11 Sleazy Movies of the 1970s That Don't Give a Damn About Your Respect
By: By Tim Molloy (MovieMaker)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
11 Sleazy Movies of the 1970s That Don't Give a Damn About Your Respect
The 1970s were the best decade for movies — especially sleazy movies.
We aren't talking about movies with an X rating, which are their own category. And we aren't talking about movies like Serpico , The French Connection and Mean Streets that depict sleaze but aren't sleazy themselves.
We're talking about movies that ruthlessly shock and pander to audiences for the sake of shock and titillation, often with delightful results. We like good sleazy movies, sometimes.
So here we go with our list.
Caligula (1979)
When Penthouse founder Bob Guccione set out to make a mainstream movie, the result was Caligula — a story of the indulgent Roman emperor with big names attached.
Led by rather fearless Clockwork Orange veteran Malcolm McDowell, the film stars Teresa Ann Savoy (above), as well as Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole. But what it's best known for is its over-the-top sex scenes.
It was written by the very respected Gore Vidal, who disavowed it after director Tinto Brass substantially altered his script.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
A sleazy movie (starting with that title) that uses sleaze to its great advantage. It's one of the most effective and captivating horror movies ever made thanks to its hardcore atmosphere, oozing with sex and violence.
Filled with the sounds of animals and buzzing flies, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre makes clear from the start that it has no limits, even before we hear the first rev of Leatherface's chainsaw. It's one of the all-time most effective sleazy movies.
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)
Among the sleaziest of sleazy movies, Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S. affects high-minded ideals with a ridiculous opening card (see above), but it's all just an excuse to tell the story of Ilsa, an evil Nazi warden who wants to prove women are better at suffering than men, and should therefore be allowed to fight for Hitler.
Of course, she proves this through a series of "experiments" on women who are scantily clad, at best. Let's all say it together now: "They couldn't make this today."
A Canadian film by director Don Edmonds, it managed to get reviewed by Gene Siskel, who called it ""the most degenerate picture I have seen to play downtown." We can't tell if that's a thumbs up or thumbs down.
The Driller Killer (1979)
Abel Ferrara has made some straight-up classics — including King of New York and Bad Lieutenant — but the Bronx-born director cut his teeth with The Driller Killer . (His debut was an adult movie in which he also performed.)
Ferrara also appeared in The Driller Killer (above) about a New York City artist who deals with his urban angst by going on a killing spree with a power tool.
The film made it onto the United Kingdom's list of "video nasties" criticized as sleazy movies for their extreme content.
Dolemite (1975)
Look, we love Dolemite, but when the hero of the movie is a pimp, you're watching a sleazy movie.
Rudy Ray Moore's endlessly entertaining Blaxploitation icon sprang from his filthy standup comedy routines: He passed on stories of a streetwise hustler named Dolemite who explained, "Dolemite is my name and f—ing up motherf—ers is my game."
Dolemite was also a triumph of DIY, indie moviemaking — as spelled out in the recent Dolemite Is My Name , starring Eddie Murphy.
Big congratulations to Dolemite for also making our list of movies that make sex work seem fun and exciting.
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973)
Widely regarded as one of the best exploitation movies ever made, this Swedish film by director Bo Arne Vibenius stars Christina Lindberg as as a mute woman who endures a series of unbelievable traumas — which Vibenius isn't shy about showing onscreen.
She eventually finds herself a double-barrel shotgun and goes on a revenge mission that she — and her targets — very much deserve.
The Last House on the Left (1972)
We hate this movie, because it's so incredible effective. One of the sleaziest sleazy movies ever made, it has a handmade quality that makes it violence and cruelty feel all the more real.
Director Wes Craven made his debut with Last House on the Left — a story of abduction, brutality and vengeance, scored by eerie hippie music — before going on to create the classic Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream horror franchises. With all due respect to those films, they aren't remotely as scary as Last House on the Left.
Maybe we should say we hate this movie, but respect it.
Salo (1975)
Another movie we hate, but don't respect, to be perfectly honest.
Inspired by the writings of Marquis de Sade, this film by Pier Paolo Pasolini is about a group of fascists who round up a group of adolescents and do horrible things to them for 120 days. Just make a list of things that gross you out, and we promise they're in Salo .
Interestingly, Abel Ferrara, who you may remember from our Driller Killer entry, made a movie about Pasolini in 2014 about his life around the time he was making Salo. It stars the great Willem Dafoe, a good friend and frequent collaborator of Ferrara's. They've made plenty of terrific not at all sleazy movies.
