Thursday, November 11, 2010

SRC Films, Inc.


If schlock fans are familiar at all with Hemisphere Pictures, it's probably because of the popular "Blood Island" horror movies from the Philippines that the company produced and distributed during the late 1960s. When their sexy Swiss import SWINGIN' STEWARDESSES became a huge hit in 1972, horror was quickly forgotten and Hemisphere president Kane W. Lynn ceased producing his own product to concentrate on the distribution of softcore Euro sex films with keywords like "swingin'" and "naughty" in the titles, which were hot double and triple bill attractions at U.S. drive-ins for the next decade.

At first there was no effort to conceal their foreign roots, but Hemisphere v.p. Roger Cahn soon perfected a formula for the streamlining and Americanization of these mostly West German and Swiss sexploitation flicks: opening and closing credits were removed, new title cards were spliced in, and very simple but effective advertising campaigns were created featuring bogus names in the billing blocks and photos of models who never show up in the actual movies. When Lynn died in October of 1975 at the age of 56, Cahn took over as president of Hemisphere and continued to fill the release slate with titles like SELF-SERVICE SCHOOLGIRLS, VOLUPTUOUS VIXENS, WILLING WIVES, PENTHOUSE PLAYGIRLS, NAUGHTY CO-EDS, TEENAGE PLAYMATES, INTIMATE PLAYMATES, SMARTIE PANTS, HANKY PANKY, HUMDINGER!!!, and KICK FROM THE FOOT OF THE BED.

The company was eventually taken over by creditors who took a stab at G-rated family entertainment with the William Shatner-narrated MYSTERIES OF THE GODS before closing up shop in 1977. By that time Cahn had already departed with about a dozen of his Hemisphere acquisitions and started his own company, SRC Films, which would be the exclusive stateside theatrical distributor of the SCHULMÄDCHEN REPORT and Erwin Dietrich films for the next several years. SRC continued the practice of releasing softcore imports with interchangeable titles and ad campaigns well into the 1980s, as evidenced by the image gallery below.

(1977)

(1977)

(1978)

(1978)

(1978)

(1979)

(1979)

(1980)

(1980)

(1981)

(1981)

(1981)

(1982)

(1982)

(1983)

(1983)

(1984)

(1984)

(1985)





2 comments:

Marc Edward Heuck said...

I gave a one-sheet of MAKING OUT to Barry Sandler, the writer of MAKING LOVE, whose title font is clearly being co-opted. He was suitably amused.

Unknown said...

Amazing stuff!