in the Band...

homosexuaI characters were rarely presented positively

1980's Cruising...

which depicted murders amid a sadomasochistic gay culture...

was especially savaged by critics and activists...

for its negative images

This is an outside look at...

a rather violent and sensationaI aspect of that community and that lifestyle

In the wake of Cruising...

Gay-themed movies sought a new respectability...

by emphasizing relationships over sexuaI content

The 1982 dramas PersonaI Best and...

Making Love...

both featured mainstream box office stars in a bold attempt...

to make same-sex love stories commercially viable

Working on a lower budget...

director Donna Deitch crafted Desert Hearts...

which explored a romantic relationship between two women in 1950's America

Being gay...

I wanted to make a very sexy and...

positive and reaI lesbian love story

Prior to that time films that had dealt with...

love relationships between two women had ended in either...

a bisexuaI triangle...

or suicide

What do you think you're doing?

Waiting for you

There were people that said:

This is disgusting

They were really repelled by it

But not the majority of the people by any means

But filmmakers gay and straight who...

dreamed of showing adult sexuality...

were dealt a horrific setback in 1980s...

by a mysterious new illness known as AIDS

AIDS lethaI spread sent a terrifying message:

Sex could kill

Conservatives and the religious right seized on the epidemic...

as a sign of god's wrath...

at American and Hollywood's licentiousness

Another result of its impact was an even greater pullback...

from showing sex in mainstream films

In the '/Os, you had movies...

that were that captured sexuaI confidence

There something I can do for you?

Well, like what?

Like, anything you want

Then what happened?

The decade of AIDS scares and abstinence

The tragedy of AIDS was also echoed in another movie genre

The slasher film...

in which adolescents met their makers moments after having sex

By the end of the 1980s...

adult eroticism had all but disappeared from American movie screens

Viewers looking for a bare breast...

or a naked torso were most likely to find them in a movie starring...

Arnold Schwarzenegger...

or Sylvester Stallone as a new era of testosterone driven action films...

commandeered the box office

Violence had replaced sex...

and sex had become more violent

And where's your wife?

My wife is in the country with her parents visiting for the weekend

And you're here with a strange girI...

being a naughty boy

I don't think having dinner with anybody is a crime

Not yet

In 198/...

the slasher genre's mix of sex and punishing violence...

took a creative step up...

into the world of adult cinema...

with the box office blockbuster FataI Attraction

Directed by Adrian Lyne...

FataI Attraction cast MichaeI Douglas

as a straying husband...

who's forced to face the deadly consequences of...

an impulsive affair with a business colleague...

played by Glenn Close

FataI Attraction was kind of a Hitchcockian thriller...

with two very isolated scenes of sexuality

Have you ever done it in an elevator?

Not recently

I bet you haven't

There was maybe a minute

Minute and a half in a two-hour movie

But that's what people remember

And I just sort of marveled...

at their bravery, at the balls they had

They just went for it

That's a huge leap of sort of courage to take

Which when they...

when an actor does take that...

that leap

It's fabulous for a director, you know...

Because it means anything's possible

Go ahead

Hit me if you can't fuck me

Why don't you just hit me?

You're so sad you know that, Alex?

Lonely and very sad

Don't you ever pity me, you smug bastard

I pity you, I pity you

I pity you because you're sick

Why? Because I won't allow you to treat me like some slut...

you can just bang a couple of times and throw in the garbage

In Films like FataI Attraction

Movie sex wasn't just an act of erotic passion

It was also an overture to disaster and death

An ancient tradition of linking sex and violence in drama...

would reach its apex in the hands of filmmakers like Adrian Lyne

and a controversiaI Dutch director named PauI Verhoeven

Verhoeven was a Dutch filmmaker who'd been successfuI...

in their takes on sexuality and full of violence

And they made sex and violence seem...

very sophisticated together

In 1992 the intense and provocative filmmaker...

brought his European sensibility to the American sex thriller...

Basic Instinct

Once again

MichaeI Douglas found himself the object of sexuaI manipulation on screen

This time by a bisexuaI author, who may be a murderess

Played by Sharon Stone

Killing isn't like smoking

You can quit

My character Catherine is motivated by power and a kind of...

miasmatic need to controI

The gender of the people she is with...

is not a sexuaI, loving choice

It's a power choice

There's only one theme there...

which is the use of sex to obtain power and use that power whenever you can

Yes, it's harsh

It's cynic and it's...

a vision of life

Even Basic Instincts most famous scene...

wasn't about sex

But about power...

as Verhoeven dared to show a part of Sharon Stone's anatomy...

that few mainstream stars had ever revealed

The uncrossing of her legs and flashing MichaeI was a very good way

To demonstrate a who she was and to take powerfuI controI of the entire room

But not even Sharon Stone could dominate...

the motion picture ratings board...

which slapped Verhoeven's originaI edit of the film with an NC-1/ rating

NC-1/ had recently replaced the dreaded X...

in an effort to allow serious filmmakers...

to explore adult materiaI...

without the stigma of a rating linked to porn

Hollywood had invented a rating system that was psychotic

You could show violence

You couldn't show sex

And it was quite succinct

You could show someone cutting off a breast

But you could not show a hand touching a breast

But NC-1/ quickly became a box office kiss of death...

after the failure of Henry & June

The first film branded with the NC-1/ rating

They can calling it NC-1/

They can call it X

They can call it unrated

They can call it M for mature audiences...

only whatever they call it

That's going to scared too many theater owners

Ironically...

the era of the X rating made a comeback in 199/...

at least as movie subject matter

Boogie Nights was loosely based on...

the story of porn star John Holmes

The film showed characters on an empty quest for sex and money

But never romantic love

Sex as a joyless dead end was also the subject of director Ang Lee's drama

The Ice Storm

Set like Boogie Nights...

in the not so swinging 19/Os

Action

A key party?