Taxi Driver (1976)
Taxi Driver didn't care about respectability — but got it anyway.
It separates itself from all the 1970s films that merely depict sleaze without being sleazy by taking the side of the second-sleaziest character in the film: Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle is a dirtbag who takes a clean-cut woman (Cybil Shepherd) to an adult movie on a first-date and practices firing his gun in the mirror.
Though director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader allow us to keep an observational distance from Bickle for most of the movie, we can't help but take his side at the end of the movie as he takes on its No. 1 sleaze, the monstrous Sport (Harvey Keitel), who is disgustingly exploiting Iris (Jodie Foster, above). Because it takes a sleaze to beat a sleaze.
So Taxi Driver is a sleazy movie — and one of the all-time great movies.
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
You probably remember the disco, but not the desperation.
Saturday Night Fever is a nuanced and gritty character study of Tony Manero (John Travolta, above) that unflinchingly depicts racism and sexual violence. Tony is deeply flawed, and no hero by today's standards, but the movie tries to win back our affection for him by the end.
For such a successful film, it's a very sleazy movie and a rough watch — but the dancing is fantastic.
The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
A movie we both love and respect, The Kentucky Fried Movie is a sendup of grindhouse and sleaze that is also, itself, pretty sleazy — but in a good way. It leaves no offensive joke unturned, and parody-movie sendups like Catholic High School Girls in trouble go waaay further than necessary to satirize the things they're satirizing. Countless 1970s teenagers didn't seem to mind.
The Kentucky Fried Movie is one of funniest sleazy movies, and it led to more mainstream, less sleazy success for director John Landis and writers David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, who would later go on to make Airplane .
What Are Your Favorite Sleazy Movies?
Doctor Detroit
Main image: The Kentucky Fried Movie.
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I'll ask that question again. What Are Your Favorite Sleazy Movies?
They need not be limited to 1970s movies.
First let me say there is a reason that there were so many in the 70's. Hollywood had recently shed its own "Hayes Code" in 1968 and there was the all too predictable burst of experimentation (I'm being nice) by the movie industry.
Of the above list, my favorite would be Taxi Driver because it had some interesting sub plots. Travis Bickle is supposed to be a horrible person, but I do think he had a point about a civilization in decay.
Go Travis!
"Are you talkin' to me?" LOL
"This city here is like an open sewer, you know, it's full of filth and scum. Sometimes I can hardly take it. Whatever ever becomes the President should just - really clean it up, know what I mean? Sometimes I go out and I smell it. I get headaches, it's so bad, you know. It's like - they just never go away, you know. It's like I think that the President should clean up this whole mess here. He should flush it down the fuckin' toilet."
No politics allowed here. LOL
Understood!
Remember that this kind of article is a matter of personal choice of one individual, and everyone's list can be different. Movies on the seed list that I've seen were:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I thought of it as a horror movie rather than as a sleazy one.
Taxi Driver, I didn't think of it as "sleazy".
Saturday Night Fever. I didn't think of it as sleazy either.
I THINK I saw The Last House on the Left but I can't remember it at all.
However, there ARE movies not necessarily made during the 70s that I've watched that I think are really sleazy.
9 1/2 Weeks
Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger star in the movie Fifty Shades of Gray wishes it could be. A wealthy business man named John Gray seduces a young gallery assistant, Elizabeth. Their relationship becomes more complex as she finds herself succumbing to his demands, slowly allowing him to cross an ever-moving line.
Wild Orchid
Mickey Rourke was undeniably the sleazy sex god of the '80s, and he stars in this film by erotica master Zalman King as a wealthy businessman who seduces an innocent young lawyer (Carré Otis) amid the exotic carnival of Rio.
Emmanuelle
Director Just Jaeckin's shocking film stirred up audiences on both sides of the Atlantic when it was released in 1974, becoming perhaps the first mainstream softcore film to hit theaters (with an X-rating attached in the States). Sylvia Kristel stars as the titular character, the bored wife of a diplomat who has a serious of trysts while her husband is away.
Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson's ensemble-driven film offers a comic—and at times dark—look at the heyday of the American porn industry in the late '70s and early '80s. Its infamous for its final scene (featuring Mark Wahlberg's prosthetic penis), but it also nails the sleazy style of the era.
