THE ECSTASIES OF WOMEN (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1969) (NSFW)

THE ECSTASIES OF WOMEN

Dir: Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1969.

74 min. USA.

Special thanks to Vinegar Syndrome

http://vinegarsyndrome.com

FRIDAY, MARCH 15TH - 10PM

SATURDAY, MARCH 30TH - 7:30PM

The Ecstasies of Women, the chronological first of the trio, concerns the til-the-break-of-dawn bachelor party of young Harry. On the eve of his wedding, Harry is struck by the bevy of beautiful go-go dancers- each one reminds him of a past romantic conquest.

In a series of saucy flashbacks, we learn of the trials and tribulations of Harry's love life. Lewis and company had plenty of trials and tribulations themselves in the making of this film as relayed to author Christopher Wayne Boyle in his book A Taste of Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis:

The funniest thing in The Ecstasies of Women is a scene where these four guys are sitting at a table talking. Herschell sets up his old Mitchell camera with a thousand fast loads of film, and frames up the guys, with the typical ‘Herschell master shot.’ Well...out of nowhere Herschell has to run to the bathroom. He says, “Dave would you care to shoot this thing?” And I said, “Sure, are you guys ready? Here we go, roll ‘em.” Herschell said, “Just shoot the whole thing. Don’t move the camera. They know their lines.” And I’m shooting these guys and not only did they not know their lines, they didn’t even know who was who. So a thousand feet of film goes by and I say, “OK, fellows, we’re out of film,” and then Herschell walks in and says, “I thought we discussed who was who this morning.” I mean these guys really bombed the whole scene. So I said, “Hersch, do you wanna re-shoot the thing?” He said, “No, screw it.”

THE LOST FILMS OF HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS:

http://spectacletheater.com/the-lost-films-of-herschell-gordon-lewis

Trailer by Dash Flanagan

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