Going Under

Directed by Eric Werthman 

Starring Roger Rees & Geno Lechner 

Release: 2004 

Length: 98 minutes

"Going Under" marked the feature directorial debut of Eric Werthman, a 65-year-old practicing psychotherapist. This is most interesting because the main character in “Going Under” is a psychotherapist. Its first public showing was in 2004 at the São Paulo Film Festival. It debuted theatrically in 2006 in New York City, and was released on DVD in 2007 through the independent company Blue Underground. 

The film reveals the influence of director/co-writer Werthman's profession because it adopts a highly clinical and thoughtful tone. However, I found myself wishing for much more eroticism. After all, this is a movie about a personal relationship between a Dominatrix and one of her clients. How can that be dull? Well, the writing in this movie might have been better suited for a platonic relationship between a shy Priest and a rigid Nun.  

The plot goes like this: Peter, a psychotherapist, and Suzanne, a professional Dominatrix who goes by the name Mistress Diana, have been meeting once a week for over two years, in the privacy of a dungeon room at a New York House of Domination.

During the opening credits, images are shown of frescoes from a villa in Pompeii called the Villa of the Mysteries. Of particular relevance to the film is a fresco depicting an Angel with a whip. From there we see Suzanne in a dungeon setting with her client, Peter. She encourages him to allow her to pierce his penis. He hesitates but submits. After the first needle, Suzanne asks him if she can do another one. He agrees and painfully endures as Suzanne confesses how much she enjoys piercing a man’s genitals.  

After they are done the session, Suzanne informs Peter that she is quitting at the end of the month, and gives in to Peter's request to see her on the outside. Their agreement causes Peter to be distracted at home with his wife, Pat (Kit Flanagan), and at his work as a psychotherapist. Pat confronts him and, although she already knows and accepts Peter's visits to see professional Mistresses, she is concerned to hear of Peter's attachment to Suzanne. 

Upon meeting Peter on the outside for the first time, Suzanne is unsure if she has made the right move in deciding to see him, but her curiosity overpowers her reluctance and they continue talking. Later, it becomes apparent that Suzanne is just as preoccupied by their relationship as Peter, when she is shown in bed with her girlfriend, Miko (Miho Nikaido), who notices Suzanne's distraction and confronts her about it. 

Through a series of flashbacks, we see how Peter and Suzanne met. Calling himself "Robert", Peter enters into the commercial House of Domination and fills out a questionnaire where he lists his D&S interests. Next, he looks through a book which contains the pictures of the various Mistresses that work at the Dungeon. Peter chooses Mistress Diana. Peter is next shown naked while he waits to meet his Mistress. Suzanne enters and the chemistry between them is immediately established. At the end of their initial session, they share their real names with each other.  

In the present time, Suzanne's relationship with Miko is faltering. Peter is struggling to write a psychiatric paper, remembering his childhood of coping with a severe learning disability and Attention Deficit Disorder. Peter and Suzanne continue exploring their S&M relationship in flashbacks, with Peter receiving clothespins on his skin and performing leg worship on Suzanne but being denied his request to orally pleasure her through her rebuke that it would be unethical. Peter also tells Suzanne that one of his hard limits is that he is squeamish when it comes to being pierced. The first scene in the movie tells us that she was able to expand his boundaries and that he trusted her enough to allow her to breakdown even his hard limits.

 

 

Outside the dungeon, Peter clings to her, but also tries to analyze her at the same time. Suzanne confides to Peter that the reason she retired from being a Dominatrix was because she was having trouble controlling her contempt and hatred toward some of her male clients. Suzanne admits that she found herself really wanting to hurt this one man in particular and it scared her.  

In a meeting at a diner, Suzanne tells Peter about a time in her teens when she tried to make friends with a boy named Tim in a new community by performing oral sex on him. Suzanne says she felt proud of herself until everyone at her new school found out about it. Peter suggests that if the memory did not still hurt, she would not have brought it up. She corrects Peter by reminding him that she already has a therapist and that she doesn’t need him analyzing her.  

Peter tells Suzanne about his struggles in school with a learning disability and how it still affects him. Suzanne again becomes uncomfortable with Peter's intimacy with her. After Suzanne puts off meeting with Peter on the outside again, he goes to an S&M club, where he watches various public scenes between Doms and subs.

