12/23/2023 0 Comments Starlet film online![]() ![]() ![]() In the case of Starlet, I would guess that the intentions of the Director were probably frustrated by investors who no doubt recognised that the film would bring in a much better return as a straight sexploitation movie which showed little attention to any associated social issues. Instead we had to wait another twelve years for the highly regarded NFB film "Not a Love Story" (1981) before any film of this type was released. Had this remained the primary objective the film, which is quite well made, could have been in the running for film festival awards, and even (but less likely) for recognition with an Oscar. It is a movie which depicts the production of a fictional but characteristic sexploitation film in some Hollywood studio, and appears to me to have probably been the work of a screenwriter and a director who wanted to create a pseudo-documentary film that exposed the extent to which the cast of such films were exploited by some studios. I am writing these comments now because I feel that this would be very unfortunate. ![]() It is now not even easy to find (at least not in this part of North America) on the late night TV channels where it used to be featured regularly and it may virtually disappear within the next few years. Starlet was released almost 35 years ago and copies are not easy to find today. Although an entirely fictional work, it shows clear signs of having originally been written as a semi-documentary. It was at this stage in the development of the modern North American movie industry that the film "Starlet" was released. Even the most lurid of the "B movies" produced in this way provided little more than limited titillation for the audience but much more deplorably, they quickly established a well deserved reputation for gross exploitation of the participants - particularly those who were female. The few truly erotic films that were shown came mostly from Europe whereas the early Hollywood productions came from special "B" movie studios, and featured casts who were not regarded by most of those in the movie business as legitimate performers capable of contributing equally to more conventional films. Eventually of course such an artificial distinction had to break down, but this took a long time, and the unfortunate result was that early North American films which in any way featured sex were generally highly exploitive. However it was a surprisingly long time before critics got round to pointing out that whilst sex is a normal part of normal family life, extreme violence is not. ![]() Even more unfortunate was the fact that movie makers remained free to produce numerous films featuring extreme violence and gross brutality, which made nonsense of the industry's claim to promote such family values. This was probably a wise business policy, but it was unfortunately cloaked in the guise of an attempt to ensure their productions conformed with normal family values. Hollywood studio executives of the period recognised that this could easily give their fledgling industry a bad name and took effective steps to prevent most films distributed to regular movie houses from including sequences in which displays of naked flesh might have offended the religious sensibilities of their somewhat conservative patrons. A movie camera is completely amoral, and it is not surprising that movie equivalents of the classic Victorian dirty postcard found a place among early film productions. ![]()
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