Hustle and Flow
With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.
Just because I thought certain movies were sleazy, doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy watching them. LOL
I only saw one: Saturday Night Fever. I didn't think it was sleazy at all! (Naybe they thought it was sleazy because iIRC it wasn'y all joy and light.
But I loved it-- saw more than once!
In those days I was very into the whole Disco scene-- including going to various discos in NYC-- and also the gay discos on Fire Island-- which were fantastic!
In fact I hadn't even heard of most of the ones listed here (Well I heard of Taxi Driver but never saw it!)
Anyway I didn't have time for movies-- Iusually went out to discos6 nights a week!
From when I was a kid going to Saturday afternoon matinees to watch the Captain Midnight serials, the Movietone News (no TV back then but we could see that news, news of the war, etc), the preview of the next feature, and then the main feature. While in high school, university, law school, not much time for movies, but then later renting movies, going to movies, and now, 1 or 2 movies a day, and I have about 100 movie CDs (or are they DVDs, I can't remember).
I was never into the disco scene - never once was I at one.
Kentucky Fried Movie is raunchy and hilarious. Very entertaining.
And you don't have to be Colonel Sanders to watch it.
Thanks, Buzz. I now have a bunch of movies to watch to determine your definition of "sleazy".
The dictionary might be a better choice.
Well, you know the olde saying:
One man's meat is another mans poisson!
OTOH:
What's sauce for Goose is sauce for the Gander.
You just reminded me, I wanted fish for lunch today.
I've never been to Newfoundland.
Absolutely ludicrous opinion. The whole point of Saturday Night Fever is to show the challenges in the lower class Italian community who could feel elevated by hanging out at the disco. If it is sleazy then there are thousands of sleazy movies.
Ludicrous?
Strange as it may be, different people have different opinions!
Why?
Nobody knows!
The Shadow knows what sleeze lurks in the hearts of men.
You beat me to it! I was going to post a reference to The Shadow but decided not too as I've done that too often in the past...
P.S; I used to listen to that as a kid...on an old-fashioned radio!
So did I. That eerie laugh is still ringing in my ears.
I am not Italian, nor was I "lower class" and I never POOTV!
Au contraire mon petit chou!
I don't know if hangin' at the disco made me necessarily feel "elevated"-- but it made me feel very happy because for me it was a lot of fun!
For me. good Disco music made me feel like I could hardly remain seated-- just had to get up on the dance floor and...dance!
That's a bit obsolete-- its from the early days of the Internet.
First there were TLAs (three letter acronyms. most are no longer used, but one of the first ones is still used occasionally: "LOL".
Then there were MLAs: "Multi letter acronyms"-- and longer variations developped over time:
1. LOL (Laugh out loud).
2. LMAO (laughing my ass off)
3. FOTFL (Falling on the floor laughing)
4. FOTFLMAO (falling on the floor laughing my ass off)
They were origanlly meant so as not to have to type so much-- they were basically abbreviations. Then longer ones developped, often attempts at humor (but they then somewhat defeated their original purpose).
One that used to be common: INALB. ("I'm not a lawyer but"). Often people boasted a lot online, so by saying this it indicated that you're not claiming to be an expert, but here's what you're thinking-- just an opinion.
Then during the time there's was the popular TV show "LA Law", there originated a new variation:
INALBIPOOTV ("I'm not a lawyer but I play one on TV)
Now-a-days if you agree with something or like it you would often just "like it". Or you could say you agreed-- or you could use the thumbs up emojis.
In days past, you could also use this TLA: OIC.
It means "Oh I see".
(Reminds me of two other formerly popular MLAs: CUL8R or TTFN
"See you later", "Ta ta for now"
OK. but what does POOTV stand for? "piss on our TV"?
Got to tell you a story about LOL. I had not seen that used before and one day I received an email from a very pretty woman I had some business with, and it ended with LOL. I thought she was sending me a loving message. I thought it meant Lots Of Love. When I told her that she told the people she was working with and I can still hear the laughter.
IAALBIDPOOTV
OK CUL8R
LOL! ... funny story!
I'll bet there are a lot of opinions about all the listed movies, and I prefer yours to the author's.
Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
Fidelio
Eyes Wide Shut - great choice. I forgot about that one.
Fidelio? Beethoven's opera?
Yes, and the password to the orgy.
Maybe he enjoyed the orgy so much it inspired him to compose the 4th movement of his 9th symphony.