B.o.Y. – The Women of BVD, Part XXII: Marcia McBroom (1964-84)

"Using unknowns you avoid highly exaggerated salaries and prima donnas."

Russ Meyer

 

To repeat ourselves: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Russ Meyer's baroque 1967 masterpiece, one of only two movies he ever made for a major Hollywood studio (in this case, Fox), is without a doubt one of the Babest movies ever made. While we have yet to review it here at a wasted life (if we did, we would foam at the mouth in raging rave), we have looked at it before: back in 2011, in our R.I.P. Career Review of Charles Napier (12 Apr 1936 – 5 Oct 2011), and again in 2013 in our R.I.P. Career Review for the Great Haji (24 Jan 1946 – 10 Aug 2013) — both appear in the film — not to mention in almost every Babe of Yesteryear blog entry the past 1.5+ years.

 

"This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!"

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In Haji's entry, we wrote, among other things, more or less the following: "Originally intended as a sequel to the 1967 movie version of Jacqueline Susann's novel Valley of the Dolls (trailer), Meyer and co-screenwriter Roger Ebert instead made a Pop Art exploitation satire of the conventions of the contemporary Hollywood melodrama, written in sarcasm but played straight, complete with a 'moralistic' ending that owes its inspiration to the Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate and her guests on 9 August 1969. Aside from the movie's absolutely inane plot, the cinematography and entire mise en scene are also noteworthy — as are the figures of the pneumatic babes that populate the entire movie. For legal reasons, the film starts with the following disclaimer: 'The film you are about to see in not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls. It is wholly original and bears no relationship to real persons, living or dead. It does, like Valley of the Dolls, deal with the oft-times nightmare world of show business but in a different time and context.' [...]

 

"Any movie that Jacqueline Susann thinks would damage her reputation as a writer cannot be all bad."
Vincent Canby

Russ Meyer films are always populated by amazing breasts sights, but Beyond the Valley of the Dolls literally overflows its bra cups with an excess of pulchritude that (even if usually somewhat more demurely covered than in most of his films) lights the fires of any person attracted to women of the curvaceous kind that preceded today's sculptured plasticity. The movie is simply Babe Galore.
And so we continue our look at the flesh film careers of the breasts women of the Babest Film of All Times, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The amplitude of the women's breasts roles is of lesser importance than the simple fact that they are known to be naked in it somewhere, and so far we have looked at the cleavage known unknowns and mildly knowns in the background and the headlining semi-knowns in the front for too many monthly blog entries — but the rear end is nigh. Our blog entries focus on the women's nipples careers in film, if in a meandering manner, and with this entry we have but one more body to go before we're finished drooling with the project.*

* One set of love pillows Babe we don't look is she who is an American National Treasure: the Great Pam Grier. (Above with Cissi Colpitts, on the set of the movie.) Though she had her film debut in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls unseen somewhere in the background of the opening party scene (imdb credits her as "Fourth Woman") and therefore should be included, we feel that a Wonderment of her caliber deserves an entry all of her own — a Sisyphean task we might one day undertake. Marcia McBroom has said in the past that she and Grier were roommates at the time, and that both auditioned for the role of Petronella Danforth. [Dreams Are What le Cinema is For...] Grier, obviously enough, lost out on the part — but, for that, she has had the career in the biz.

So far, we have looked at the T&A careers of the following women of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:
Part I: The Non-babe of Note — Princess Livingston
Part II: Background Babe — Jacqulin Cole
Part III: Background Babe — Bebe Louie
Part IV: Background Babe — Trina Parks
Part V: Background Babe — Lavelle Roby, Pt. I (1968-76)
Part VI: Background Babe — Lavelle Roby. Pt. II (1979-2021)
Part VII: Killer Babe — Samantha Scott
Part VIII: Background Babe — Karen Smith
Part IX: Background Babes — The Five Mysterians
Part X: Background Babe — Gina Dair
Part XI: Background Babe — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. I (1970-80)
Part XII: Background Babe — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. II (1981-88)
Part XIII: BVD — Phyllis Davis, Pt. I (1966-73)
Part XIV: BVD — Phyllis Davis, Pt. II (1975-2013)
Part XV: Background Babe of BVD — Veronica Ericson
Part XVI: BVD — Edy Williams, Pt. I (1963-67)
Part XVII: BVD — Edy Williams, Pt. II (1968-82)
Part XVIII: BVD — Edy Williams, Pt. III (1983-90)
Part XIX: BVD — Erica Gavin, Pt. I (1965-71)
Part XX: BVD — Erica Gavin, Pt. II (1973-2020)
Part XXI: BVD — Dolly Read (1963-92)

Going by the credits on the original poster of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the three main characters of the movie — despite a cast and structure that is reminiscent of an ensemble movie — are the female members of the music band around which the entire movie revolves, The Carrie Nations. For all three women, it was their first (and last) lead role.

John Waters discusses the music of

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:

Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), the lead singer, we looked at two months ago; soon, we will look at Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers), the lead guitarist. But now, let's look at the band's drummer, Petronella Danforth, played by the beautiful Marcia McBroom, the only woman of the three that did not do a centerfold for Playboy.

One could possibly argue that of the three Carrie Nations, Marcia McBroom (now Marcia McBroom-Small) has had the most diverse and effectual life; unlike both Dolly Read and Cynthia Myer, it seems as if she never gave up her dreams and goals for a man and continually reinvented herself as she strode forwards. (Currently she is married to the jazz pianist Louis Small, whom we assume is her second husband as prior to becoming McBroom-Small she went by McBroom-Landess.) Born 6 August 1947 in NYC, Marcia is the firstborn of two daughters of the civil rights leader Dr. Marcus McBroom (1921-2000) and his first wife of an eventual three, Montserrat-born Marie Lee, a pianist who later became an unlucky business woman. (If our sources are right, five sisters and two bros — half or full being immaterial — exist in total.)

A graduate of Walton High School (Bronx), she and her sister Dana McBroom — the latter co-wrote icon Grace Jones' hit, Pull Up to the Bumper — were dancers in Katherine Dunham's (22 Jun 1909 – 21 May 2006) dance company, which led to a five-season stint at the Metropolitan Opera House. Prior and after to her big-screen acting debut in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Marcia maintained an active and successful career as a print model, and became well known in English-speaking African countries in the 70s as "Susie Martens", the face of LUX soap.

