Blue Movie Monday: HOT CIRCUIT (1971)

Two years before their softcore skin flick THE CHEERLEADERS became a big drive-in hit, former documentary filmmakers Paul Glickler and Richard Lerner made this hardcore homage to Le Ronde, which nabbed the Best Picture award at the first New York Erotic Film Festival (November 1971) but is remembered today by only the most dedicated students of cinema smut. There's no way the VD handoff of Schnitzler's original would've survived the "love the one you're with" sensibilities of the time, but 40 years later you'll wish this trailblazing explicit feature had more going for it than just body parts bumping together. For those unfamiliar with the source material, the tag line in the ad above explains the structure more concisely than any plot synopsis ever could, except that Glickler & Lerner mercifully closed their circle in 9 rather than 10 chapters. Despite having each character participate in two consecutive couplings, the final result still plays like a bunch of unrelated loops strung together, and fans of THE CHEERLEADERS are advised to check out only the second ("The Salesman and the Babysitter"), fourth ("The Adventuress and the Woodcutter") and final ("The Hustler and the Stripper") tales for evidence of the zaniness that was to, uh, come. If there's a highlight, it's chapter two, in which a bumbling air conditioner salesman is serviced by two barely legal babysitters on a backyard jungle gym to the strains of Judy Sherman's haunting "Waiting for You," although the overall effect now is more creepy than erotic. Segments go on just long enough to reveal that the cast members aren't as attractive as they originally seemed, with Kit Fox as "The Babysitter" sticking around the longest with 3 appearances in a row. Pic might be worth a look for historical value alone (512 F.2d 1361, "The United States of America v. Sherpix, Inc."), although on that front there are far bloodier battlefields to visit before this one.