Secrets of Sex [Bizarre] ** (1970, Nicole Austin, Maria Frost) – Classic Movie Review 11,895

Experimental film-maker Antony Balch approached producer Richard Gordon in 1968 to direct a genre-defying anthology sex and horror film titled Multiplication, and then the script was rewritten to feature length running 85 minutes, the title changed and the budget doubled to £32,000, with Balch using his own money to fund half of it.

Filming of the deceptively titled Secrets of Sex took place over 14 weeks in 1969. Balch’s feature debut is a weird genre mash-up anthology film that blends slapstick comedy, spy spoof, bloody horror movie and softcore sex film under cover of humorously commenting on the battle of the sexes.

The film is narrated by an Egyptian mummy voiced by Valentine Dyall. Many of the actresses who appear nude, including Nicole Austin and Maria Frost, were topless models who were then getting minor acting roles in British sex and horror films.

Released in February 1970, it was a huge success in the UK, recouping its entire production cost running for six months at the Piccadilly Circus Jacey Cinema, which he ran along with The Times Cinema in Baker Street. He had success buying and releasing cheap foreign sex films, giving them catchy English titles (When Girls Undress) and campaigns (‘No photographs permitted of this controversial X film’).

The film showed liberal UK film censor John Trevelyan in a poor light, hacking more nine minutes for the British cinema release in 1970, and allegedly calling it ‘nasty stuff’. The Spanish horse/ female photographer sequence and orgy and lovemaking scenes were hacked, while shots of men in bed together in the Bedroom Beauties of 1929 sequence were cut entirely. But things change. The film was briefly released uncut in America as Bizarre by New Line Cinema. The 1980 UK video release on the Iver Film Services label, the 2005 American DVD Bizarre and the 2010 British DVD Secrets of Sex are uncut.

The film was released as Bizarre in a special edition DVD by Synapse Films in 2005. It was released as Secrets of Sex on DVD in the UK by Odeon Entertainment in January 2010.

Balch recalled in 1975: ‘This is a very uneven film, but three episodes and a single shot, are good. I liked the ones with the photographer, Elliot Stein, and the Lady in the Greenhouse. The episode of the monster baby is a bore, but the single shot of it, at the end, is brilliant.’

The film’s success prompted Balch and Gordon into a second film together called Horror Hospital (1973) but Balch never made another feature film.

Richard Gordon (31 December 1925 – 1 November 2011) can be heard on the DVD commentary tracks for eight of his films: The Haunted Strangler, Fiend Without a Face, First Man into Space, Corridors of Blood, Devil Doll, Secrets of Sex, Horror Hospital and The Cat and the Canary.

English film director and distributor Antony Balch (10 September 1937 – 6 April 1980) is best known for the 1973 horror film Horror Hospital. Balch started out by directing adverts for Camay soap and Kit-E-Kat. He was befriended by William Burroughs and Kenneth Anger.

Balch worked in an office in Golden Square, Soho, and lived in Dalmeney Court on Duke Street, where other occupants included Burroughs and artist Brion Gysin.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,895

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