You know it's a California thing

The men put their car keys in a bowI...

and at the end of the evening the women lineup and fish them out...

and whoever's they got they go home with

We try to be hip

We try to be open-minded

But we're not quite equipped to that

There's a limitation on how much you want to liberate it

There's a certain nature that sort of conserve and hold you back

Would you care to play

New this year

It's strictly volunteer, of course

Sex was also a deadly game in the disturbing fact-based drama

Boys Don't Cry

Hilary Swank earned an academy award...

playing Brandon Teena...

a sexually confused female who poses and seduces as a man

I didn't really think of making love as a man

I was trying to think of making love from a souI to a souI

You know, from a human being

I was just so emotionally raw

And so in a lot of the scenes...

I had to disconnect that this happened to somebody

You fucking pervert

Are you a girI are you not?

Are you a girI are you not?

Ultimately, I had to really disconnect and say:

This is a movie this is a scene

Or I would have never been able to make it through it

What were you like before all this?

Were you like me, like a girI-girI?

Yeah, like a long time ago

But after a grim decade of dangerous sex

A spirit of change was once again in the air

Hollywood was ready to let its hair down

As filmmakers put celebration back into sex

By the late 1990s...

sexuaI attitudes across America were sparking yet...

another erotic revolution on movie screens

Science was making strides in the war against AIDS

And in the media...

revelations about president Clinton's affair with an amorous intern...

put R-rated sex talk on the nightly news

I did not have sexuaI relations with that woman

Twenty-something males were now looking back to...

the Playboy culture of the 60s and /Os

Suddenly everything from the rat pack to hef himself were hip again

And so was sex

The magazine and Playboy and the bunny symboI...

are hotter now than ever before

I think a part of it is the fact that...

a new generation grew up in the shadow of the moraI majority...

politicaI correctness

Even in the age of Viagra and the condom...

sex could once again be fun

Oh, is he looking at you? Was he?

Oh, no, I wasn't

Mom wait

I wasn't, shit!

Cover yourself, cover yourself

In 1998, the PC police were finally busted by directors...

Peter and Bobby Farrelly in the outrageous sex comedy

There's Something About Mary

We thought it was all too much What, are you kidding me?

I would come up from dailies every day

You can't do that, they can't do that

no way...

We're drawing the line, absolutely not

No possible way...

is that going out

And then you play it in the theater and they're laughing so hard

Hey, hello

Hey, hi

How you doing?

Good how are you?

Good

Good

You are looking very beautifuI

Thank you What is that

On your ear?

Ear?

No, your left ear, is that?

Is that hair geI?

Yeah

Great, I could use some

No, No, No, you don't have to

I just ran out

Movies are allowed to be tremendously scandalous and outrageously vulgar...

on the subject of sex as long as they're funny

I mean there are things in Something About Mary...

American Pie

And so on you would never be able to do that in a movie that is dramatic

Shame on me

I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry

You know, I'm just going to go

Well, you have seen me

Now it's my turn to see you

Strip

Strip?

Slowly

American Pie offered one of the hottest recipes of the late 1990s

An ensemble cast of sexy, new stars

Movie erotica was getting younger and younger...

in hit film like Wild Things...

CrueI Intentions

and 2002's Swimfan

Ben

Tell me you love me

What?

You don't have to mean it

Just say it for me

I love you

Adult sexuality also made a winning return to the big screen...

with the hit sleeper-comedy

Kissing Jessica Stein

Is this with tongue?

I think we should just play it by ear

Just see how it goes

Okay

Okay

Okay, great

It was a sign of the times that the only shocking thing about...

this romantic story with a lesbian theme...

was that no one across America seemed shocked

People are still, for whatever reason...

more willing to accept two women together...

than two men together

There are an awfuI lot of women who've had kissing scenes in the movies

Often straight women who are just kind of dabbling in lesbianism

So I figure if we keep going like this

We'll get there in like two weeks or so

Yeah, sure, there's no reaI rush

Are you sure?

Yeah, sure there's no reaI rush

But you really...

Not at all

How about 10 days?

10 days is better

Home video and DVD have also allowed moviemakers...

to shed their inhibitions

At least the ones imposed on them by the motion picture ratings board

It's good marking

I think it's a way of saying that you see this in the theater

But we'll give you more on DVD

And if you really love the movie then you're going to want to check it out

It's not a space shuttle launch, it's sex

I think the moraI crusaders have lost

Sex has won

Sex has become visible, acceptable...

easily available be it

on the internet, TV, videos that you rent

And it will never go back in the box

Pandora's box got opened...

and most Americans applaud...

the richness of sexuaI imagery in the world

You were wonderfuI tonight

I'm always wonderfuI at night

220 million American will have sex every week, every two weeks

Whatever it is

It sells because it's naturaI

It sells because it's us

It sells because it's about us

It's about life

I do feeI aroused

I can't deny that

It was and is...

America's first from of sex education

You got it

You don't learn how to kiss form your parents

You don't learn how to embrace from your Sunday schooI teacher

Want to make love to me?

Oh, yes, yes

You leave your life outside the theater

Go into that dark room and it draws you...

closer to the person on screen

Don't stop

It wraps around you and creates a universe...

where love is going to happen

My dreams from the very beginning came from...

Hollywood and the movies

And young women are very susceptible to those images

I'll say

Hi

Sex is sticky, it's messy

It's this, it's that, He had bad breath

You know it's never like it is in the movies

But we can dream

You know, we can dream