Radley Metzger was the king of 70’s schlock, soft-core, melodramatic porn and Score, his 1973 opus concerning a pair of married bisexual swingers looking to up the ante by seducing another married couple, is one of his most beloved films, a canon of porn-corn that includes The Alley Cats, Camille 2000, The Lickerish Quartet and the hard-core classic, The Opening of Misty Beethoven. The dialogue is ridiculously over-the-top, the situations are ripe and absurd and the acting is hammishly wooden, but Score manages to be an entertaining hoot of a film and deserving of its Camp Classic status. And, for those of you opposed to porn, Score is naughty and even dirty, but it’s not hard-core filth; it’s safe to take your mother to, (as long as mom has spent some time working as a truck stop waitress or high school cafeteria worker…) And, there is something for everyone; Claire Wilbur and Lynn Lowry are the sexy, sexy ladies in this movie who enjoy each other’s company just as much as they enjoy the company of their humpy hubbies, Gerald Grant and Cal Culver who also enjoy a little same-sex humpin’. An added benefit for gay males who enjoy the vintage gay porn of the past, is the presence of Grant and Culver, both of whom did hard core gay porn, and Culver, under his more famous porn d’plume of Casey Donovan, was a HUGE gay porn star of the 1970’s and up to his death, from AIDS, in 1987. (Personally, I always preferred the brunette intensity and humpability of Mr Grant…)
Score screens Thursday, April 22 at 7pm at Northwest Film Forum and closes out 3 Dollar Bill’s spring film series, Innocence Lost. Check it out.
-Michael Strangeways
About the Author: Michael Strangeways
