An Iowa Inferno (1975)

Now on YouTube, we discuss 'An Iowa Inferno: An Erotic Story of Forbidden Lust' (1975) a charming book about incest, bikers, sex with Cthulhu and a woman's unhealthy obsession with Richard Nixon. Clive and Nick talk about the book, I mostly cry with laughter.

Lord Mr Ford- a 1976 interview with Derek Ford

A rare interview with British sex film director Derek Ford, published in the french magazine 'Sex Stars System' in 1976, and here translated (occasionally awkwardly) into English for the first time.

This is the first time that Derek Ford, an English filmmaker, has been interviewed by a French newspaper. I went to London for a multi-hour interview with Ford, whose latest film, "Sex Express," is currently playing in Paris.
Ford's films are comedies in the purest British tradition of "The Lavender Hill Mob" or "The Knack," but seasoned with modern eroticism. Imagine "Kind Hearts and Coronets" or "Whiskey Galore" with a hardcore twist, and you have "Sexplorer" and "Sex Express."

S.S. Can you tell us how you got your start in film? Have you made films for television?

D.F. Yes, but I started with radio. I wrote plays for the wireless. when I was seventeen. After my military service, I decided to pursue a career in film. Since I was an accountant, I was put in the accounting department. But I wanted to be in production. I got a job as a clackman (at twenty-five, I must have been the oldest clackman in the studios). Then I did a bit of everything—boom operator, assistant cameraman, assistant grip, assistant director before becoming production manager and finally director. My first film was partly shot in Paris, but the most extraordinary was my second. I had a crew of Swedish technicians and the actors were Spanish. Completely opposite temperaments, with constant arguments, me as referee. I almost had a nervous breakdown, and for a while, I got fed up with directing films. I started writing screenplays again...

S.S. Not for long. You started again in 1968...

D.F. In 1968, I created my own company, in which I was both director and producer.

S.S. Censorship, whether during filming or editing, do you think about it?

D.F. Censorship exists in England, and so you have to accept it. When I make a film, I have certain responsibilities towards my shareholders who have invested funds in the company. But my films aren't only intended for the English market. There's France, the United States, etc., and if certain scenes have to be highly erotic, I shoot them anyway.
As for France, I can say that we in England sensed, even before the French producers, that censorship controls would be abolished.
That's why we had prepared a hardcore film for the French market, which was ready when the right time came.

S.S. What was the title of this?

D.F. "Keep It Up Jack" The film was shot in England for the French and American markets. It was a success. The film was also screened in London, but the French version was 25 minutes longer.

S.S. Do French films have to be cut when they're screened in England too?

D.F. Yes, foreign films are censored in England, but that's not the case for mine.
I shoot a scene by adding an erotic piece for a foreign country. A hardcore scene in one of my films is an integral part of the sequence. For example, in "Sex Express," I shot two completely different scenes, one for France and the other for England. The French version of "Sex Express" cannot be seen in England, at least for the moment.

S.S. - Tell us about your actresses. When you're preparing a film, do you immediately think of a certain actress?

D.F. - Sometimes during the shooting of my films, I think that I'm the one creating the star, and once the film is finished, she disappears. This is because every time I sit down and write a script, the actress I needed (and we've always had very good actresses in our films) has, as if by magic, turned up ready-made. This is exactly what happened, for example, with Heather Deeley (the star of "Sex Express"). Often the girls I choose don't have much film experience and have only played a few supporting roles. What do I look for in an actress? It's simple.
Naturalness and intelligence. I can't stand silly women. And another thing: I would never give a role to a woman I wouldn't invite to dinner with out on the town. So I impose my tastes. And I would never star in one of my films a girl I wouldn't want to be seen with in public.

S.S. Are your scripts very precise? How much room do you give to improvisation?

D.F. I almost always write my scripts myself and don't improvise afterward.

S.S. What do you prefer to film: a classic love scene, a scene between two girls, or an orgy?