Her film career, while better than that of the other Carrie Nations, was spotty at best and over by the end of the 70s. Somewhere along the way she got a B.A. in anthropology at NYC's Hunter College, followed by an M.A. at NYU. As explained on her bio page of the 9th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival (2007), whence most of the info here was gleaned, after her film career wound down Marcia "turned her attention to education and activism directed at improving the lives of people she has seen suffering needlessly around the world". The recipient of countless awards and honors ("the James Madison Memorial Fellowship, a UNICEF Award, Teacher of the Year in 1995, Who's Who of American Teachers, Warrior Womyn's Award to name a few"), Marcia McBroom-Small describes herself as a "retired history teacher/actress/founder of For Our Children's Sake, Inc." on her current Linked In page. She resides in New Jersey.

The Carrie Nations —

Come With the Gentle People:

Rendezvous in Space

(1964, dir. Frank Capra)

The great Frank Capra (18 May 1897 – 3 Sept 1991) began his illustrious film career writing comedy shorts before making his first film, the short documentary La visita dell'incrociatore italiano Libia a San Francisco, Calif., 6-29 Novembre 1921 (1921 / full short).* Years later, after a long and highly successful directorial career that includes numerous classics, he ended his film career with this short film here. Produced by the Martin-Marietta Corporation (which, in 1995, merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin), this short was made for the exhibition at the Hall of Science at the New York World's Fair and, allegedly, the 17-year-old Marcia McBroom appears somewhere in the crowd scenes as a pedestrian. (We all start somewhere.)

* It should perhaps be noted that Capra himself preferred to claim the short dramedy The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House, a.k.a. Fultah Fisher's Boarding House (1922 / full short), a pre-code narrative short, as his first directorial project: "Based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the film is about a prostitute living at a boarding house who provokes a fight that leads to the death of a sailor. [Wikipedia]"

Rendezvous in Space —

the full film:

"[...] This curious documentary, looking rather like a collage of hard-boiled rocket launches, short mini-cartoons for children and a B&W newsreel of interviews with members of the public, is notable for being the last film made by former Hollywood director Frank Capra, famous for films like the perennial Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life (1946 / trailer) and Mr Smith Goes To Washington (1939 / trailer). By the early 1950s, Capra had become disillusioned with Hollywood culture and values, veering away from championing the common man, democracy and individualism, and becoming obsessed with (as he saw it) cynical, self-indulgent ideas such as hedonism, pursuing pleasure at the expense of morality and shocking the audience for the sake of shock; along with changes in the film industry and in the public mood following World War II which did not favour Capra's own preferences for supporting the poor and the disadvantaged, Capra left Hollywood and began making science-based education documentaries, of which Rendezvous in Space was the last. [...] While the film's visual style and audio soundtrack might seem very outdated to contemporary audiences, and not a little jarring — Mel Blanc voicing various animated characters may remind modern audiences of old Looney Tunes cartoons — the documentary makes some surprisingly accurate predictions about what space exploration might be like: the sequence of humans working on a nuclear-powered research laboratory foretells the International Space Station. The space taxi is a forerunner of the space shuttle. [Narrator Danny] Thomas's final words might seem rather preposterously arrogant but they reflect Capra's belief in the inherent goodness of humanity and his faith in US scientific and technological advancement at the time that such progress will ultimately benefit all humans and put an end to poverty and injustice. [Under Southern Eyes]"

"There's really no plot to this documentary about space travel; in fact, I'm not sure whether it really has much in the way of a real focus. After an opening in which we see captioned footage of the Earth as seen from a capsule in outer space, we are treated to faked 'man on the street' interviews (many of those interviewed are well-known character actors such as Sid Melton ([22 May 1917 – 3 Nov 2011]) of Sam Newfield's The Lost Continent [1951 / trailer], The Beat Generation [1959 / Vampira does poetry] and so much more) and Charles Lane [26 Jan 1905 – 9 Jul 2007] of too many films to choose from), various animated bits about various aspects of space exploration, and a few predictions of developments that would occur in the near future of space exploration. [...] If anything is holding it together, it's the sense of wonder and adventure that pervaded the space race at the time. It makes for an entertaining watch, but the scattershot feel of the short prevents it from having any real focused impact. [Fantastic Musings & Ramblings]"

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

(1970, dir. Russ Meyer)

"Marcia McBroom's film resume is sparse [... but] she'll likely never be forgotten [...] because she portrayed Petronella Danforth, one third of the beautiful girl group The Kelly Affair, later called The Carrie Nations, in the eternal camp classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. When we first saw the movie in college it helped make the distinction between bad and 'bad' crystal clear. Today it remains a Friday night dorm room favorite and an indispensable gateway into the realm of bad-as-in-hilarious cinema. [Pulp International]"

Trailer to

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:

The plot, as found at AFI: "Tired of playing to high school audiences, Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Myers), and Pet (Marcia McBroom), members of a rock trio, travel to Hollywood, California, accompanied by Harris Allsworth (David Gurian), the band's manager and Kelly's lover. There, they are befriended by Kelly's Aunt Susan (Phyllis Davis), an advertising executive, who, despite the misgivings of her lawyer, Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod), decides to share with Kelly the family fortune. At an orgy the band is discovered by the effeminate entrepreneur host, Ronnie 'Z-Man' Barzell (John La Zar), who rechristens them 'The Carrie Nations.' Among lovers quickly acquired at Ronnie's party are Lance (Michael Blodgett), a boorish gigolo, who enters into a liaison with Kelly; Emerson (Harrison Page), a law student who wins Pet's love; and Roxanne (Erica Gavin), a lesbian designer who captures Casey's heart. As the celebrated trio perform on national television, Harris, distraught by Kelly's infidelity and Casey's impregnation by him, hurls himself from the catwalk. He is rushed to the hospital, where Dr. Scholl (Dan White) informs Kelly that Harris can look forward to life as a paraplegic. Realizing that Harris is her true love, Kelly devotes herself to his care. Touched by Casey's plight, Roxanne arranges an abortion. Ronnie invites Lance, Roxanne, and Casey to a private party, at which costumes are distributed. Dressed as Superwoman, Ronnie attempts to seduce Lance, who is attired in a loin cloth. Rejected, Ronnie binds the gigolo. After revealing that he is, in fact, a woman, Ronnie bears her breasts, brandishes a sword, and chops off Lance's head. She then plunges a gun into the sleeping Roxanne's mouth and fires. Terrified, Casey phones her friends, who rush to her rescue but arrive too late. As Emerson and Kelly attempt to subdue Ronnie, the gun discharges, killing the transvestite. During the fray, however, the crippled Harris is miraculously cured. In a triple wedding ceremony, Kelly and Harris, Pet and Emerson, and Aunt Susan and an old love are united."