He approaches a woman, Mistress Terry, whom he had watched flog a man. She orders him to buy her a bottle of water. She asks him if he wants to be dominated, which he agrees, so she binds him naked and proceeds to flog him while an audience gathers to watch. Peter is unable to get in the mood and stops her by using his safe word shortly after she begins flogging him. Mistress Terry seems interested in Peter, even asking him if he is married. Before he leaves the club, she informs him that she frequents the club most weekends, should he ever want to session with her again.

 

 

Meanwhile, Suzanne is contacted by her former employer, Juno (Phyllis Somerville), the woman who runs the House of Domination. Juno tells her that an old client is willing to pay her a healthy sum of money if she were to travel to Philadelphia to dominate him. At first she refuses the offer, but when her female roommate breaks up with her and moves out, her need for the money makes her reconsider the offer.  

She goes to Philadelphia for the one-time session with the old client, Walter. Here we see a scene that is a perfect example of a man who wants to be dominated, but tries to control the session. Suzanne shows up wearing a sexy black leather outfit but Walter immediately tells her that he doesn’t like black and that he is deeply disappointed that she is not wearing a red outfit. As the session begins, he corrects her about the tone of her voice. She is obviously not doing an adequate job of conforming to Walter’s fantasy and Suzanne becomes agitated. She finally grows tired of his complaining so she gags him and proceeds to whip him with fury and disdain.  

Afterward, Walter pays her for the session but not before he reminds her about what he didn’t like about the session. However, Walter hesitates and thanks her, perhaps revealing that he enjoyed being put him in his place. Once Walter is out of her sight, Suzanne breaks down and cries. 

When she returns to New York City, she gets news that her mother, Gretchen (Jenny Sterlin) has cancer. She calls Peter to drive her to her mother's house. Suzanne and her mother are shown to have a tense relationship, causing her to lean on Peter after the visit.

 

 

Peter drives Suzanne back to her apartment and they go inside. Peter marvels at Suzanne’s art, especially the plates from books that Peter has gifted her as inspiration.  
 

They begin passionately kissing for the first time. Suzanne says that she will never be comfortable with how they met, and although she seems to want more, she stops Peter before he penetrates her. She leaves the room only to return and begins to allow Peter to touch her sexually, however she stops him again and she collapses in his arms, sinking to the floor. Peter sits with her for a while and returns home.  
 

Days later, they meet again outdoors. Suzanne says she cannot allow herself to want Peter. He says he understands how she feels but does not want to lose her. Nonetheless, Suzanne ends the relationship. 
 

We see Peter and his wife Pat sitting lakeside, watching their college-aged daughter in the lake. Peter comments on how secretive their daughter has become about her life.  Pat reminds him that their daughter is just like him. Peter apologizes to Pat for the things he has done to hurt her through his relationship with Suzanne.  
 

Finally, a year has passed and Peter backslides yet again. He has seen an ad in a Femdom publication that Suzanne is once again working as a Dominatrix. In a voice-over telephone conversation, Suzanne explains to Peter that she is only working one day per week to make extra money. Peter asks if he can see her again. Suzanne says it will not be any different than it was a year ago and denies his request.  End of movie. 
 

Werthman gets kudos for making his characters multi-faceted and transparent at the same time. These are intelligent and complex characters. However, these are also very dull people, or so the dialogue makes them seem that way. Peter is a sad and depressed character. So is Suzanne, for that matter. There is no humor in this film. The characters rarely smile or laugh. The sex is non-existent. The S&M scenes in the dungeon are neither erotic nor interesting.  
 

Contrast Suzanne with Mistress Midori. Readers of “Predominant” may recall that I reviewed her movie, "Portrait of a Dominatrix" back in May 2005. In that issue of Predominant I wrote the following about Midori;
 

"I particularly enjoyed the way she spoke to her slaves. She bargains with them, reasons with them and gets them to agree to whatever whim pleases her. The smile that appears on her face as she whips her slaves is inspiring. She goes from playful and aloof to serious and demanding in a split second." 
 

In other words, Midori loves what she does. If you are a submissive male, I doubt if you would want to session with Suzanne. And if you are a dominant woman, I don’t think Peter would be your dream submissive. Peter is a needy person and perhaps Suzanne likes him because he is different than her other clients. Maybe she sees a future with him, a successful man who could give her a new life. But she knows he is married and there is no future with him. Therefore, we are left with two needy people trying to be friends, but neither can meet the other’s needs.  
 