D.F. No preference. I'm only concerned with the success of the scene, which must be sensual and erotic, but also intelligent and have its place in the dramatic structure of the script. I don't have a preference because the end of each scene is dictated, so to speak, by my personal dynamism. Everything follows, and when I'm shooting, I don't want to have relationships with the actresses. I want to remain calm and offstage. So I can't have a preference. I always put myself in the audience's shoes and do my best to excite them. To do that, I have to remain cool and detached.

S.S. And politics? Do you take that into consideration when you're filming? I think, for example, that Pasolini's films contained quite intense erotic scenes, but also left-wing politics.

D.F. No politics! I don't think politics can have a place in my films. My only policy, if you can call it political, is to never distort the truth. I mean, I try to tell a story the way I think it should be told. If it turns out to be politically right, left, or center, I don't care, as long as it's true. Obviously, you can't always avoid politics because politics is life, and cinema is precisely about life. I said that you should never distort the truth, and this naturally applies to scenes of love and eroticism. You should never distort sexuality.

S.S. What is your favorite of your films?

D.F. It's a difficult question because I have preferences for certain scenes in almost every script I've shot, while I don't find any of my films perfect. Currently, I prefer the film I'm currently shooting.

S.S. And directors? Do you have a favorite director?

D.F. I'll tell you a story about Just Jaeckin, the director of "Emmanuelle" and "The Story of O." I tried to buy the rights to film "The Story of O" in 1968.
I didn't succeed because I looked for the money here in London. It wasn't the right time or place. I saw "Emmanuelle" and I must say that, except for a few scenes, I found it average. Then I went specially to Paris to see "The Story of O," which hasn't yet been shown here in London. Since I really wanted to make this film myself, I was prejudiced against the one who had succeeded where I had failed, and, moreover, I knew that it was fashionable in Paris to disparage this film and that the critics hadn't been very kind to Jaeckin. Well, I found "The Story of O" a very great film. It's magnificent, and I have a lot of admiration for Just Jaeckin. I think he did a very, very good job because the book is very difficult to film. I know this because I spent about six months racking my brains over this problem. Maybe I found that, which is also what Pauline Réage, or whoever wrote "Story of O," did. The book doesn't contain objective descriptions of sadism. All of that is left to the reader's imagination. You're presented with a situation and left to your imagination to fill in the details. In my opinion, Just Jaeckin paid the same compliment to his viewers.
The film was so good because I was aware of all the problems Jaeckin had to solve.

S.S. He told me, when I interviewed him, that it was a love story.

D.F. That's right. I think Just Jaeckin and I are the only two people in the world who understand "Story of O." Of course, it's a love story that has nothing to do with sadism. I wrote this in 1968 in a report I wrote for some producers I was trying to interest in the book. It's a love letter addressed to an imaginary lover. If the lover isn't imaginary, he's a very lucky man. Just Jaeckin understood my heroine; he understood that it's not a tragic story. I said the book was a love letter. But it's very difficult to make a film out of a love letter, first of all because the director is obliged to concretize a fantasy. Indeed, there is no objective description of the characters in The Story of O. I know this because I spent a lot of time looking for a description of O. But, no, you have to imagine her. And as soon as you add flesh and bones to a creature of the imagination, you disappoint most people who had imagined her differently. Because the ideal woman, for one person, can be black and tall, 5'7", and for another person she can be tall, 5'11", and blonde. The critics didn't understand any of this at first, I imagine, because they didn't even bother to read the book....

S.S. They said the film was insignificant... Not enough violence, torture...

D.F. Listen to me. If Just Jaeckin had made a film like that, he would have addressed five percent of the world's population, and the other 95 percent would have taken his work as the ramblings of a madman. Instead, he addressed the same audience Pauline Réage had chosen and resolved the various problems admirably. If I'm the only one who thinks Just Jaeckin made a great film, then I hope someone will tell him.

S.S. What's the relationship between your private and professional life?

