Sleeve Design : Unknown

Temptation
 

Joe Sarno | USA | 1974

Taking the concept of Paul Mazursky’s 1969 comedy-drama Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, and re-imagining it for the world of ‘raincoat’ cinema, filmmaker Joe Sarno created a mini masterpiece of sexploitation, with bawdy content intermittently crossing over the line from X-rated softcore to barely concealed hardcore. Sarno, who was affectionately known as the “Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street”, delivers one of his best films here, making this highly charged and highly erotic ensemble piece a must see for fans of vintage adult smut. Original title: Confessions of a Young American Housewife.

Together with Anna (Chris Jordan) and Pete (Eric Edwards), Eddie (David Hausman) and Carole (Rebecca Brooke) aren’t just a pair of close neighbourly couples, but also a foursome of randy swingers, regularly mixing it up for nights of wild sexual abandon. When Carole’s widowed mother Jennifer (Jennifer Welles, whose name Sarno used as director pseudonym for 1977’s Inside Jennifer Welles), comes to stay for a fortnight, the couples try to hide their secret from her, but after Pete’s failed seduction attempt in the kitchen,  Anna is forced to reveal the truth to her mother.

This revelation becomes the catalyst to Jennifer’s own sexual reawakening, afterwards succumbing to Pete’s forthright sexual advances, whilst the others engage in a ménage a trios downstairs. Later, she accompanies Anna and Carole on a trip to a local spiritual sex guru called Shandara (Arlana Blue); the four females are soon disrobed, indulging in an electrifying Sapphic session, however in the heat of passion Jennifer almost kisses her own daughter — realizing that she needs to remove herself from the group and find her own direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whilst Confessions of a Young American Housewife was made in 1974, it was a Johnny-come-lately to UK cinemas, being released some five years later at the tail end of 1979. Distributed by Grand National Film Distributors Ltd., the BBFC were not enamoured by the explicit sex/incest theme and the film was heavily cut. To both the rescue and the video market, came Mountain’s superbly illustrated 1981 release (painted by video box art auteur Phil Richards), which presented the uncut version of the film in all its glory. A later July 1983 imprint on the obscure MVX video label was similarly uncut, but plagued with a dreadful cover.

The film then remained in limbo for nearly ten years, until picked up by the short-lived Amrac Distribution label, which video re-titled the feature as Temptation for their West End Movies collection. With “Directed by Joe D’Amato Creator of 11 Days 11 Nights” emblazoned on the cover, Amrac slyly removed all the inherent on-screen credits, replacing them with their own video generated variants, giving Joe D’Amato directorial authorship! This version is also cut, with some minor dialogue scenes missing and both reframing and cutting applied to remove the more sexually explicit shots

The recent RetroSeduction Cinema DVD features a cut 73 minute version of the film with missing scenes added as extras — all taken from a poor quality PAL DVD version of Amrac's release.

 

aka : Confessions of a Young American Housewife; Confessions of an American Housewife

cast : Rebecca Brooke, Jennifer Welles, Chris Jordan, Lana Joyce, Eric Edwards, David Hausman,  Erica Eaton, Arlana Blue