Toward the end of the movie we see Suzanne driving in her car and we hear her voice-over talking about how she has this need to break a man down. We hear Peter talking about his need to be broken down. You would think two such people would be compatible and a perfect match. That was obviously the attraction and the chemistry they enjoyed in the Dungeon. Sadly, it could not translate to the outside world. And sadly, this film does not reveal the potential benefits of a loving Femdom relationship. Suzanne and Peter are running from what they really are and what they really need, instead of embracing it. Thus they are left sad and depressed.  
 

On the DVD extras, there is a short documentary about the annual Black and Blue Ball held in New York City. It runs about six minutes but it gives you a glimpse of what these kind of fetish events are like. If you’ve never been to an event like this, you will probably be shocked. Better you see it on a DVD prior to going in person. Just keep in mind that not everyone who attends these events are as flamboyant or over the top as what they show in this short feature. 
 

I bought my copy of this DVD on Amazon. This film does have some artistic merit but don't let the subject matter entice you. It's neither a sexy nor a romantic movie.
 

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Punishing hubby part 2: 50 strokes with my new cane collection

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, last night I told James to fetch one of the dining room chairs and place it in the center of the living room. Once the chair was in place, I told him I wanted him completely naked. He looked at me kind of funny as if he wasn’t sure if he should be aroused or worried. Once he was naked I ordered him to walk behind the chair, bend over the back and grab the seat. His ass was sticking straight out which made it an inviting and easy target. 

I was totally clothed, no leather, no lingerie, nothing sexual about the way I was dressed. I was in tee-shirt and lose fitting shorts. I fetched my new cane collection and James began to plead with me. I explained to him that the caning was just a further extension of his punishment for his unauthorized orgasm and it was not negotiable.  

I only used two canes, the thickest ones (the second and third canes from the bottom in the picture below)

 

I started out with thinnest of the two (the white cane with the basic brown handle) and dished out 20 moderate strokes, tapping his buttocks three times, drawing the cane back half way and flicking my wrist and forearm bringing the cane sharply across his ass. I rotated between left and right cheek, sometimes getting both.

James flinched in pain from the very first stroke, his ass still showing a few marks of the caning two weeks ago, although the marks were now faded and could only be seen in a bright light. After the 20 warm-up strokes, I took a rest on the couch. James begged me, promising he had learned his lesson, asking for mercy. I almost waivered as I hadn’t counted on him reacting that way from the warm-up strokes. There was no sexual buildup for him and the position I had him in bending over the chair made the caning extra painful. But I made my decision, I would stick to the 50, and the final 30 would be severe.

I grabbed the thickest cane (the white cane with the black handle). I tapped his buttocks three times and drew the cane all the way back and let go with a full swing. James really jumped. I ordered him to hold as still as possible else I would restrain him and add an additional 50 to his punishment. I lectured him that he needed to show more self-control and he needed to suck it up and endure his punishments like an obedient husband.

I continued with his caning, dishing out 29 more for a total of 50. For the final 10, I told James to shout out with each stroke, “I will never climax again without Kathleen’s permission.” The final 5 were extra hard. I’m not sure which one did it but one of his welts actually broke open and started to bleed.

I made him remain in that position for several minutes as I admired my handiwork. Then I soothed his wounds with aloe and anti-bacteria cream. I image some of those welts will not be going away for quite a few days, maybe weeks.

I have to admit that I got aroused from caning hubby’s bottom but I didn’t want there to be any sexual activity because I wanted it to be totally about punishment. However, last night I couldn’t help touching myself as I laid in bed, thinking about those welts and James’ contrite and remorseful attitude during and after his punishment. I was going to pleasure myself but I wanted him there with me. It was now around 2:00am and it had been a good six hours since his punishment.

I got up, went to James’s bedroom and woke him up. I told him to join me in my bedroom. He was about half out of it but I didn’t care. I ordered him under my sheets (it was chilly here last night) and between my legs. James snapped right to it and he licked me with much reverence and love. I could feel the love. He licked me until I had several orgasms. I allowed him to spend the rest of the night in my bed with me.

Punishing hubby: Strappado and ball spanking

I received more than usual feedback (mostly in private e-mails) about hubby’s unauthorized orgasm last weekend. The overall consensus was that he needed to be punished and I was too lenient on him. I can be lazy when it comes to punishing James, I admit that. I do allow him to get away with way too much and even when I do punish him I tend to let him off easy.

