It’s been hard to believe that it’s been almost two full years since we’ve done a FIFTY ON FRIDAYS post. We initially thought we may have lost one or two in the hacking episode we’re still recovering from [1], but after further review of our files it turns out the last time we did one was April 15, 2022! So it’s high time we rebooted one of the earliest, and most successful, series at the Capri Show World Center. So without further adieu (or BS), here’s the adult film ads from the Village Voice for the week of February 24, 1974. There are some good ones, some old ones, and some mysteries herein, all of the classic ingredients of a great FIFTY ON FRIDAY!
Overview
The Met (no, not The Met) on 14th Street didn’t say what it was throwing up on the screen, just that it was a 2 1/2 hour of a Super-Panasonic marathon [2]; we bet it felt like that as well! The Eros 2 was giving what they claimed was the World Premiere of Ed Wood’s THE YOUNG MARRIEDS, even though it had already played at the Beverly in Los Angeles earlier in February. It’s companion film, NEST OF JOY, is a mystery [3] Over in Long Island at The Mini Cinema in Uniondale they were showing THE ROAD RUNNER FOLLIES OF 1974, which does not appear to have been an official offering by Warner Brothers (this is the only theater that ever showed something with that name), and then for the Friday and Saturday night midnight shows they upped the age limit for IS THERE SEX AFTER MARRIAGE. [4]
Over at the Hudson on 44th St they were offering THE INSIDERS and PUT YOUR HEART OUT, plus DINNERWARE SALESMAN…yeah, we’ve never heard of any of them either. However we HAVE heard of RINGS OF PASSION, with John Holmes, AKA Johnny Wadd as they’re advertising at The Capri, along with “Claire Star”, which was Claire Dia. Pity no mention of Sharon Thorpe who also stars. The second billed feature was BEHIND THE BLUE DOORS, which was probably the 1971 George Peters/Starlyn Simone film THIRTEEN BLUE DOORS, re-titled to cash in on the BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR success. Another Holmes film was over at the Lido East, SWING THING, sharing time with WILD DREAMS, which we have no info on.
There were a number of big-time, Porno Chic features playing around town the last few days of February. You had the Mitchel Brothers’ RESURRECTION OF EVE with Marilyn Chambers at the World Theater; Damiano’s THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES at several locations (Rialto 2, Austin in Kew Gardens Queens, Castle in Brooklyn, and Montauk over in NJ); NOT JUST ANOTHER WOMAN, at the Lincoln Art in NYC and the State Cinema in New Brunswick, NJ; and the first Blacksploitaion hardcore film, LIALEH, at the Orleans, Avon 42 ST, Kips Bay, and Town theaters.
Moving back to the lower end of the smut spectrum, the Cinema 14 was offering OH MISS BODIE (with Nora Wieternick and Suzanne Fields) and the local NYC shot, and now unfortunately lost, Shaun Costello flick DRILLS AND FRILLS, the CINE LIDO had the mysterious TEENAGE LOVE GODDESS and THE OLD DIRTY BOOK SHOP [5], and rounding out the straight slate was the unknown to us SWEET AND SOUR at the Circus at Broadway and 49th[6], along with “Exciting New Hostesses”!
If you were in search of a more all-male fare you had a fairly large menu to choose from as well. Starting with Tom DeSimone’s CHAINED[7] at Chelly Wilson’s EROS 1. Over at the infamous 55th ST Playhouse you could have caught Peter Burian [8] in NIGHTS IN BLACK LEATHER along with ANY BOY CAN (who can ask for anything more!) And finally, you could make the trek out on far west 42nd to The Jewel, left over from the Seymour Domoor/New Era circuit days, and could have taken in THE TRIP and SWAP MEET, along with male shorts…or more than likely males without shorts.
And after all that if you wanted to catch a mainstream film to bring you back to reality there was an amazing array of now-classic films playing around town, from MEAN STREETS, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, THE STING, THE LONG GOODBYE, to Jodorowsky’s THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT, and Tati’s PLAYTIME, just to name a handful. Amazing.
The Ads
- A couple of weeks ago the entire CSWC website, along with it’s sibling sites, were inexplicably deleted from our self-hosted server (OK, admittedly a 1994 Packard Bell running Slackware 1.1, shoved on the shelf of the projection room probably wasn’t the best way to host up something as elaborate and historically important as CapriShowWorld.com.[↑]
- We actually have a number of these “Super Panasonic” films, we’ll get around to doing a post on them sometime…really. We promise.[↑]
- Although a brief snippet from the November 15, 1975 Boxoffice indicates a Pittsburgh theater described it as nothing more than “old loops”. I’m betting that was a fairly accurate description.[↑]
- It looks like they were doing several eclectic screenings during early 1974, with a Three Stooges festival, other cartoons, and other classic films, along with adult fair, so maybe they were trying to figure out what they’re target audience actually was…or maybe they were attempting to show just enough non-smut to stay out on the right side of the censor-police…[↑]
- The Old Dirty Book Shop was a Rik Taziner film, and he also did a lavender version of the same film, Ye Old Dirty Book Shoppe, which was a common thing for Taziner to do.[↑]
- 49th and Broadway would have been our favorite cross-streets back in the day, you had the original flagship Video Shack on the North East corner, along with the New World Theater, the Circus Theatre, the Big Top Theater (all-male), and the Broadway Burlesk in the same building, a Howard Johnson’s restaurant on the South East Corner, The Grand Pussycat (and a plethora of other smaller adult venues) on the North West corner, and finally the Brill Building, home of thousands of hit songs from the 1930s to the 1970s, on the South West corner. [↑]
- CHAINED can be seen on SWV’s Bucky’s Triple XXX Rated All-Male Beavers 5: Chained.[↑]
- Peter Burian, aka Peter Berlin.[↑]