The soap opera elements specific to Petronella Danforth's narrative strand in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls are rather mundane in comparison to the narratives of her bandmates: she is torn between nice but MOR Emerson (Harrison Page) and the BBC muscular stud boxer Randy Black (James Iglehart). ("Randy's body: A cage for an animal. It lifted him to the top of his field, but in the end, the beast almost killed him.")

The eternally woke Trans Male Resources, which thinks Beyond the Valley of the Dolls to be "a bloody awful movie" and "badly written, badly acted, and badly directed" points out the following about stud-muffin Iglehart's character: "Randy's whole role in the film is to be overcome by sexual and violent urges, embodying the racist stereotype of an uncontrollable, sexually aggressive Black man. He is defined exclusively by his body and by his hostility, and a woman has to arm herself with a weapon to force him to leave her home. The fact that he is a felon and compared to an animal is the cherry on top of the shit cake. This is just one example of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls demonising minorities in lieu of doing anything worthwhile, and perpetuating old stereotypes which come from horrific histories. Its characterisation isn't clever or subversive. It's just lazy."

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls clip —

BBC at the wheel:

That said, James Iglehart's movie filmography is shorter than that of Marcia McBroom but the roles are larger and the movies wonderfully grindhouse. It consists of Joe Viola's Angels Hard as They Come (1971 / TV spot); Cirio H. Santiago's Savage! (1973 / trailer), his first lead role and featuring Carol Speed; Cesar Gallardo's Black Kung Fu (1973) and its second version, Bamboo Gods and Iron Men (1974 / trailer), image below; and, lastly, Cirio H. Santiago's Fighting Mad a.k.a. Death Force (1978 / trailer). Iglehart allegedly was/is a former professional baseball player, possibly for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but according to Johnny LaRue, "a glance at the Baseball Encyclopedia confirms that nobody named 'Iglehart', 'Inglehart' or 'Igleheart' has ever played a single inning in the major leagues."

Unlike the actor playing BBC Randy, James Iglehart, the actor playing MOR Emerson, Harrison Page, went on to a long and busy acting career, if mostly on TV. One of his rare movie roles is found in the anti-classic produced by Roger Corman, Carnosaur (1993).

 

The Legend of Nigger Charley

(1972, dir. Martin Goldman)

It took another two years before Marcia McBroom was seen in another movie, in a part substantially smaller than in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Here, in this Blaxploitation western, she shows up early to play Leda, the love interest of Charley while they are both slaves (that's her directly below). She really isn't around all that long... indeed, of the two "important" women of the film, the "main" one is probably the half-white, half-Native American Sarah Lyons (played by a brown-faced Tricia O'Neil, of Piranha II: The Spawning [1982 / trailer]), whom Charley gets manly with later on in the movie and whose image is found on some of the posters. Not one of the write-ups about the movie that we read ever even mention Marcia McBroom by name...

Needless to say, the once PG-rated movie sports a title that no longer cuts the mustard for the general public today, if it even did when made and perhaps still does for the MAGA crowd, who probably wouldn't like it if they watched it. When released, many newspapers advertised the movie as The Legend of Black Charley, the title used when it was later aired on TV. Though not exactly praised critically when released, the movie was a commercial success; it was often screened as part of a double feature with the interesting — let's just say "great" — Raquel Welch western, Hannie Caulder (1971 / trailer).

Trailer to LNC:

The movie is the feature film directorial debut of Martin Goldman (7 Mar 1910 – 17 Dec 1987), who went on to do the obscure exercise in moody PG horror Dark August (1976 / opening scene) before, allegedly, turning his back to commercial filmmaking. Goldman's experience with Legend may have helped him decide to leave commercial filmmaking: he and producer Larry G. Spangler clashed often, with Spangler re-editing the final product and Goldman distancing himself from the final film. Spangler went on to produce and direct the movie's sequel, The Soul of Nigger Charlie [1973 / trailer]... not to mention the later — and easily found online — X-rated flick, The Life and Times of the Happy Hooker a.k.a. The Life and Times of the Xaviera Hollander [1974 / intro & theme]. Charley was also the scriptwriting debut of the novelist James Bellah (22 May 1931 – 29 Dec 2015), who never seems to have written another movie, but may have appeared as a gunman in the generic western The Man behind the Gun (1953 / trailer). He should not be mistaken for his father, the scriptwriter and pulp-fiction author James Warner Bellah (14 Sept 1899 – 22 Sept 1976), who may have appeared as a gunman in the generic western The Man behind the Gun (1953 / trailer).

Fred Williamson on making the movie:

The plot, as found at Reeling Back: "Indentured farm worker (Fred Williamson of Soft Target [2006], below not from the film), cruelly humiliated and physically abused by his foreman (John P. Ryan [30 Jul 1936 – 20 Mar 2007]), beats his tormentor to death and flees west. Pursued by a professional bounty hunter (Keith Prentice [21 Feb 1940 – 27 Sept 1992] of Boys in the Band [1970 / trailer]), he finally makes a stand and bests the bounty hunter in a gunfight. His aid is enlisted by a local rancher (Douglas Rowe [1938 – 13 May 2023]) who is being terrorized by a fanatical preacher (Joe Santos [9 Jun 1931 – 18 Mar 2016] of the Joseph W. Sarno films My Body Hungers [1967 / trailer], Moonlighting Wives [1966 / trailer, with June Roberts*], Flesh and Lace [1965, with June Roberts*] and Warm Nights and Hot Pleasures [1964 / scene]) and, against the advice of his partners, makes common cause with the rancher. More battles ensue."

* "Whatever happened to June Roberts?"