So last night I reconsidered. I decided to punish him for what happened last weekend. The first part of his punishment was a session of strappado inside the confinement room. For those not familiar with this, here are two pictures that illustrate this most intense punishment.

I placed James in high heel pumps and bound his arms behind his back with arm binders in the strappado position. I left him like that for twenty minutes as I monitored him over my laptop using our surveillance system. I was right outside the confinement room door the whole time but he didn’t know that. He was literally begging for mercy as his leg muscles tired and he experienced severe cramping. I teased him about him being such a whiner and I told him that the next time would be even longer if he ever has an unauthorized orgasm again.

I untied him but his punishment wasn’t over. A female reader of my blog wrote me last week and recommended ball spankings. She said they are especially effective if the male is wearing the CB brand of chastity device and has blue balls.

I took James upstairs and had him lie face up on my bed. He was still in his CB6000 and I did a mild tease and denial session, biting his nipples and fondling his balls with my hands. As they became full, I took my hands and began to spank his balls. Some might call it ball slapping but it was more like a spanking, the way I would give out a bare hand spanking to his buttocks, only not as hard.

The ball spanking had poor hubby in some serious discomfort. In fact, I had to stop long enough to restrain him on the bed by tying his hands and ankles to the bedposts. He was twisting his body way too much. Once I had him tied down, I resumed with the ball spanking. I kid you not, James had tears running down his cheeks by the time I was done. His balls were a deep shade of purple with some minor bruising.

I think I got my message across loud and clear. There will be no more unauthorized orgasms without serious consequences. He will be denied until Halloween.

And his punishment is still not over. As I write this I’ve decided to dish out 50 moderate to severe punishment blows with my new canes tonight.

 

 

This will be to reinforce how serious I am about this matter. Thanks to my readers for these wonderful suggestions. As always I welcome them.

Catch 22: D&S play vs. orgasm denial. Strap-on session causes unauthorized orgasm

I’ve got to make some changes to how I dominate James. Here’s the problem. I’m a dominant women married to a submissive man with lots of BDSM toys at my disposal. I have accumulated over the years an assortment of leather clothing, boots, gloves, corsets, etc. I have whips, crops, canes, paddles, restraints, gags, blindfolds, enema equipment, harnesses, dildos, etc.

All I usually have to do is open my toy chest and it doesn’t take long for me to get in the mood for a session. I mean we have all this stuff so it would be a waste not to take advantage of it. But on top of that, I have hubby in chastity with the goal of denying him for longer and longer periods. The two can be in conflict with each other.

Last night is a perfect example. James has been denied since July 6th and my goal was to keep him that way until September 8^th. I could tell he has been very aroused lately, and that’s a good thing as it keeps him focused on me and my needs. James gave me a wonderful full-body massage Thursday night and Friday evening I allowed him to bathe me and dress me before I went out on a night on the town with a girlfriend. James was straining inside his chastity device as his hands touched and fondled my body as he bathed and dressed me.

So last night I decided to have a session with him. I wore a pair of leather thigh-high boots and allowed James to perform boot worship. Then I gave him an over the lap spanking with my hairbrush and the wooden Spencer paddle.

James was leaking pre-cum from inside his CB6000 but he was also flinching and twisting in discomfort as his bottom had not yet fully recovered from the caning he endured last Saturday night. I took it rather easy on him but I paddled him hard enough so that he went totally limp.

Then I decided to take him with a strap-on. Big mistake! I should have known better but James rarely climaxes from strap-on play and he knows to inform me if he thinks he can’t hold back. I bent him over the massage table and made sure his caged cock was not rubbing against the table. I was feeling extra dominant by this time so after I did the latex glove warm-up and penetrated him with the dildo that was snuggly attached to my strap-on harness, I was a little animated and I was slamming him hard, fast and forceful.

I was just starting to really get into it when he warned me that he thought he might climax if I didn’t stop. I was having too much fun so I ordered him to hold back a little longer. Well, no dice. He climaxed which really pissed me off. I kept slamming him and I spanked his ass with my hands very hard at the same time to let him know my displeasure.

