Ever since I relocated to Minneapolis on August the 1st of last year, I've been a frequent patron of the midnight movie screenings presented by the Uptown Theatre every Saturday evening. It's through these screenings that I've finally been able to see a number of films as they were originally meant to be seen - David Lynch's ERASERHEAD [1977], Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE [1971], and even L. Q. Jones' A BOY AND HIS DOG [1975], just to name a few.

This weekend the Uptown presented me with my first opportunity to see the miracle (chuckle) of 3D on the big screen. That it was through a screening of the little known 1977 porno flick "HOT SKIN" IN 3D was all the better.

The words "Deep Vision" have never had such locker-room connotations . . .

The gimmick of anaglyph 3D film making began, as best as I can find, with THE POWER OF LOVE [1922], the first confirmed theatrical 3D film presentation. The early half of the 1950's became something of a golden age for 3D productions, and saw the release of 3D efforts in nearly every genre - from the science fiction film IT CAME FROM OUT SPACE [1953] to slap stick comedies starring the Three Stooges. The technique was infamously resurrected for a brief period in the 1980's, with the likes of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III [1982] and JAWS 3-D [1983].

With the near endless line of raunchy pop-out jokes possible, it's something of a disappointment to me that more pornographic features haven't been filmed and projected this way.

Filmed in all the glory of 2.35:1, "HOT SKIN" IN 3D (or THE DISCO DOLLS IN HOT SKIN, or HOT SKIN, or even BLONDE EMMANUELLE) proved to be something of a bizarre film-going experience. The story begins with night-club owner (and, apparently, helicopter pilot) Chick landing on a scrub land hill side to try for some action with a sun-bathing secretary. She needlessly complies and, nary two minutes into the film, the thunderous slurps of a blowjob were echoing through the theatre halls. All is going remarkably well until Chick attempts full-on penetration with the young lass and reveals to us his secret condition:

For reasons unknown, Chick simply can't keep it up.

Through the magic of jump-cutting, we are flash-forwarded to the office of Chick's psychiatrist, a rotund man with a curious accent ("I'm not German - I'm Schviss!" he proclaims). Chick's problem has only been compounded in recent days, it seems, as his old flame and her new meat-puppet Harry Balls ("Harry Balls who?" "Anyone he wants.") show up at his night club, The Disco Doll, and ask for help. Harry is in trouble of some kind with the police - just what kind of trouble is never explained - and, for some reason, Chick is the only man around who can help him.

The situation is exacerbated when The Inspector arrives on the hunt for Harry - Chick sends his ex and Harry up to his office, where they promptly engage in a grotesque display of procreational might, while Chick's loving servant girls detain The Inspector on the roof.

Any sort of plot from this point on is fairly non-existent. Chick's psychiatrist magically appears throughout the narrative to give Chick advice, Harry pounds every living thing he comes into contact with, an unidentified young woman is drowned in a bowl of soup while being taken from behind, and a dominatrix is stabbed to death with a stick after biting off more than her partner would have liked during forced oral sex. The ending is happy enough - Chick gets back his girl, The Inspector gets Harry, and the psychiatrist says something utterly obscured by print splices.

Make no mistakes - "HOT SKIN" IN 3D is 70's pornography at its most stereotypical. From the groovy soundtrack (complete with wa-wa guitar) to the utterly unappealing performers to the fashions, this is the stuff of legends. Re-released for a brief time as BLONDE EMMANUELLE, the film has resurrected in recent years as a midnight feature playing to packed art house cinemas nationwide. The showing last night was no different, with several hundred patrons, mostly college aged like myself, filing in from the streets to see uncensored naked human flesh splayed seventy feet across a silver screen.

The heckling was immediate and non-stop, with only a few brief moments of silence throughout - the crowd burst into fits of hysteria as the credit for "John 'The Wadd' Holmes" flashed upon the screen and every 3-D gag was met with welcoming report (Bras are flung, vibrators poked, and cigarettes flicked. The audience is even treated to an extended first-person cumshot from Mr. Holmes himself at the conclusion of his brief orgy scene). It's the most fun I've had in a theatre in a long time.

The film benefits from its complete lack of seriousness, if little else, and though some sources seem to see it as a hardcore rendering of CASABLANCA, I find it has more in common with a low-end Benny Hill sketch than much else. There's nothing in the least bit titillating about the low budget hardcore antics played out during its brief 84 minute running time and the 3-D gimmick embellishing it is probably all that's saved it from the scrap heap in the 31 years since it was originally produced. Still, it proved to be late-night crowd-fodder of the best kind, bringing together people of all walks of life for a brief moment of communal hair-and-polyester tinted bliss.

This was released on DVD from Pathfinder some years ago in a soft-core version under the title BLONDE EMMANUELLE, for those who are interested in purchasing it, but WTFFILM can't imagine wanting to own such a film. Keep an eye on those local theatre listings instead - sooner or later HOT SKIN will be coming to a theatre near you!