Charley escapes:

Roger Ebert gave the film a thumbs up, mentioning that once "you [have] seen one piece of white trash blown out of the saddle for calling the hero 'boy,' you seen them all" and saying: "The Legend of Nigger Charley is an amiable black Western with sufficient episodes of violence to give it the appearance of heading somewhere. Actually, though, it mostly just drifts, and gets incredible mileage out of some nice guitar and banjo work on the sound track while the heroes ride everlastingly into the sagebrush. When things get especially slow, they throw in a shoot-out with Whitey, which cheers everybody up."

Aside from the "nice guitar and banjo work", the film also has two songs by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Lloyd Price (9 Mar 1933 – 3 May 2021), whom most whiteys might remember for his 1959 hit version of the folk song Stagger Lee and his original hit Personality (also 1959). As the Department of Afro-American Research Arts and Culture points out about his song for the movie: "Here's one that most blaxploitation collectors aren't aware of — the original theme tune to the original Nigger Charley movie. Never released on LP, [...] it's a good one — plenty of wah, a good chant (although dubious non-PC lyric) and even a good break with strong big band funky horns. Well worth a dig."

That said, the career of any white DJ playing this one at some hipster radio show featuring obscure soul music is surely doomed...

Title track, sung by Lloyd Price:

Johnny LaRue managed to see a DVD version of the hard-to-find film way back in 2008 and said: "It's hard to criticize Nigger Charley on a technical level, because the (obvious bootleg) print included on the Blax DVD is horrid. Ghosting, color dropouts, smears, audio static, and tracking errors abound on the full-frame image, which was clearly swiped from a television station's 3/4-inch tape (it has been censored for language and possibly violence and nudity, and appears to be missing up to seven minutes). Goldman [...] isn't exactly Sam Peckinpah (or even William Witney, for that matter), but the plentiful action scenes pack some punch and are given a degree of dramatic weight by dint of the attractive leads. This is one of Williamson's finest performances. While he would eventually come to walk through his later badass roles, relying on his (admittedly strong) personality to carry him, Nigger Charley finds Fred playing with more range and doing it well enough to make you forget he's ten years too old for the part."

Also from the film —

Lloyd Price's In the Eyes of God:

Come Back Charleston Blue 

(1972, dir. Mark Warren [24/09/38 — 11/01/99])

The sequel to Ossie Davis' great film Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970 / trailer), which, possibly more so than Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) or Shaft (1971 / trailer), truly kicked off the Blaxploitation genre of the seventies.

Like Cotton Comes to Harlem, the movie is "based" on a Chester Himes (26 Jul 1909 – 12 Nov 1984) novel, this time around his less renowned work, The Heat's On. That said, supposedly "The screenplay for the film is inspired by the legacies of real life Harlem gangsters Bumpy Johnson and Frank Lucas. The character of Joe (the fake Charleston Blue) resembles the actual Frank Lucas, who was a major drug dealer around Harlem and Newark, during the time the film was made. There are numerous parallels between the Charleston Blue persona and Frank Lucas, who was known for his 'Blue Magic' brand of heroin. [imdb]"

We here at a wasted life saw Come Back Charleston Blue way back in 2009 and gave it a rave review. Derek Winnert liked the flick, too, saying: "Come Back Charleston Blue is an underrated blaxploitation comedy crime action thriller from the first (Seventies) wave of black movies. Director Mark Warren's 1972 sequel to Cotton Comes to Harlem [...] is just as amusing, bizarre and violent as before, but it is wittier and the performances even sharper.

Donny Hathaway's title track

(sung with Valerie Simpson):

Back when we watched and wrote about the movie, however, we must now note that we totally failed to notice three Afro-American Babes of Yesteryear in their extremely minor appearances: the uncredited, statuesque Tamara Dobson ([14 May 1947 – 2 Oct 2006] of Cleopatra Jones [1973]) as a model; the uncredited but legendary and still active Gloria Hendry (if nothing else, whitey, you know her from Live and Let Die [1973 / trailer]) as a barber (or is that hair stylist?); and Marcia McBroom as a barber and model — that's her below, stopped from doing hair.

Dobson & McBroom are actually found together at the photo shoot that Joe is conducting when the Gravedigger and Coffin Ed show up to ask questions (the scene on Facebook). Hell, look sharp and you see them both in the trailer below.

Trailer to

Come Back Charleston Blue:

Over at All Movie, Mark Deming has the plot to the movie, which features "Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques [1 Mar 1930 – 27 Aug 1990]) and Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge [26 Feb 1933 – 29 Nov 1976]), [as] two freewheeling African-American police detectives working the beat in Harlem. Joe (Peter DeAnda [10 Mar 1938 – 23 Jul 2016]) is a famous photographer who has mounted a crusade to drive drug dealers out of Harlem, but his intentions are hardly civic-minded; he hopes that by cutting out as much competition as possible, he can take over the business and corner the neighborhood's dope market. Caspar (Maxwell Glanville [11 Feb 1918 – 6 Mar 1992]), one of Harlem's biggest dealers, is the only one who has figured out Joe's angle, and he carefully guards his territory. When a few local dealers begin turning up dead, Joe announces that the ghost of a powerful Harlem gangster, Charleston Blue, has returned to clean up the neighborhood; the small-time dope men are a suspicious lot, and many of them flee the city. But Coffin Ed and Gravedigger know that something fishy is going on, and they struggle to get the goods on Joe and Caspar, as well as solving the mystery of Charleston Blue."

Roger Ebert gave the movie two stars and a thumbs-up, mentioning one of the strange dichotomies found in many a Blaxploitation flick: "[Cotton Comes to Harlem] has been photographed lovingly on location in Harlem, and shows this as a place of beauty and ugliness, pride and corruption, community building and drug pushing, all side by side. Sometimes this makes the movie seem a little schizo. One of the characters, for example, is a palm-reading neighborhood adviser who seems to be out of Amos 'n Andy, while another is a brilliant 12-year-old chemist who single-handedly outsmarts the drug runners while lecturing cops on the Bill of Rights."

Less impressed by the movie is Every 70s Movie: "Like the previous movie, Come Back, Charleston Blue is unwieldy in terms of tone, bouncing between cartoonish comedy and extreme violence, but some of the elements work well, such as a running joke about a precocious street kid. Oddly, the leading actors are underused, since the filmmakers get distracted by nonsense. (What's with the homage to The Public Enemy (trailer), the 1931 gangster classic with James Cagney?) This results in episodic pacing that makes Come Back, Charleston Blue feel overlong and sluggish."

As "straight" as he appeared and as "manly" as he was, the actor Raymond St. Jacques (born James Arthur Johnson) was what used to be called (in the Hollywood parlance of the time) "a lifelong bachelor" and, sadly, was to die of AIDS-related complications. "St. Jacques was a discrete fixture in gay clubs and private parties in California and New York, often accompanied by fellow actors and close friends, Howard Rollins [17 Oct 1950 – 8 Dec 1996] and Paul Winfield [22 May 1939 – 7 Mar 2004]. In the late 1960s, he suddenly acquired a 'nephew' who was later introduced as his son, and given St. Jacques' surname. Sterling St. Jacques was tall, elegant, and very handsome, and he quickly became a successful model, and the first Black, male model to walk the runways for Givenchy, Halston, and Yves Saint Laurent. Sterling became a popular fixture at New York's Studio 54, where he was frequently seen twirling Bianca Jagger, Pat Cleveland (who was briefly his fiancée), and Grace Jones around the floor. [NBJC]" (For the full, unconfirmed sleaze about the "apparently very well endowed" model, check this out.)

The full 12 inches of

Sterling St Jacques non-hit Muscle Man: 

Interestingly enough, two years earlier, in 1970, Marcia McBroom modeled for a cover of a Dell reprint of another novel by Chester Himes, Hot Day Hot Night...

Jesus Christ, Superstar

(1973, dir. Norman Jewison)

Not to be mistaken with the earlier (1972) and now probably lost Filipino version by Jose 'Pepe' Wenceslao and with Victor "Jukebox Kong" Wood (1 Feb 1946 – 23 Apr 2021) and Amalia Fuentes (27 Aug 1940 – 5 Oct 2019), advert below.

Victor "Jukebox Kong" Wood medley:

We saw this rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice as a pubescent, while still a closet atheist instead of an adamant and loud and proud one, and found the film inoffensive, if only because we liked the music. Even then, however, we couldn't help but notice that the only truly visible Black man in the movie was the "bad guy" who betrayed Jesus — and that the "bad guy" was actually both more interesting than Jesus and very easy to understand. Nowadays, we would also argue that the movie needs zombies, like in a wasted life's Short Film of the Month for April 2013, Fist of Jesus (2012).

To say that Marcia McBroom is in this movie is perhaps true, but to say that her appearance is noteworthy would be stretching the truth: she is never truly visible and remains virtually unnoticeable as one of the many hippie extras found in the background. Like above, where she is mostly hidden by some ugly guy, or in the extract below of Yvonne Elliman singing Everything's Alright, where McBroom, as a Jesus groupie, gets to hold the Messiah's' penis ointment and whisper sweet nothings into his ear.

Yvonne Elliman singing

Everything's Alright:

The plot, as if you didn't already know it, as found at Scopophilia: "The story centers on the last days of Christ (Ted Neeley) and his interactions with one of his disciples named Judas (Carl Anderson [27 Feb 1945 – 23 Feb 2004]). Judas does not agree with the direction that Jesus is taking the group and the two share a falling out. The next day in Jerusalem Judas visits the Priests (Bob Bingham, Kurt Yaghjian), who have already made the decision that Jesus must die for the sake of the nation. Using money to bribe him they get Judas to reveal where Jesus will be staying. Then on the next night Judas arrives with guards who arrest Jesus where he's then taken to the Priests home and sentenced to death."

"The story itself is strictly according to Gospel, sometimes to the detriment of the movie. For example, after he is turned in, Jesus is mostly reduced to standing by mutely while others debate his fate. It's tough when the main character is silent for nearly half the film, although it does magnify the portrayal of Judas as misunderstood martyr (bolstered by Carl Anderson's powerful performance). [366 Weird Movies]"

"Jewison's minimalist approach (scaffoldings in the middle of the desert) and modern touches (jets flying overhead) neither enhance nor detract, but many of the singers simply don't compare to their original [stage] counterparts, and even Barry Dennen ([22 Feb 1938 – 26 Sept 2017] of Madhouse [1974 / trailer] and a wasted life's Short Film of the Month for January 2020, Paul Bartel's Secret Cinema [1966]), who does reprise his role as Pontius Pilate, is far less subtle in his film portrayal. Still, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice score and the complex interpretations of Christ and Judas win out over any shortcomings. [Film Frenzy]"

Trailers from Hell on

Jesus Christ Superstar:

"Thus also is the film's controversy set — for not only does Superstar grant way too much credence to someone whom Good Christians regard as one of the killers of Christ, it also acts as apologist for Pontius Pilate (another vaunted Christ-killer, who condemns Jesus only very reluctantly — his 'hand-washing' scene a startler); portrays Jesus not only as a screaming rockstar, but as almost too human to command worship (with his chronic doubts and no depiction of miracles); and allows Mary Magdalene (Hawaiian-born Yvonne Elliman) to blatantly consider loving Jesus in the — shall we say — 'biblical' sense. Another bone of contention was the movie wrapping with Jesus left for dead on the cross, bookended by the Players boarding the tour bus (sans their crucified pal) and driving into the sunset — unlike all other Jesus movies [...] which glorified their zombie epilogues. (Well, what else would you call a person raised from the dead?) [Poffy the Cucumber]"

The movie's show-stopper number:

"[Andrew Lloyd Weber's] first success, Jesus Christ, Superstar, began life as a record album with a handful of good songs before its expansion into a Broadway show and a truly awful movie directed by Norman Jewison (21 Jul 1926 – 20 Jan 2024). In Webber's hands, the greatest story ever told became something akin to Easy Rider (1969 / trailer) with donkeys instead of motorcycles. Jewison got no help from the actors, especially Ted Neely whose portrayal of Jesus would have made the apostle Peter deny his master four times instead of three. [Hell's Unutterable Lament]"

In the 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards, the Medved Brothers even awarded Ted Neeley "The Worst Performance by an Actor as Jesus Christ". His performance is so "bad" that since Jesus Christ, Superstar, "One-Trick Pony" Neeley has pretty much never stopped playing that part in stage productions... again, and again, and again, and again. One of his more-interesting, relatively recent film appearances as someone other than Jesus can be found in Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival (2016 / trailer).

That said: "Where Jesus Christ, Superstar truly shines is in the stark freshness of its visuals. It's a stunning-looking film from every angle. At turns, whimsical, epic, theatrical, and poetic, it is one of those rare adaptations of a stage success that achieve multiple moments of pure cinema. [Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For…]"

Peter's denial:

As splat-pack director Darren Bousmann points out in the Trailer from Hell further above, the strapping actor who plays Peter in Jesus Christ, Superstar (seen above and below), still credited under his "real" name of Peter [Charles] Toubus, found his success in a different cinematic genre: the porn film. A few years after his next movie, Paul Aratow's obscure horror Lucifer's Women (1974 / trailer), Peter Toubus became Paul Thomas and, beginning with the release of C.B. Mamas (1976 — easily found online), parlayed his almost average-sized but seemingly ever-ready John Thomas into a long and fecund career as an adult film star and director. The Rialto Report has a great two-part interview podcast, The 10 Provocations of PT, Part 1 and Part 2.

Lastly, an Italian trailer to an obscure film from 1980:

Willie Dynamite

(1974, dir. Gilbert Moses)

The feature film directorial debut of Broadway director Gilbert Moses (20 Aug 1942 – 15 April 1995), whose career as a feature film director pretty much ended five years later with The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (1979 / trailer).

Written by a white guy named Ron Cutler and an Afro-American guy named Joe Keyes Jr, Willie Dynamite was initially claimed by its honky producers* as the "first black feature film to deal with organized prostitution" and, as such, it was a pimptastically outfitted movie. (Costumes by Bernard Johnson [12 Dec 1923 – 22 Jan 1997].) As for Marcia McBroom, she is listed in the opening credits and plays Pearl, one of the girls of the movie's titular anti-hero (who, as to be expected, changes his ways by the movie's resolution) — you can see her in the background behind her man, the titular pimp Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman of F/X [1986 / trailer]), in the publicity photo below — hell, you see her and the rest of Willie's stable in the trailer, too...

* "1974's Willie Dynamite opens with the very recognisable '70s Universal logo. It was produced by no less than Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who a mere year later would change Hollywood forever with a little movie about three men and a fish. Such mainstream credentials mean Willie Dynamite differs from the more down and dirty Blaxploitation offerings churned out by the likes of Jack Hill in three key areas. Despite taking place in the sex trade, nudity is absent; while female stars like Pam Grier (see: Coffy [1973]) and Tamara Dobson (see: Cleopatra Jones [1973]) became sex symbols in low budget fare, Hollywood wasn't ready for black flesh. The violence is less extreme but no less present; Hollywood may have balked at depicting black folks fucking, but stabbings and shootings were fine. [The Movie Waffler]"

Trailer to

Willie Dynamite:

"An eye-popping pop art extravaganza and a searing social statement at the same time, Willie Dynamite isn't quite like anything else in the Blaxploitation wave of the 1970s. Essentially designed as a frank day-in-the-life portrayal of a pimp removed from the guns and girls stereotypes of the era, it remains a fascinating time capsule and a whole lot of fun to watch. [Mondo Digital]"

Title track, Willie D.,

sung by Martha Reeves & The Sweet Things:

"Starting off pretty much like a way over-played, virtual parody of The Mack (1973 / trailer, see: R.I.P. Carol Speed), the film tells the story of superfly pimp Willie D whose threads are so over the top [...] that all the other pimps have to viciously chew the scenery to even get noticed. Willie's the number two pimp in NY and he aims to be number one, but before he can even make the attempt, he shoots himself in the proverbial foot by dissin' the guy who is number one, Bell (Roger Robinson [2 May 1940 – 26 Sept 2018], who lays on the ham and cheese heavier than the Denny's breakfast menu). Says Bell, 'When the heat comes down, you gotta collectivize or... run.' Now, the peevish Bell is bringing down the heat on little ol' Willie. To make matters worse, an ex-hooker turned social worker (Diana Sands [22 Aug 1934 – 21 Sept 1973]) who is the Assistant DA's (Thalmus Rasulala [15 Nov 1939 – 9 Oct 1991] of Blacula [1972 / trailer] and Friday Foster [1975 / trailer]) girlfriend, has him in her crosshairs too. Next thing you know, his hos are getting busted, his car is getting impounded, he's getting his fine threads messed up by the man. What's a pimp gonna do? So you figure at this point, he's gonna get a plan and stick it to the man, right? Uhhhh, no. Nope, he's going to get shafted more and get his ass beat more and finally... wait for it... yes, he's going to realize the error of his ways and turn over a new leaf. No I'm not kidding. Totally serious. [Video Junkie]"

Vanity Fear, which notes that Willie Dynamite "is a film that both wants you to laugh at it and take it seriously at the same time and the remarkable thing is that it very nearly gets away with it", gives the movie "7 Fur Hats out of 10": "Though the film is called Willie Dynamite, the film's most compelling character (and true protagonist) is Cora, who was played by Diana Sands, an actress who would be much better known today were it not for her death from cancer in 1973, four months before the film was released in January of 1974. She was only 39 years old."

From the film — King Midas,

sung by Martha Reeves & The Sweet Things: 

"While Willie Dynamite might have never made it to the top of blaxploitation fare and has remained a bit of a hidden gem to this day, it really seems like the epitomy [sic] of the genre as such — what with its outrageous 1970s fashion choices and its reliance on (very moderate, especially given the film's topic) sleaze and violence on one hand, and socio-political messages (that go beyond 'sticking it to the man') on the other, all packed into gritty yet oddly stylish, definitely 70s but oddly fresh imagery — which really make this a perfect trip down memory lane, and a great piece of nostalgia, even if you haven't lived through this particular stretch of time. [(Re)Search My Trash]"

The apparently now-defunct Gentlemen's Blog, which "was mildly let down by the lack of lurid elements" (i.e., "no nudity, very little profanity, and hardly any violence"), was moved to say: "I've seen several other exploitation movies which try to have their cake and eat it too. They want their artistic pretensions to somehow cancel out the sleaze. That usually never works unless a solid foundation is laid. That is most definitely the case here. [...] Where does the credit for the quality go to? I would like to hand it to the writer Ron Cutler and the director Gilbert Moses. They obviously knew what kind of movie they wanted to make. I have a suspicion that they took the funding to make a blaxploitation flick with an agenda. They would do just enough to make the producers happy, but satisfy themselves in the bargain. That's how a pimp movie becomes a story about failure and redemption."

 

The full movie:

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings

(1976, dir. John Badham)

Some director named Steven Spielberg was initially interested in directing this movie loosely based on the 1973 novel of the same name written by William Brashler, the screenplay of which was supplied by Mathew Robbins & Hall Barwood, the scribes of Spielberg's earlier movie Sugarland Express (1974 / trailer), but then Mr. Spielberg released a little movie known as Jaws (1975 / trailer) and could do any movie he wanted... He went for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977 / trailer) and, well, the rest is history. Ultimately, British-born American TV director John Badham made his feature-film directorial debut with this movie, which was a financial success and is also generally considered one of the better sports movies ever made. Ultimately, however, this baseball film is hardly as famous as Badham's second feature film, a little disco flick known as Saturday Night Fever (1977 / trailer).

Trailers from Hell, with John Badham

talking about his feature film directorial debut:

Marcia McBroom has a small and credited speaking part as Violet (that's her below) and though we don't know for sure (since we have never seen the movie), it seems that Violet is not a prostitute. 

Who knows if her part has any basis on reality, but the character Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams of Alien Intruder [1992]) himself seems to be based loosely on Leroy "Satchel" Paige (7 Jul 1906 – 6 Jun 1982), the Negro League and Major League Baseball player and pitcher.

The Bingo Long Song (Steal on Home) 

sung by Thelma Houston:

Over at All Movie, Hal Erickson has the plot: "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings is set in the segregated south of 1939. African-American baseball pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams of Alien Intruder [1993]), tired of being jerked around by the less-than-ethical managers of the Negro League teams, forms his own barnstorming ball club. His partner in this endeavor is black catcher Leon Carter (James Earl Jones). Though boycotted by powerful Negro League manager Sallison Porter (Ted Ross [30 Jun 1934 – 3 Sept 2002]*), the Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings flourish, gaining a loyal fandom with every new game and cutting into the League's profits. Finally, Porter offers Long a deal: if the Motor Kings can win one big game with the Negro All-Stars, Long's team will be allowed to join the League. Also appearing in Bingo Long is Richard Pryor (1 Dec 1940 – 10 Dec 2005) as a ballplayer who tries to break through the big-league color line by pretending to be everything from a Hispanic to a Native American named 'Chief Tokohama'; if Pryor seems to disappear for long periods during the film, it's because his role was written to accommodate his many nightclub appearances."

* "Ted Ross was a swinger and used to throw orgies at his house.... Or at least that is what the Afro-American live sex show performer and fellow swinger Joseph Stryker claims in his interview at the Rialto Report.

Razzle Dazzle 

sung by Thelma Houston:

"Director John Badham [...] has wrought an interesting episodic film whose real concern is the black self-image two decades before the major civil rights decisions of the Fifties. The focus is intra- rather than interracial, with various approaches to blackness epitomized in a series of character-types: Sallison Potts is the black businessman, an imitation white man who exploits his fellow blacks for profit; Charlie Snow (Pryor) is the racial neurotic, trying to pass for anything but black; Leon Carter is the uncompromising black man, who reads DuBois, speaks of seizing the means of production, and keeps an eye out for exploitation from any direction; Bingo Long is the fulcrum who balances Carter with Snow, willing to compromise (he accepts the initially humiliating idea of dancing into town on the day of the game, quickly turning the strut into a sort of trademark for his team), ready to play his team against white teams in a time when other blacks fear to do so, equally ready to use nigger-charm to avoid tension and violence with the white teams, and capable of sacrificing anything to avoid falling into the capitalistic-exploitive frame of mind against which he has rebelled. [Parralax View]"

"This is mainly a bright comedy that delivers a few big laughs and many smaller smiles. There are dramatic themes as well. For a Hollywood film, there is more Marxism than one would expect. The white baseball teams of this era were owned by wealthy white people who generally treated their players like serfs. The black teams in this film are owned by wealthy black people who generally treat their players like... serfs. As Jones' character tells Bingo Long, their team's struggle for economic independent is not so much about race as it is about how the 'workers can seize the means of production'. The story also includes some intriguing (if underdeveloped) observations on race, most particularly in a subplot involving a Jackie Robinson-like member of Bingo's team (earnestly portrayed by Stan Shaw of T.N.T. Jackson [1974 / trailer] and more) who attracts the interest of a white team. Bingo wants the best for him, but also knows that the breaking of Major League baseball's color line will destroy the all-Black baseball world which he loves. [All Good Movies]"

 

"'Jim Crowism on the diamond' serves the showbiz metaphor, a Motown production directed by a British novice is the reflexive venture. Tired of being exploited by avaricious Negro League suits, Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams) of the Ebony Aces and sluggin' Leon (James Earl Jones) of the Elite Giants choose revolution ('a very democratic idea') and take their own lineup on the road. Barnstorming independents still have segregated stopovers to face, bleacherfuls of racists lie ahead yet shrewd Uncle Tomfoolery defuses friction. It's all fun and slapdash montages until the owners decide to 'seize the means of production' back, pistol and razor and all. 'The slave done run off, all right.' Games as spectacle, spectacle as performance, performance as Black self-image during athletic apartheid, the war at home ca. 1939. The intransigent pride of the hitter who knows his Du Bois is contrasted with the neurotic effacement of the player (Richard Pryor) who dons Cuban pomade and Spanish dictionary and fringed buckskin and afro-mohawks. Between them is the suavity of the team leader, whose smile must disarm the audience while sidestepping minstrelsy degradation. [...] Flavorsome details (the satirical apparatus of gorilla suit and oversized mitt, the capitalists' funeral home conference, Pryor's sidelong glance at the tawny Fourth of July baton-twirler) hint at the struggle, though the stadium remains mainly an arena for safe box-office amusements. [Fernando F. Croce @ Cine Passion]"

Shackin' Up

(1984, dir. Simon Nuchtern)

"Warning: the Surgeon General has determined that watching this film will give you herpes."
Time Out

 

Original title: New York Nights. Based on the play La Ronde by the Austrian Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 Oct 1931), it is as such, a version of numerous other movies, including but not limited to Max Ophuls' La Ronde (1950 / trailer), Roger Vadim's Circle of Love (1964 / trailer), Das Liebeskarusell (1965 / full movie), Merry-Go-Round a.k.a. Reigen (1973), La ronde de l'amour (1985), Berliner Reigen (2007) and Safari: Match Me If You Can (2018 / trailer)...

That's Marcia above. The screenplay was supplied by Romano Vanderbes, who made sure his name was on the poster; today, at best, Vanderbes is remembered (if at all) for his diverse mondo documentaries on the USA — namely: This Is America a.k.a. Jabberwalk (1977 / theme song), This Is America Part 2 (1980 / female bodybuilding segment) and America Exposed (1991) — and the inanely puerile Sex O'clock News (1985 / trailer below).

Trailer to Romano Vanderbes'

Sex O'clock News (1985):

Director Simon Nuchtern's filmic pedigree is of comparable interest, if somewhat fuller; the Belgium-born American filmmaker began his movie-making career with obscure softcore and exploitation movies like The Girl Grabbers (1968, with Janet Banzet), To Hex with Sex (1969 / full movie) and the lost Cowards (1970) — the last had sex scenes added when later released as Love-in '72 (1970) — before, alongside Michael Findlay and Roberta Findlay, he shot the additional scenes for the infamous grindhouse masterpiece of marketing, Snuff (1975 / trailer). Nine years after that film, he directed Shackin' Up / New York Nights, which he followed with the two grindhouse whammies, the 3-D slasher Silent Madness 3-D (1984 / trailer) and Savage Dawn (1985 / trailer, with Richard Lynch). As a filmmaker, he really hasn't done anything a wasted life would find of note since he founded Katina Productions, LLC.

One would imagine that Nuchtern & Vanderbes are not the best of pals. According to the German website Choices, the release of the movie, which was titled Call-Girls in Manhattan when it hit a few cinemas in German-speaking countries, was delayed by three years due to legal disagreements between the director, Nuchtern, and the writer/producer, Vanderbes.

Trailer to a different

New York Nights (also from 1984):

The structure of Shackin' Up is similar to that taken to the extreme in a much-better non-sex film, Richard Linklater's first official feature film Slacker (1990 / trailer): the narrative is a daisy-chain in that a character within one vignette segues into the next segment until, in the last segment, the final character to appear ends up with the first character that appeared.

"This softie erotic film arrived late in the period of cocaine-fueled sexual excessiveness, as the 'disco' lifestyle was already quite passé, and the specter of AIDS* had quietly emerged to throw a monkey wrench into everybody's kink. That being said, it's also one of the better films of its type, following a random chain of characters through the anything-goes amatory lifestyles of New York's rich and famous. Debutante (Corinne Alphen Wahl) seduces rocker, rocker beds journalist, journalist humps fashion photographer, photographer lays model, etc... and many of the vignettes presented here are highly erotic. Wild action and bizarre kinks abound, just going to show you that really, REALLY hot sex is reserved for the very rich... and their 'pets'. [WIP Films]"

* Indeed, in real life, at least one actor of the movie eventually died from that disease: Nicholas Cortland [10 Oct 1940 – 21 Aug 1988]). Shackin' Up was his last acting project, but if readers of a wasted life know his name/face at all then it is probably from Frogs (1972 / trailer) or Bonnie's Kids (1972 / trailer)...

Goldposter goes into a bit more detail about the vignettes: "The stories are 'The Debutante and the Rock Star' (a rich girl in a limo picks up a rock star, but things don't go quite as he planned), 'The Rock Star and the Authoress' (the rock star hooks up with a female writer, who wants to write about him, but things again don't go quite as he expected), 'The Authoress and the Photographer' (the female writer meets a photographer at a party, who takes her to his set where he photographs two women in underwear wrestling, which turns her on), 'The Photographer and the Model' (the photographer is seduced by his beautiful former model and on and off girlfriend, who's still too much for him to handle), 'The Wife and the Husband' (the model is actually married and she roleplays for her rich husband, who wants to watch her dress up as a man and have sex with a gigolo), 'The Husband and the Prostitute' (the husband goes to an African American bar to hire a prostitute, but there's a twist), 'The Prostitute and the Porno Star' (the prostitute takes her john to a sex club, but there she meets her old girlfriend, who works as a porn star, and hooks up with her), 'The Porno Star and the Financier' (the porn star has a movie idea and asks the financier of the porn movie she's currently shooting to invest in this idea, so he asks her for a drink in his office), "The Financier and the Debutante" (the rich girl from the first story meets the financier from the last story in a sleazy night club and tries to seduce him, even though he was once her stepfather)."

As is perhaps typical for minority actors, and especially Afro-American ones, Marcia McBroom's role in Shackin' Up, which remains her final feature-movie role to date, is that of a prostitute. She's in two vignettes, the one in which she is pursued by 'the husband' (Nicholas Cortland) and the subsequent one, in which she hooks up with the porn star (Cynthia S. Lee).

The woman who made it onto the posters and publicity material is two-time Penthouse Pet of the Month and their 1982 Pet of the Year Corinne Alphen, a.k.a. Corinne Wahl (seen below on the cover of a Penthouse magazine). She plays the "Debutante" that seduces the Rock Star (George Ayer of Savage Hunt [1980 / trailer]) in the first segment, and her former stepfather in the final one.

Speaking of Penthouse, j4hi.com mentions: "[...] Most of the women, outfits and the settings look like they're straight from a Penthouse layout. Plus the stories are all reminiscent of that mag's 'Forum' section with slightly unbelievable tales of wild sex and situations. [...] Over the course of 1hr 40 mins you get 9 segments and every story features nudity and sex play as one coke-fueled sex addict goes to the next and the next.... [...] Filled with lots of nighttime footage of NYC including a few porn theaters (Bad Girls [1981 / trailer] playing at the 'Circus Cinema') as well as a scene shot inside the infamous swingers club Plato's Retreat. [...] A sleazy sex-filled winner.

And with New York Nights, "a sleazy sex-filled winner" that "will give you herpes", Marcia McBroom Small left the film industry — to become a school teacher and founder of The For Our Children's Foundation.

Who Influenced You?

Lorelei McBroom interviews her eldest sister Marcia McBroom Small. Part I:

Who Influenced You?

Lorelei McBroom interviews her eldest sister Marcia McBroom Small. Part 2:

Coming next:

Cynthia Myers