James was no good to me the rest of the night. Once he cums like that, he loses his passion. I ordered him to orally pleasure me but it was no good. He was going through the motions and I had lost my edge. He licked me for about five minutes and then I just pushed him away. As a punishment I locked him away in the confinement room for the rest of the night as I watched television all by myself.

He apologized today and begged for forgiveness. Of course I forgive him but I told him that I was going to have to rethink how we do some things. I might have to keep our weekly sessions to discipline and humiliation and eliminate the more intimate acts such as strap-on play. I suppose I could do strap-on in the early weeks of his denial but once he gets to the one month mark, I need to be more careful. Maybe allowing him to give me massages and bathe me is too much for him, yet if I take that away I am denying myself pleasure. Maybe it’s time for a better chastity device, something more permanent. Or maybe I need to break out the Kali’s teeth when he gives me massages and baths. I’m just thinking out loud here.

Joe Marzano's "Venus in Furs"

Directed by: Joseph Marzano 

Starring: Barbara Ellen,

Shep Wild,

Yolanda Signorelli,

Janet Banzet 

Released: 1967 

Language: English 

Length: 65 minutes

As I mentioned in a previous review, when it comes to movies with FemDom themes, “Venus is Furs” is a popular film title. I have no less than four movies by this name in my FemDom film collection. Yet surprisingly, the four movies have almost nothing in common.  

In 1967 sexploitation producer Lou Campa hired Joe Marzano to work on a bizarre little movie called “Cool it, Baby.” After making 16mm shorts throughout the 50’s, Marzano found work in the 1960’s as an editor for an outfit producing industrial films. One of these pictures, “To Face Life Again”, was an unusual documentary about disfigured accident victims readjusting to life. There he met Lew Waldeck, the editor of a series of low-budget soft-core films. Soon enough, Waldeck introduced Joe Marzano to the world of sexploitation.   

Declining cultural barriers were allowing more and more on-screen nudity. From the relatively high-profile Russ Meyer (“Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill!”) to the lesser-known film-makers such as Joe Sarno, each produced films based on their private fetishes and desires, normally backed by financiers who were willing to bankroll titles that often had little or nothing to do with the finished picture. Without script or concept, a producer would assemble a crew of inexpensive, hungry talent and tell them, “I want a sex film called ‘Cool It, Baby’ or ‘Venus in Furs’” and it was their job to make it happen.   

This was truly the golden age of American sexploitation, when a director could make a feature film for $10,000 and be allowed to follow his own private obsessions wherever they happened to take him, and perhaps end up with an odd little gem. Granted most of what was made was substandard and generally dismissed as trash but some of the sexploitation directors worked from true creative expression. Joe Marzano was such a man.   

Through Lew Waldeck, Marzano met Lou Campa, a director of numerous exploitation films. Waldeck was given $12,000 to make a picture, and was told whatever he didn’t spend would be his salary. Given that enticing stipulation, he made “Cool It, Baby” in 1967 for $7,000. Waldeck hired Marzano and Campa to help make the picture. It was filmed with a lone stationary camera on a tripod. The film ultimately had no real director, and screenwriter Lou Palisano delivered an unfinished script which was fleshed out by Marzano. Joe stayed on as an actor and directed some sequences, Waldeck directed others, and Campa directed the rest. None of them cared about who got credit seeing they were going to split $5,000 between them for a couple days work.   

When I ordered my copy of Marzano’s “Venus in Furs”, it was released on the ‘Something Weird’ label. The DVD contains 3 movies, including “Cool it, Baby”.

 

 

I fast forwarded through the film, "Cool it, Baby”, stopping here and there to get a feel for the movie, and I was surprised at how amateur it was. “Cool it, Baby” has some S&M themes but nothing that is in the least erotic or sexy. It has a cruel female lead but the film has more to do with forced female slavery, drug use, bizarre rituals, laughable whipping scenes, and a court trial filmed in someone’s office complete with office desk and filing cabinets. It is a terrible film but surprisingly it turned a profit. I guess there were enough men hungry for S&M themed movies in 1967 that even the lamest of films could turn a profit with the right kind of promotion.   

Not only did he help write and direct “Cool It, Baby”, Marzano brought most of the cast onboard himself. All of which impressed Campa, who had already secured $10,000 for his next project, a sexploitation film based on the Sacher-Masoch novel “Venus in Furs”. So Campa hired Marzano to direct it.   

