The Endangered List (Case File #170)

THE VIXENS (1969)
a.k.a. FRIENDS AND LOVERS

Starring

Anne Linden (Betty)

Mary Kahn (Ann)

Peter Burns (Bob)

Steven Harrison (Alan)

Claudia Bach (Judy)

Robert Raymond (Harold)

Hector Elizondo (Inspector)

Directed by

Harvey Cort

Produced by

Sande N. Johnsen

Written by

Harvey Cort

and

Al Rosati

Cinematography by

Harry Petricek

Edited by

Pat Follmer

A

Cort-Johnsen

production

A

Trio Films

presentation

THE VIXENS

Released by

International Film Artists Ltd.

New York opening: February 25, 1969

FRIENDS AND LOVERS

Released by

Stratford Pictures Corporation
(a subsidiary of Allied Artists)

New York opening: December 10, 1969

Running time: 82 minutes

MPAA rating: X (as FRIENDS AND LOVERS)

The following is an excerpt from “Bumping the Grinds” by Judith Crist
(New York, March 10, 1969, p.54-55)

THE VIXENS is in the “grind” movie category because it happened to cost about $30,000 to make, has no name actors (though they are professionals, even with off-Broadway credits) and is concerned with wife-swapping, amour à trois and lesbianism, and it’s rare enough to have a plot, and a suspenseful one at that, an accidental death that might be murder.

THE VIXENS was directed and co-authored by Harvey Cort, a chap long involved in film who decided that “educational” films were getting him nowhere so he’d change it with an exploitation movie, since this is the order of our day. It was made up at Candlewood Lake, with part of friends’ homes providing the sets, and at the Croton Dam, which plays a part in the suspense-death theme. And, oddly, he and his actors have managed to say something relevant about our upper-middle-class morality, where wife-swapping and minor orgying is just swell from the male viewpoint, but let the wives take a lingering look at each other and the fellas will have none of it. It also says something about the Hollywood rating-morality too, nicht wahr? Unlike the routine grind film, this one deals with exurbanites, with the commuter husbands and the dissatisfied wives and with what, oddly enough, does go on as the aftermath of a lot more sunny-Sunday social hours and let’s-get-together-for-cocktails interludes than most exurbanites are willing to confess to. A “grind” movie? Yes; the Cort camera doesn’t shy away from the action and exploits our penchant for voyeurism or erotic empathy to the full. But his people talk like people and behave in recognizable human fashion and the moral of his tale is about as amoral as life is for a good part of the time.

I kid you not into thinking THE VIXENS is a work of art; it’s spotty and it’s grind and it’s obviously low budget – but it is, more often than not, for real.

“There is one thing to be said for THE VIXENS. It's plainly a sexploitation film, and director Harvey Cort works with skillful dedication to arouse fans of the genre.” - William Wolf, CUE (March 15, 1969)

The Award Books paperback novelization by Liz Marsh [Joan Blair].