The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann (1974)

Studio: Distribpix
Theatrical Release: December 26th, 1974
DVD Release: August 22, 2011
Rating: Unrated

Review by Craig Sorensen

Frank (played by Eric Edwards) is a third generation private detective (or as they prefer to be called, peeping toms) hired by some kind of executive to snoop on his wife, Pamela (played by Barbara Bourbon).  This is a porno so of course his fears are not unfounded.  Frank follows Pamela around on various ‘adventures’, filming them with his helmet mounted camera and reporting back to her husband.

OK, I’m not a porno connoisseur.  I’ve seen a few of the big titles like Deep Throat and Jamie made me watch The Taming of Rebecca, but I don’t have a lot of experience with the genre.  So I’m always a little surprised to see something like this.  It’s a well made film.  Sure, it’s cheap but it’s also well acted and directed and the script is fairly witty.  I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, given that it’s Radley Metzger directing.  This doesn’t have the polish of, say The Image or Camille 2000, but you can tell you’re watching a Metzger film.  And despite this being a pornographic film, it’s still a real film, with a definite point of view (and a sense of humor).  Most of my experience with pornography has been with incredibly cheap, shoddy films with no real care involved in the productions.  That’s not the case here.  You can tell that the production team cared about their craft.

The film transfer looks really good to me, much better than I was expecting honestly.  Evidently this was shot on Super16 and transferred from a 35mm internegative.  It does look it, but not in a bad way in my opinion.  It’s a little soft and it’s certainly grainy given the way it was shot but this is probably the best it’ll ever look (unless Distribpix puts this out on Blu-Ray).  The set also includes the softcore version of the film on the second disc.  This doesn’t look nearly as good as the original.  I’m assuming that this is due to the optical effects used to cover up the boners though and not a fault of the transfer.  Yes, rather than just cutting the sex scenes out of the softcore version, they superimposed images over the naughty parts.  Barbara Bourbon’s face is pasted over the sex scenes as she delivers ridiculous dialog about America (this version was released in 1976 during the bicentennial).  Audio is available in the original mono.  Everything is clear and I had no problems.

Holy shit, has this DVD got a lot of special features!  OK, so on the first disc you’ve got a feature length commentary with Radley Metzger, an Eric Edwards interview, the original theatrical trailer and a slide gallery.  On the second disc is the softcore version of the film, a Georgina Spelvin interview, a short video about the New York locations used in the film, nine minutes of outtakes, a new trailer and a second slide gallery.  The commentary, moderated by Benson Hurst is informative and a great history lesson in a often overlooked aspect of film history.  Also on the first disc is a subtitle track that acts almost as a music commentary.  It gives you a running commentary of the music used in the film and of music library tracks used in low budget films.  Both the Eric Edwards & Georgina Spelvin interviews are a lot of fun and are very informative.  Also included in the case is a forty-four page booklet comprised of essays about the film and a cardboard insert of Barbara Bourbon posing with a tiger cub.

If you are a fan of vintage porn, this is a must buy.  Even if you’re not, I would still recommend seeing this.  With all the special features included with this thing it’s almost like taking a college course in 70’s porn filmmaking.