Marzano’s “Venus in Furs” was a big artistic advance over “Cool It, Baby”. Able to control the lighting, Joe was free to experiment with the photography, and had two cameras at his disposal. With Lew Waldeck off shooting another picture, George Cirello stepped in as cinematographer, but Marzano did a lot of the photography himself. He brought back several of his friends from “Cool It, Baby” and completed the post-production work, editing and sound mix on his own.    

He had a five day shooting schedule so Joe got together with his friend Barbara Ellen (who played a blackmail victim in “Cool It, Baby”) to write the screenplay. It was Ellen who had the brilliant idea of incorporating the opening scene of the Sacher-Masoch novel into a fantasy sequence in the film. Marzano’s “Venus in Furs” combines sexploitation, creative and artistic film making, and quite a bit of surrealism. Some have made the observation that the film bears similarities to the movies that Marzano’s friend Paul Morrissey was making for Andy Warhol at the time. Perhaps that was his inspiration.   

Marzano’s “Venus in Furs” opens with a close-up of a woman’s leg as she slowly and seductively removes her stockings. She drops them on a naked man who is lying on the floor. Then we see another stocking landing on him, then another, and another as we hear a female voice who paraphrases the words of Venus in the Leopold von Sacher-Masoch novel “Venus in Furs”; 

“You are the one who desires, we are the ones who are desired. This is woman’s entire advantage.”  

Then we hear the voice of another woman, “Do you have this in higher heels?” 

More stockings land on the naked man as he seems to be drifting off into subspace. We hear again from the first woman as she continues to paraphrase Venus,  

“There’s something in you that makes me want to punish you, subdue you, DOMINATE YOU!”  

Then we hear the other woman and then a third woman, we hear all three women’s voices as they alternate sentences. “You shall be bound, bound with stockings, helpless, gagged, put underfoot, lashed, unloved, until you can love, then you can kiss my breast, my mouth, but first my toes. Kiss my toes! You shall be our slave, without illusion, but first you shall feel the pressure of my foot, without mercy.”  

We see three sets of female legs touching the man, teasing him, one pressing her foot against his face, as we hear a repeat of the women taunting him with their words.

“You are the one who desires, we are the ones who are desired. This is woman’s entire advantage. Do you have this in higher heels? There’s something in you that makes me want to punish you, subdue you, DOMINATE YOU! You shall be bound, bound with stockings, helpless, gagged, put underfoot, lashed, unloved, until you can love, then you can kiss my breast, my mouth, but first my toes. Kiss my toes! You shall be our slave, without illusion, but first you shall feel the pressure of my foot, without mercy, WITHOUT MERCY!” 

And with that the film’s title “Venus in Furs” fills the screen, along with “A film by Joe Marzano, suggested by a novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.” It was wise that they used the term “suggested” instead of “based on” because after the upcoming scene and its accompanying dialogue, the only connection between the book and the film is the title.  

Following the opening credits, we see a woman adorned in a fur coat sitting on a couch next to a fireplace, with a man (the same man we saw in the opening) on his knees before her, kissing and worshipping her feet and her legs.

 

 

Following Barbara Ellen’s idea, their dialogue is right out of chapter one of the Sacher-Masoch novel (paraphrased a little to give it a more modern meaning).  

It is the dialogue between the book’s author and the Goddess Venus (played by Ellen). Marzano’s first choice to play Venus was the young Warhol actress Mary Woronov, who appeared in “Chelsea Girls” a year earlier. Although she’d expressed interest in doing it, Marzano decided against hiring Mary because the Warhol crew had a reputation for being unreliable. Therefore he cast Barbara Ellen for both the roles of Venus and the female lead character, Marna.  

Getting back to the Venus scene, the fur clad Goddess and her submissive admirer discuss love and the female nature. An example of the rather lengthy dialogue goes like this,  

"You are a divinity, but nonetheless a woman and, like every woman, cruel in matters of love." 

"What you call cruelty, is simply the element of passion and sensuality which is part of woman's nature, and which makes her give herself whenever she loves, and love everything that pleases her." 

If you have a foot fetish or if you’re a fan of watching a man grovel and worship a woman’s feet and legs, you will no doubt enjoy both this scene and the overall movie, as there are numerous foot worship, leg worship and trampling scenes in the film.

 

 

In my opinion a better title for the movie might have been “Fetishes” as the film portrays a variety of unusual sexual kinks. (Campa wanted to name the film “Cherished Women”). 