D.F. None. I have only one life, and I spend most of it making films, preparing for filming, or resting after finishing a film. All my time is taken up by cinema. My wife works with me, and even my children are interested in my films.

S.S. Do you think that today, in the midst of the pornographic trend, a striptease can still play an interesting erotic role?

D.F. But how! Even something that's much less erotic than a striptease. A good director can create a very erotic scene with two people looking at each other from one side of the table to the other. To think otherwise is to forget that there were very erotic films long before the arrival of pornography. In theater, since the Greeks, there have often been very erotic situations without resorting to pornographic realism. To say that you can't create something very sensual without resorting to hard core is to say that ballet can't be erotic when we know that often the opposite is true. But there has never been a hard core ballet. At least, I've never seen it. I would like to make a film of a ballet because I think that ballet is one of the most erotic shows you can see.

S.S. And you'll put hardcore in it?

D.F. Of course, if necessary. The difficulty is that in England, no one wants anything to do with short films.
Otherwise, I would have loved to make a twenty-minute film of a ballet. My wife, Valerie, is a ballet dancer, and we even wrote a screenplay about it together. But there's no market...

S.S. Maybe in France.

D.F. Our screenplay is called "The Orgy." Can you imagine a film about ballet like the classic "Red Shoes" shot without false modesty?

S.S. What are your tastes, your hobbies in life, outside of cinema?

D.F. Like shrimp fishing? No, no. I am completely absorbed in cinema and have no other interests except, of course, my family.

S.S. But then, if you had to stop making films, what would you do?

D.F. I don't know. I could write screenplays like I used to. But assuming the film and television industries ceased to exist tomorrow, I don't know what I would do. I suppose I could write a novel. In fact, I'd like to write a novel, but I've always been too taken up with cinema to do so.

S.S. Would you like to tell us about your plans?

D.F. I start shooting my new film here in England in January. It will be something new, something different. Indeed, the film will examine the relationship between a seventeen-year-old boy and a call girl ten years his senior.

S.S. Like Chéri, by Colette. If only in the novel the woman was a fifty-year-old hen and not a twenty-eight-year-old girl...

D.F. No, no. My story is completely different. It's modern and belongs to 1976.

S.S. Its title?

D.F. "Games."

S.S. When will the film be finished?

D.F. - I hope in May to be presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Then it will be dubbed into French and will be available to Parisian audiences in the fall.

S.S. Are all your films dubbed in French or only some?

D.F. No, no. They're all dubbed in French. I don't want subtitles.

S.S. And after "Games"?

D.F. In May 1976, I'll be leaving for Turkey to shoot a film there. This film will be called "A Turquoise Garden." It is also a psychological film—a study of the relationship between two women and a man. The two women fighting over the man are his own daughter and his second wife. You may have noticed that women always play an important role in all my films. I believe this is one of the reasons for their success. In so many films today, the woman has a secondary role, with the two heroes fighting over her in close-up...

S.S. That's true. And yet in the great classical plays, in Shakespeare, for example, women had very important roles.

D.F. As for erotic films, especially here in England, the woman is merely an "object," as the members of the Women's Liberation Movement say. You currently have on the screens "Confessions of a Window Cleaner", "Adventures of a Taxi Driver" and so on. It's always a story about a man who sleeps with ten women. I think this happens because producers think that a film with only one woman would be boring... If they really believe this, it means that their own wife, the one they live with, bores them. I, on the contrary, believe that the relationship between a man and a woman must always be alive. So an erotic film with a woman in the foreground isn't just good politics, it's also very profitable economically. After all, if a man asks a woman to accompany him to the movies, she'll be the one choosing the show. And women like my films because I give them intelligent roles.

S.S. You were saying that, generally, erotic films are aimed at men and that they feature robust actors making love in every way and in every imaginable position... Can we consider making a pornographic film for women?

D.F. A simple "sex object" can be thoroughly examined, and she becomes very interesting. I'm never afraid to have a single woman in my films and tell the story of her sexual adventures instead of the sexual adventures of a man with a dozen cardboard women.

