The film Outlaw King, now showing on Netflix, has received a lot of press concerning the sight of actor Chris Pine’s penis. It still amazes me that the phallus still has the power to overshadow anything else about the movie. Actresses have been full-frontally naked since the camera was invented, but a brief glimpse of Mr. Pine’s cones are enough to have online bloggers apoplectic. There are websites obsessively devoted to male nude scenes- which probably should be retitled IDDB (Internet Dick Data Base), but what fascinates me more are the handful of movies where the entire plot (or a big chunk) revolves around a man’s genitalia.
The Statue (1971) David Niven plays Alex Bolt, a Nobel-prize-winning British professor who created a universal language called “Unispeak.” Virna Lisi plays his gorgeous, artist wife who has been commissioned to create a statue to stand in Grosvenor Square, but it is a giant nude approximation of her husband. The only difference is the phallus. Alex goes to great “lengths” to track down his wife’s muse for the appendage, which he nicknames “Charlie.” He tricks men out of their clothes on yachts, and gets thrown out of a Turkish bath for checking out male intimate parts in the sauna. An utterly laugh-free romp.
The Amazing Transplant (1970) Exploitation queen Doris Wishman’s (Nude On The Moon) typically bonkers film about a man who has a doctor graft his best friend’s penis on him and then suddenly finds himself raping women who are wearing gold earrings. Yes, folks, that’s the “hook” of the film that plays like a crackpot mystery of sorts with endless sexy flashbacks and enough skin and sex to titillate the raincoat crowd.
Percy (1971) Edwin (Hywel Bennett) loses his “manhood” in an accident (when a nude man falls out the window of a building onto him while he’s carrying a chandelier) and is the recipient of the first penis transplant by a noted surgeon (Denholm Elliott). Much like the movie The Statue, Edwin races around swinging London trying to find the identity of the donor. The staff at the hospital nickname the transplant “Percy.” Considering the subject matter, it’s exceptionally “short” on ribald humor. Elke Sommer and Britt Ekland make cameos in the film and the soundtrack is by Ray Davies and The Kinks.
Welcome Home Brother Charles (1976) An early Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary) film is about a drug dealer/pimp named Charles (Marlo Monte), arrested and near castrated by a racist cop. Charles undergoes some sort of mystical transformation in prison, and upon release he exacts revenge by strangling all the people who wronged him with his penis. You have to wait almost 1 hour and 20 min. but then you do get to see his demon dick snake across the floor and wrap around the neck of the creepy white district attorney in his bathrobe. “His penis has grown to frightening limits!” declares a doctor in this jaw dropper.
It’s Not The Size That Counts (1974) (aka Percy’s Progress). Another British sex comedy about a chemical released in the water system that causes all men to become impotent. It’s up to the infamous penis transplant man (now played by Leigh Lawson), who can still rise to the occasion, to help repopulate the earth. Officials even hold a “Miss Conception” beauty pageant. Supposedly the American version added scenes, including Luis De Jesus (the dwarf from Bloodsucking Freaks) who is caught in bed with a woman and exclaims, “It’s not the size that counts!” If that’s not scary enough, Vincent Price makes a guest appearance.
Get Crazy (1983) Frenetically incomprehensible film by Allan Arkush about plans for a wild 1983 New Year’s Eve concert that gets messed up by sabotage, out-of-control rockers, bomb threats, and plenty of other whacky hijinks. Malcolm McDowell plays the drug-blasted rocker Eddie Wanker, who goes to take a pee only to have his penis talk back to him (in a Cockney woman’s voice). Later he exposes his talkative tool to his bandmate and shouts, “Rock and roll is going to be fun again!” Lou Reed spends most of the film riding around in a cab but does show up to play “My Baby Sister” in an emptied theater during the final credits.
Entrails Of A Virgin (1986) A demented Japanese film about some sleazebag photographers and their models who get lost in the fog and stranded at an abandoned house in the mountains. The misogynistic males continue to take nude photos of the girls, while a mutant, mud-covered monster with a gigantic penis roams outside, killing one after another. There are scenes so appalling and wrong that I adore showing them to horrified guests- especially a sequence with a writhing, naked woman in a bathhouse pleasuring herself with a dismembered arm.
Bad Johnson (2014) Tiresome “dude” comedy about a womanizing cad (Cam Gigandet) who prays what’s between his legs would stop getting him into so much trouble. He gets his wish when his penis transforms into a whole other being (Nick Thune), causing his life to spiral crazily out of control. 88 raunchy, agonizingly unfunny minutes of junk about someone’s junk.
Bad Biology (2008) Frank Henenlotter’s (Basket Case) triumphant return to cult cinema with a wildly transgressive tale of two people with mutant genitalia who find love. Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) has orgasms that usually end in her partner’s death (and a mutant birth). Batz (a wonderful Anthony Sneed) has a penis with a mind of its own. Can these two lost souls find love? With a wild, riotous script by Henenlotter and R. A “The Rugged Man” Thorburn, not to mention outlandish special effects by Gabe Bartalos– it’s not every day when you see a penis detach itself from a man and run around getting into trouble. It just doesn’t get more twisted or better than this.
Boogie Nights (1997) In Paul Thomas Anderson’s visually dazzling film, Mark Wahlberg plays Eddie, a disco busboy with a humongous dick who’s drawn into the glittering tawdry world of 1970s porn by an X-rated director (Burt Reynolds in his best performance since Deliverance). There he finds a tawdry surrogate family of sorts, complete with maternal, coke-addled Amber (Julianne Moore), teen sexpot Rollergirl (Heather Graham), amateur magician Reed (John C. Reilly) and cowboy stud Buck (Don Cheadle). Transformed into “Dirk Diggler,” Eddie becomes an overnight superstar, making his life a mad whirl of money, coke, sports cars and platform shoes.
The Crying Game (1992) Neil Jordan’s crockpot, controversial film stars Stephen Rea as an Irish terrorist involved in the capture of a British soldier (Forest Whitaker) that goes violently awry. He escapes to London and looks up the soldier’s girlfriend (Jaye Davidson) with bizarre, startling results. I remember seeing an early screening of this where I had to sign this legal document promising I would not reveal the “surprise” in the movie. I’m not much for spoiling a movie, but for months I was terrified I would cry out “penis” in my sleep and have police break down my door and take me to movie critic prison.
Porno Holocaust (1981) What could I possibly say about this Italian/gore/sex film from Joe D’Amato (Athropophagous)? A group of people get shipwrecked on an island where a tall, bug-eyed native with a ludicrously giant penis roams the jungle looking for victims to either pulverize or penetrate. D’Amato, like other clever exploitation directors, cranked out several films at the same location to save money. It actually plays like an ordinary horror movie. Even George Eastman, who starred in several D’Amato films, shows up. But suddenly there are all these hardcore sex scenes that make you question your sanity. A new Blu-ray of this sleaze great is now available from Code Red.