Skin-Flicks

Skin-Flicks (1978)

*** (out of 4)

Tony Hudson plays adult film director Harry, a man who is ten days behind schedule on his current film and his bosses (the Mob) want a finished product. Harry is struggling with life because he wants to do something other than just a sex picture and this is starting to have an impact on his actress/girlfriend (Susan (Sharon Mitchell).

While watching SKIN-FLICKS you can't help but notice the various things that director Gerard Damiano was trying to say and get across. There's a lot of interesting things dealing with the behind-the-scenes making of an adult picture but this film mainly works because of its story, which is basically a director not being happy because they're unable to expand and do something that they really want.

The film benefits from two very strong performances in the lead. In fact, both Hudson and Mitchell are so strong that you really could see their performances in a mainstream Hollywood picture. Both of them were perfect for their roles and certainly very believable as well. You've also got Jamie Gillis showing up in a brief part playing a creep.

The film also benefits from some nice cinematography and one would argue that the director has perfect control over the material and really manages to make a rather deep and interesting film.

Gerard Damiano is most famous for his films Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones, but he also produced no less than 10 additional, and very original, hardcore efforts. Skin Flicks is amongst the rarest and best of Damiano's directorial efforts. The film concerns a young enterprising filmmaker trying to produce a hardcore feature. We are given insight into the making of his film, as well as a very, seemingly personal look at New York's mafia controlled hardcore film industry in the late 70s.

Damiano paints a devastating portrait of what it was like to produce a GOOD hardcore film, or more precisely, trying to be a good filmmaker in an industry whose main concern is sex.

Tony Hudson gives an excellent performance as the struggling director, and Beth Anna, although given only a very small role as an actress involved in the industry, displays true acting ability. Her main scene might be one of the most memorable in this entire film as she, quite realistically, portrays how one would suppose an actress in the industry would conduct herself. She also delivers the films most memorable line (one which must have undoubtedly sent the films producers into a frenzy) "some men like it when I shaved my p---y, it makes 'em think they're f-----g a little girl!"

Hudson's character almost resembles Damiano himself (who, by the way plays a mobster) in that he, like Damiano, is a real filmmaker having to put up with the constraints of the industry and the mob.

Damiano's character though is certainly one of the oddest characters ever to grace the set of a hardcore film: he plays a mafia man, concerned only with profit, never art, strange considering that this film was in fact mafia financed. The pictures and technical aspects are just as good as any Hollywood production, and the main fault is the all-too-frequent sex scenes which disrupt the narrative flow of the story, which is well written and developed.

Another wonderful aspect of this film is the wonderful musical score which fills every scene. Probably composed by Damiano regular Alden Shuman, it is filled with cool jazz themes, 70s exploitation tunes, and great disco numbers, and most certainly warrants its very own vinyl release.

Historians note: The poster for Shaun Costello's Waterpower can be spotted on the wall of Savage's office.