I must say that I really liked both of the opening scenes in this movie. Very well done for a 1960’s sexploitation film. They are of course the fantasies of a submissive male, David, and we meet him as he wakes up from his dreams, with the book “Venus in Furs” lying on his chest. David has the perfect job for a submissive man with a foot fetish, he is a shoe salesman. 

David takes the subway to work, all the while he fantasizes about worshipping and kissing the shoes of the women he sees on the train. He arrives at the shoe store and he obviously loves his job as he gets to serve women by kneeing before them and helping them try on various shoes.

 

 

 

We now know part of the meaning of his fantasy in the opening scene with the one woman’s voice taunting him “Do you have this in higher heels?”. 
 

After he gets off work, David goes to the New York Public Library. Before he enters, five young women run past him. (Marzano had a Fellini-esque vision of dozens of girls running toward the camera. Campa agreed and lined up the talent, but on the day of the shoot he arrived with just three women. After making a few phone calls, Marzano rounded up two more for a total of five.) 
 

Once inside the library, David is browsing books when he happens across a beautiful and mysterious woman, Marna (wearing a fur stole).  
 

He gives her a drive home to a secluded house in the country. She flirts with him but doesn’t permit him to kiss her. She invites him inside her sprawling Gothic mansion but tells him he will have to wait to kiss her. She offers for him to spend the night in a spare room. By this time the movie has taken on a distinctly dream-like quality. David wanders the hallways, hearing people behind all the closed doors. He goes door to door, peeking inside where he observes people engaging in a smorgasbord of fetishes and unusual sexual practices.  
 

In one room there is a muscular man, clothed only in his underwear, he is blindfolded and needs the use of a cane to stand. He has a tin cup in his other hand and several women, one by one, come into the room, drop a coin into the cup and then fondle his body. Perhaps this was a 1967 version of a CFNM fetish. 
 

In another room, David witnesses a woman tied to the bed and two other women are spanking her with their shoes. In another room there is a man removing the boots off of a woman’s feet. He then licks and kisses her feet before lying on the floor where she tramples him. In yet another room we see a masked woman giving a naked woman a milk bath. She pours milk all over her body, scrubs her body and after the bath, she pours milk into a saucer and forces the naked woman to drink it like a cat.
 

 

While this is going, David finds a book of photographs which obviously disturb him, although we don’t know what the book contains. 
 

The next day David meets up with Marna and he witnesses first hand her dominant nature. She is playing ping pong with a gentleman wearing glasses and whenever she scores a point, she makes the man kneel before her and she hits him on the head with her paddle. She also forces the ping pong ball into his mouth. Later in the match, she strikes him across the face with her paddle.
 

Next, Marna plays a game of chess with David. During the game a blonde woman sits down at the table to watch the chess match. Marna takes David’s Queen and drops it on the floor. She orders David to “pick it up”. He hesitates so she forcefully reiterates, “I said PICK IT UP!”
 

David bends down to fetch the piece when Marna kicks it under the table. David crawls under the table and Marna tramples him with her shoes, stepping on his hands with her heels. As she is doing this Marna begins to kiss the blonde woman as they are both obviously turned on by Marna’s dominance and David’s humiliation. 

Other bizarre things occur at the house such as the reading of children’s stories, and finally the climactic orgy scene. The orgy scene is more fetish-driven than sex driven. It’s more like a fever dream. There are people dancing while a woman rides an exercise bike in the middle of the room.

There’s a man in drag dancing with a woman. We see ‘objectification’ taking place as a woman is lying on the floor being used as a card table while another woman obsessively deals cards onto her body. 

There are couples making out and writhing on the floor, all fully clothed. This was common enough in 1960s sexploitation movies and usually looks silly, but in this case it adds to the overall fantasy quality and surrealism of the film. It’s as if the people are driven by something more powerful than sex.  

For his part in the orgy, David is totally focused on watching Marna. He makes his move and he begins to undress her (although she never becomes completely naked). He begins to kiss her but she pushes him away and orders him to kiss her toes. David removes her shoes and he worships her feet (yet another foot worship scene).

 

He works his way up her body, hoping to finally kiss her on the mouth but just before he does, the blonde woman from the chess match appears and kisses Marna instead. Marna kisses the woman back as she pushes David away with her hand. Once again David is humiliated and frustrated. 

