Along with subjects like Blaxploitation and Nunsploitation, one of the sub-genres of the exploitation film is the "nudie cutie", erotic films that were made before the advent of hard-core porn. So-called "horror" was occasionally used, usually at the expense of being nothing more than an excuse for naked women being chased or otherwise menaced by cheap-looking monsters. Examples of genre nudie-cuties include such films as Harry Novak's KISS ME QUICK and Ed Wood's ORGY OF THE DEAD.
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| Harrison Marks. |
Another one of these filmmakers was George Harrison Marks -- probably best known by the "cutie cognoscenti" for his feature film, NAKED AS NATURE INTENDED (1961). Marks made a living out of his London Soho studio photographing nude figure models for magazines, slides and photo collections. He billed himself alternately as "The King of the Camera" and "World Famous Photographer", and indeed became the UK's most famous glamour photographer. Part of the reason he was well known among these types was because he employed top-shelf, attractive models like June Palmer and Pamela Green, and a few became ubiquitous by appearing on calendars and men's magazines. A few of them also took their turns modeling in Marks' studio dungeon set. After all, once built, there was no reason to waste the expense (which by the looks of it didn't cost much) on just one shoot.
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| Marks in a gag makeup for his film NAKED WORLD. |
Dark-haired and a shapely 35-22-35, Wendy Luton was another of Marks' models selected to appear in front of his movie camera, this time for a role one of his Kamera Cine Films shorts, VAMPIRE (1964).
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| Wendy Luton posing in Marks' dungeon set. |
The ten-minute film was sold in 8mm, a popular film format for home movie projectors at the time. Watching this film is problematic, since the only source I found to view it online was from the British Film Institute and it's available for streaming only in the UK. I did manage to find a clip on YouTube (see below).
VAMPIRE was written and produced by Marks, and filmed by Marks and Tony Roberts. Outside of a production assistant (Adrian St. Helier) and Luton, it's doubtful there was any other personnel involved with the film.
The story is simple, Marks himself plays Dracula III, who rises from his plywood coffin to torment a naked Wendy Luton. He turns her into a vampire, but she gets her revenge. End titles; I mean, what else can you do in 10 minutes? No sex here, just a nude Luton scampering about the cardboard dungeon set.
Born in London on September 4, 1944, Miss Luton followed in the footsteps of her fashion-model mother, albeit without the wardrobe. She also went by the name of Angela Winston. She was featured on the cover of Marks' self-published magazine, KAMERA, and appeared in loads of other men's magazines during the 1960's.
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| The photo was used for a 1965 calendar. |
See more Wendy dungeon shots HERE.
Fascinating. I was not aware of this short film, but she's lovely. Thanks for filling me in.
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder why there isn't a full version of this other than the BFI streaming it exclusively in the UK.
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