S.S. It seems that producers of erotic films are aimed at a male audience and think that women aren't interested in eroticism... But is that true? After all, women make up fifty percent of the world's population.

D.F. Women are interested in eroticism, even if they don't make up fifty percent of the audience for erotic cinema.

S.S. I conducted a survey on this subject here and in France.
Women often visit erotic films with their husbands or boyfriends.
They're happy to go if the film is serious with a woman playing an interesting and leading role, not that of a doll who is there to allow men to demonstrate their sexual prowess.

D.F. Of course, but it won't be simply the same thing as for men; I mean, a woman making love in all positions with a dozen men. Eroticism in women depends much more on the realm of imagination, and therefore they want to see an intelligent woman on screen with whom they can identify. If they see a call girl on screen, they will identify with her. That's why "Story of O" is a film about women in search of sensations. All women identify with "O." And I say that if my films are successful with women, it's because they can identify with the star.

S.S. Do women like to dream?

D.F. Dreaming with their eyes open. It's basic psychology. Everyone knows it, but filmmakers often forget it. There are even some basic fantasies among women, such as the knight in armor, or the sheik, who kidnaps the woman, puts her on his horse, and rides off with her. In these intimate dreams, the woman must never be held responsible for what happens to her. She must be taken by force, raped, by a man stronger than her. This allows her to believe that whatever happens to her can never be blamed on her. You know the story told about the German advance in France during the war of 1870. In a certain village, the women shuddered as they heard the terrible stories of rape by enemy soldiers and wondered what they would have done in a similar situation. Finally, the village was taken by the Germans, but they, more interested in pursuing the enemy than sleeping with their wives, continued their advance. The women, alone and disappointed, complained because they had been told stories of rape that weren't true...

S.S. This is, in essence, the story of "The Heroic Fair" by Jacques Feyder. When the Spanish advanced on a small town in the Netherlands in the 16th century, the good bourgeois were terrified of losing their property and their lives, while their wives shuddered with pleasure at the thought of being raped.

D.F. - Yes, but women don't want rape—rape is a horrible thing in life. They want it in their imagination. That's how a woman will go to the movies and identify with the heroine and her suffering and pleasures. She'll go to see an erotic film, if it's well done, and she'll identify with a whore, a fickle woman making love to her lover in front of her husband, or with an innocent, defenseless young girl raped by a brute. If this kind of film is made with taste and intelligence, the director can even spice it up with hardcore material, the woman won't be offended. On the contrary, it will help her imagination, her fantasy.
But I say that the simply dirty film, the sex film, is over. The same thing happened in America and France. All censorship was abolished, and for a few months, audiences flocked to theaters to see anything as long as it involved buttocks. But not anymore. Today, American audiences only go to see erotic films if they are well-conceived and well-directed. That's what I try to do, while giving the woman an interesting role, and if I've had some success, I don't think I'm flattering myself by saying it's due to observing these few rules.

 

Psycho Sex Dolls (2025)

One for fans of cheerfully rude British cinema .... we're talking Sex Lives of the Potato Men level here...as washed up, coke snorting adult video director Damien Self (Simon Weir) and his even more obnoxious producer James Steel (Kieran Chalker) attempt to turn around the fortune of their failing porno operation by replacing flesh and blood porn stars with three sex robots. Only for the sexbots to start thinking for themselves and turn against their chauvinistic owners. 

Smutty, bloke humour is the order of the day here, but it also rubs shoulders with flashes of surprisingly satirical commentary on A.I., the metoo movement and female body image. The film hides it well, but there is a brain here. Making this, in it's smarter moments, a micro-budgeted, Brit variation on The Substance, albeit had that film made the Dennis Quaid character the centre of attention. It's similarly visually hyperactive and in your face, with the downfall of it's train wreck of a protagonist being played out within a confined, claustrophobic setting. The film's concerns about A.I.'s potential dominance of the movie industry- the sexbots quickly master film editing and scriptwriting- and identity thief -Damien models one of the sexbots on his porn star ex-girlfriend- feels particularly topical. Damien's realisation that in terms of being stripped of any artistic integrity and being answerable to unscrupulous masters, he's every bit a machine as the sexbots, leads to a surprisingly redemptive coda. My only gripe with the film is the CGI bloodshed, I just don't think the technology is quite there yet to accurately replicate flowing liquid, resulting in spurting blood having an awkward animated look. Low budget filmmaking's current favouring of this seems doubly baffling given that a bottle of old fashioned stage blood isn't exactly the price of caviar these days. Still as this is hardly a gorefest, the violence in the film being limited to only a few brief seconds, this is only a slight irritation, and these sexy but deadly dolls are well worth a look. The amount of female nudity in the film indicating that along with recent efforts like Graphic Designs, Dirty Work, Dirty Games and Darker Shades of Summer, low-budget British filmmaking has got it's sexploitation groove back. Elsewhere Kieran Chalker brings some sweary, geezer gangster energy to Psycho Sex Dolls, as you might expect from someone who has been in a few Rise of the Footsoldier movies, and Simon Weir gives a debauched tour-de-force as a character who seems to be equal parts Ben Dover and Charlie Endell (esquire). 

As far as recent movies about sexbots go, Psycho Sex Dolls is more ambitious than Gerard Daly's V1200 (2019) and sexier than Louisa Warren's Cyberbride (2019). On a personal note, I was somewhat amused that Damien Self opted to give one of the sexbots a Manchester accent, as a Mancunian I'd never considered our accent the type to get men cumming in their pants, we should be flattered, i guess.

Bannerman (1974, Charlie Chester)

 

Another stab at literature from comedian Charlie Chester, Bannerman gives new meaning to the term 'multi-genred' beginning in yob lit territory, suddenly becoming about boxing, then managing to work in wife swapping before becoming a war novel...and that's only in the initial fifty pages of this thing. If you're looking for evidence of Charlie Chester being a dirty old man, you've also come to the right place, we're barely off page one before he's banging on about schoolgirls... be in no doubt, Mister Chester likes his little girls in socks.

The book lead me to the still unsolved mystery of how Bannerman relates to Chester's earlier novel Bannerman Amen (1972), if it does at all. There's evidence throughout Bannerman of it being a sequel novel with lots of references to the protagonist Mick Bannerman being a chip off the old block, his father's son, just like his father etc, etc...giving the impression that the exploits of Bannerman senior is something we should all be familiar with. Logically then you'd think that Bannerman Amen documented the story of Bannerman's father and this is Chester's 'Son of Bannerman' follow up. However, it appears that the main character in Bannerman Amen was called Vince Bannerman whereas Bannerman's father in this book is called Ben Bannerman. My theory is that Chester intended this as a sequel to Bannerman Amen, only for this idea to be nixed by New English Library who wouldn't have wanted to give Bannerman Amen any free publicity, since it was put out by another publisher and its existence worked against NEL's attempts to portray Bannerman as Chester's debut fictional novel. The back cover blurb claiming 'with Bannerman, Charlie Chester - an international star of entertainment -can now add novelist to his long list of talents'.

Chester's fame might have been a major selling point for the book, but he leaves his family friendly reputation at the door with Bannerman. The opening chapter finding the teenage Mick Bannerman being overcome with lust for a girl from his school, to the extent that he decides to rape her. 'It wasn't his fault that her long blonde silky hair, and her milky white skin with those delicate rosy cheeks had been driving him crazy with yearning for her'. The meticulous planning that goes into the rape and the explicit description of its execution leaves you with the uncomfortable feeling of being in the company of an author who was getting off on sexualizing a young girl and her rape 'with vicious thrusts he seemed to be severing her in two'. The narrative then turns its attention to Jimmy Wall, 'Brick' to his friends, a wannabe championship boxer and brother of Bannerman's victim, 'Goldilocks' to her friends. Being told of his sister's rape immediately before getting in the ring, leads Brick to lose control "just imagine what you would do if he was the bloke who raped young Goldilocks" working off his rage on his opponent, accidentally killing the man in the process.

Chester seems to have borrowed from his friend James Moffatt, when it comes to Bannerman reinventing himself as a social climber upon his release from borstal, marrying into money and becoming a successful businessman. Mirroring the storyline of Moffatt's skinhead series, whose protagonist Joe Hawkins went from anti-social menace to city slicker in the first sequel novel 'Suedehead'.

For the first half of the book Chester takes the unorthodox route of telling Bannerman's story entirely through the eyes of others. Namely Brick, presumably to give the book a moral centre, Brick being the type of principled, ethical pugilist who refuses to throw a fight, and suffers because of it. The other character whose rented eyes we see Bannerman through is his well to do wife Cora...for perhaps less moral reasons on Chester's part. Cora's back-story, and transition from girl to woman, allowing Chester the opportunity to return to his jailbait fixations. 'Even as a long legged juvenile, Cora had had something extra. The boys were crazy about her, and since then, nature had weaved it's miracle. The embarrassing little bumps on her chest had long since awakened to life and swelled with majestic feminine pride'. Chester's aversion to a first person narrative doesn't always pay off. As we are denied a firsthand audience with Bannerman himself for the opening half of the book, it's difficult to get much insight into what makes him tick, or how we're meant to feel about him. Were it not for the nasty business with the schoolgirl at the start of the book, Bannerman would come across as a Leslie Phillips type bounder whose crooked schemes and womanizing we might be persuaded to cheer on.

Strangely the point when Bannerman takes centre stage, is the point when the book hits a dull, uninteresting patch from which it never fully recovers. Falling asleep at the wheel during the third act being an unfortunate trait of Chester's books. Bannerman, now into middle age, decides to reinvent himself again as a mastermind behind several daring robberies and ultimately a plan to blackmail an insurance company. The problem with this part of the book is that Bannerman's non-violent, victimless, white collar crimes always entirely go to plan, hitting absolutely no hitches whatsoever, and thus generating little suspense or excitement.

The book only jump starts back to life, and reverts to its sleaze origins, when Bannerman seduces Margaret Sanderson, a prim and proper secretary, in order to extract information about the insurance company she works for. Even when the sex is consensual in Chester's books, it tends to be of the brutish and aggressive variety. That's how CC's women like it, "Ohhh god yes, hurt me" begs Sanderson. For an apparent lothario though, Bannerman is surprisingly uninspired when it comes to sexy time chat, repeating "Maggie, you're so lovely" to her over and over, then after their relationship has been consummated adding "my god, that was beautiful and quite a surprise in a way". Compare and contrast with Bannerman's swinger pal Max, who appears to have snapped up Chester's best bedroom chat up lines. "I'm a hunter, a confessed bull" he tells Cora, who also turns out to like it rough, crying out "That's it, make me pay, oh more, MORE, MAKE ME PAY".

Rumour has it that Chester 'wrote' his NEL books by dictating them in their entirety to his secretary, straight off the top of his head. Meaning that what you are reading is essentially straight from Chester's mind and onto the printed page, with very little by way of rewriting or editing. Terrible I know, but I can't help but be amused by the idea of a woman going to work as a secretary to Charlie Chester, no doubt expecting an atmosphere of music hall gayety, only to find herself typing out things like "if there's one way of getting a fire quicker than rubbing two sticks together, it's rubbing between a wife and a part time pussy". Chester's making-it-up-as-he-went-along approach lends the book an unpredictability. Say what you will about Bannerman but it's impossible to second guess where it's going, and it can feel like a completely different book to the one you were reading half an hour before. Bannerman is like getting lost in Charlie Chester's brain without a map, CC's grey matter being populated by sexy schoolgirls, Masai warriors, wife swappers, a phony reverend and homing pigeons, all of whom figure in Bannerman's storyline...somehow. However, while I have enjoyed other Chester books like Even the Rainbow's Bent and Symphony & Psychopath, the lacklustre third act means that this one was a step down for me. Bannerman is less a case of Bannerman Amen, and more Bannerman A-Mess.

Joe 12

 The end is nigh..the penultimate Joe D'Amato episode

Blaze (1969, Kenneth Roberts)

Blaze and it's sequel Flame represent the deep end of slavery lit, a genre that by its very nature is extreme and distasteful. Author Kenneth Roberts seems to have attempted to make these two books stand out from the Mandingo inspired pack by cutting straight to the pornographic jugular. Leading you to suspect that Kenneth Roberts was a pen name, since it's hard to believe that anyone remotely sane would use their real name on a pair of books like these.

 

Blaze shackles us in chains and frog marches us back to the 1740s, a shameful period of American history, where a male slave called Blaze is subject to an endless parade of indignities, racial abuse and unwanted sexual attention. Blaze is initially sold to Von Schloss, a bi-sexual Dutchman, who likes his slaves 'silent... monolithic and in priapic splendor'. Josette, Von Schloss's wife, turns a blind eye to his homosexual inclinations in return for allowing her to romp around with the black bucks he owns. However, Von Schloss predictably insists on a front row seat to the mixed combo action between Blaze and Josette. Blaze thinks he has landed on his feet, by becoming the sexual plaything of a rich, swinging couple. However, he is brought back down to earth when Von Schloss (literally) sells him down the river, passing him onto two of his associates. Tommy Scott, about the only decent whitey in the entire book, and Tommy's hard drinking brother Hugh, a no good bossman with an unfortunate habit of getting raging hard-ons whilst dishing out punishments to male slaves.

 

Roberts throws in all the elements - whippings, castration, racial slurs and interracial sex- that slavery lit loving audiences were crying out for back then. Roberts might have been a little ahead of his time too, his hypersexual narrative and graphic descriptions of sex acts anticipate the big screen 'porno chic' trend by a few years. The sexual demands placed on Blaze's muscular shoulders include servicing the black wenches owned by the Scott brothers for breeding purposes. As well as more socially taboo affairs with 'respectable' women like Josette and Miss Dolly, a randy Scouse trollop, fresh off the boat from Liverpool. All of which leads Blaze to the weary conclusion "I's a walkin' pair o' balls, nuthin' mo". A maxim repeated throughout the book, much to the amusement of racist white characters.

 

What's really surprising for something written in 1969, is how blatantly bi-sexual orientated this book is, with much of the unwanted sexual attention in the book coming from sexually adventurous white males. All of whom keep finding reason to play with Blaze's oversized penis and heavy ballsack (physical attributes that Roberts never tires of describing). It's not just whitey that Blaze has to fear, at one point Blaze is tricked into being fellated by a fellow slave called Teach, who is masquerading as one of the black wenches. Upon being discovered, Teach tries to sell Blaze on the gay lifestyle by telling him "likin' it, wasn't yo? Buck's Jes's good's a wench. Betta sometimes". The book pushes the homoerotic undercurrent of the slavery lit genre to the forefront, thanks to Hugh's lust/hate relationship with Blaze, which sees Hugh put Blaze through sadistic hell due to his closeted desire for him...in this book, each man whups the thing he loves. The tide begins to turn when Blaze realizes that his coveted sexuality gives him power over both men and women. Ultimately, Blaze is an uplifting story of how one man's endowment can be weaponized against racial oppression.

 

Blaze was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Flame (1970) put out by the publishing arm of Warner Brothers..no less. This move into the big league didn't persuade Roberts to tone down the Blaze formula one bit. If anything Flame is even further beyond the pale than it's predecessor, with not even horses and children being spared Roberts' lechery in the sequel novel.

 

Blaze is the kind of book that robs you a little of your humanity and dignity, just by having read it. Your enjoyment of the book will depend on how much you can block out the voice in the back of your head from saying "you're a terrible person for reading this". At the same time Blaze feels on the money in terms of historical accuracy, being so entrenched in the dialect and social mores of the period, that it ends up feeling like a book written in the 1740s, rather than a product of the 20th century. A triumph in the field of wall to wall degeneracy, Blaze is strong, dark meat.

Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead (1974, James Moffatt)

Surely the only book about Dracula to include a reference to Larry Grayson - it's dedicated to 'Larry- don't ever shut that door'- and countless italicized plugs for Seagram's 100 Pipers. The latter should of course tip you off to this being the work of James Moffatt writing as Etienne Aubin...a name derived from Moffatt's 1971 book 'Demo' where that surname is shared between heroic frenchman Rolande Aubin and his sexy daughter Nanette Aubin.

 

Originally promoted by New English Library as if it were part of Robert Lory's Dracula book series, Moffatt instead looks to have taken inspiration from the Hammer Dracula movies of the period. The opening scene of a vampire being traced to its crypt and stake being driven into its heart, cries out for a James Bernard musical accompaniment. Only for Moffatt to then pick a fight with the film company, with derogatory references to 'Christopher Lee making a bomb from having plastic teeth inserted into the corners of his mouth. Pig's blood trickling down the chin of some sexy, busty, non-acting dish as she frolics in the near nude across an artificial stage forest'. Yes, what better way to integrate yourself with the horror aficionados of the 1970s, than to piss all over Hammer films. Still you have to hand it to Moffatt, Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead is one of the all time great, attention grabbing horror titles, and one he could have easily sold to Hammer's rivals like Amicus and Tigon...had he not hated Jewish people so much.

 

Reading Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead is an experience akin to a very drunk person trying to tell you a scary story, despite being well past the stage of being able to string a sentence together. A drunk's rendition of the plot here, would go something like this "remember Maud who lived down the road, yeah well the priest had to drive a stake through her heart because she'd become one of the virgins of the undead. Anyway, I called up my friends, Douglas and Stafford, and told them we needed to hunt down Count Dracula, because he's a right bastard in real life. Then we decided that Dracula must be posing as an astrologer, but we didn't know for sure, so me and Douglas we went to a stone circle, and got distracted by this bird in light Levi trousers who had great looking knockers. Oh and Douglas is a powerful warlock by the way, and he realized that I was possessed, so he had Stafford burn a chest of drawers in my backyard, then I wasn't possessed anymore. Then I got into an argument with Douglas, and he pissed off, so I looked at my watch and it was 12:47am so I decided to hunt Dracula myself, and I found him in a field, and said 'hey you' but he completely ignored me. Anyway, pour another Seagram's 100 Pipers, we're both gonna need it".

 

I'm unsure as to how I could be so entertained by a book that stumbles around and ungainly falls on its arse every time it tries to function as horror or tell an intelligible story. Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead has the feel of an 'in-between marriages' book. Moffatt's big theme towards the end of the book being whether the hero should rush into a second marriage, his first having ended on a bitter note, whether this will cramp his bachelor lifestyle, and most importantly how it will effect his relationship with his cat. Until you've read it for yourself, you wouldn't believe how much of this book is taken up by the man/feline relationship...come for Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead, and stay for the adventures of Whisk the cat. The big takeaway from the book being that- in Moffatt's eyes- men and cats are much preferable company to women and vampires. Whilst the other love of Moffatt's life, Seagram's 100 Pipers, receives such an overkill of product placement here that the book would have been more accurately titled The Seagramic Rites of Dracula. Speaking of which...in order to trick the residents of Wiltshire and drink the blood of their womenfolk here Dracula is hiding out under the cunning name of Mister La Dacru...'cause that'll fool all those smart arses who saw through aliases like Dr. Acula and Alucard. James Moffatt...thank you, and also fuck you. Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead is the most fun you can have whilst having your intelligence insulted over 124 pages.