The next day, David is about to leave when Marna once again flirts with him. She tells him that she’s sorry they were interrupted at the orgy because she is attracted to him and she was hoping he would make love to her. David again falls for her seduction so they leave together and go horseback riding in the country. David loses sight of Marna and comes across her making out with the blonde woman up against a tree. David is furious and accuses her of deceiving him. Marna grabs a riding crop and attacks David.

 

 

David fights back and wrestles Marna on the ground. The blonde woman tries to help Marna fight David off (although it looks like all she really wants to do is crawl around in the mud). David gains the upper hand and subdues Marna. He begins to kiss her and acts as if he is going to have sex her, right there in the woods, with the other woman watching.  

But then we see David tied to the tree, tied with women’s stockings. The women are lying on the ground looking at him, and the people from the house are standing at a distance taking in David’s humiliation. 

As he is tied to the tree with a look of subspace on his face, we hear the women from the beginning of the film and realize the first woman’s voice is that of Marna. She recites the same words from the beginning of the film, 

“You are the one who desires, we are the ones who are desired. This is woman’s entire advantage. There’s something in you that makes me want to punish you, subdue you, DOMINATE YOU! You shall be bound, bound with stockings, helpless, gagged, put underfoot, lashed, unloved, until you can love, then you can kiss my breast, my mouth, but first my toes. You shall be our slave, without illusion, but first you shall feel the pressure of my foot, without mercy, WITHOUT MERCY!” 

Suddenly we see David sitting outside the New York public library. It is apparent the entire episode was just another one of his fantasies. He gets up and wanders around the streets when he sees a car pull up. He looks inside the car and there is a woman wearing a fur stole and a fur hat. She raises her head and looks at David. The woman is Marna. Perhaps his ordeal wasn’t a fantasy after all.

 

 

I definitely enjoyed both Jess Franco’s and Massimo Dallamano’s “Venus in Furs” better than this one. However, to be fair, it really is apples and oranges. When you review a low-budget Lou Campa sexploitation film you go into it with very low expectations. This version of “Venus in Furs” was undoubtedly not at all the sort of movie Campa had in mind when he commissioned Marzano to direct it. It is in fact a somewhat artsy film, admittedly an artsy film about fetishes, kink and sex, but it’s an artsy film nonetheless. This film is a strange but oddly engrossing mix of Sacher-Masoch, Fetishism, FemDom and surrealism. As you probably know by now, I like surrealism in movies.   

There’s a peculiar quality to the eroticism in this film, a kind of thwarted sterile quality. The plot is sketchy, but that seems more of a strength than a weakness, contributing to the feeling of events moving endlessly like recycled dream images. And I thought that Barbara Ellen, who co-wrote the script, played Marna in a delightfully dominant way. There’s very little nudity and no graphic sex, but the movie still manages to be very kinky and definitely expands the boundaries of societal sexual norms. That’s true whether you watched in 1967 or 2012. The film is in constant danger of taking itself too seriously, but Marzano comes up with enough striking and disquieting images to justify its pretensions to being a genuine art film. 

It’s not a great movie by any stretch but it’s well done given its pittance of a budget. Despite its shortcomings, this “Venus in Furs” is a fascinating example of an artist at odds with the sexploitation genre. Marzano wanted to make a real movie and he was obviously connected to the source material, Sacher-Masoch’s kinks and fetishes. Some have said that Joe Marzano was a conceptual and physical fusion of Orson Welles and Hugo Haas. Given the opportunity and freedom, Joe Marzano might have easily been a respected, major American filmmaker. 

Campa made a few more sexploitation films before his descent into mob-financed hardcore. Joe Marzano, on the other hand, never directed in 35mm again. He photographed Lloyd Michael Williams’s experimental “Line of Apogee” (1968), and worked as an assistant director on Jack Glenn’s unreleased “House of the Seven Gables”. He even went back to Campa and sold him a script called “The Leather Girls”, about an all-girl biker gang that may have been sparked by Russ Meyer’s “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” Campa never shot it, but Joe made an abbreviated version in the late 70’s in super-8mm.  

He continued in super-8 into the 80’s but even super-8 became unaffordable, and Joe Marzano went on to make a proliferation of short films on videotape up until his untimely death in the summer of 2000. Many of his fans considered “Venus in Furs” to be his finest work.

 

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars