Erotic Movies

Stephen C. Apostolof (aka A.C. Stephen) was a former political prisoner, devoted Christian and family man and one of the greatest erotic filmmakers in the USA. This film traces A.C. Stephen's escape from communism in Bulgaria and his journey to Hollywood where he made his American dream come true. Over the course of a film career that lasted two decades, Stephen made seventeen low-brow, low budget softcore films. Today his legacy lives on, ridiculed or revered by both critics and fans alike.

Subtitled "A Voluptuous Journey Through '70s French Erotic Cinema", this compilation sounds precisely as you would imagine, and for some that'll be a very good thing, but those of you looking for something beyond the vintage euro-funk fromage-athon might be a tad disappointed. So many European B-movies and exploitation flicks from the 1970s have yielded unfeasibly brilliant soundtracks, and while there's nothing at all wrong with any of the material compiled here, there's seldom anything beyond the usual easy listening sample-baiting silliness to arouse your excitement. Having said that, when this compilation scores, it scores big: Piierre Bachelat's soundtrack for Histoires d'O is a psychedelic synth standout, while his visionary 'Motel Show' from Le Dernier Amant Romantique' is as good an Italo disco find as has surfaced in recent times. A special mention should be granted to one of the pieces lifted from the Emmanuelle 4 OST: the rather distressing 'Bach Anal', which has to be one of the most outstandingly insidious puns in the history of word play. In its own Moog-fuelled, breathy chanteuse-fronted way it does sound a bit like J. S. Bach though, which is to its credit I suppose.

From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, an original, seductive account of sexuality in the movies, and of how actors and actresses on screen have fed our desire.