Friday, January 19, 2024

Venus In Furs & +

Venus In Furs (1967), The Velvet Underground, A Serial Killer and Times Square

Michael Flores from The Global Psychotronic Film Society

Venus In Furs (1967), The Velvet Underground, A Serial Killer and Times Square

If page freezes refresh. The back story of the 1967 film VENUS IN FURS is the heart of sleezy Times Square and the soul of the most influential rock album ever made.

MICHAEL FLORES

JAN 18

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PREVIEW

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Photo: Louise Brooks in a Ziegfeld Follies show. Her 2 silent films PANDORA’S BOX and DIARY OF A LOST GIRL have overtime solidified her as the greatest actress of the silent era. But she started, in Times Square at The Follies!

How did nudity begin in Times Square? There are several stories, one is that in 1915 a showgirl "forgot" her starched collar and cuffs, revealing her neck and wrists, which in 1915 Times Square was forbidden. Another is that Hinda Wassau had been singing her big finale and her dress strap broke- and she finished her number. Another is that in 1927 a burlesque dancer who drank too much illegal booze one night and onstage slowly peeled off her clothes.

In the 1920's topless was allowed in Times Square when it wasn't almost anywhere else in America. Abe, Billy, Herbert and Morton Minsky opened their burlesque house on 42nd Street and Gypsy Rose Lee became a star there.

Photo: Minsky’s Follies

Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies across the street also featured semi-nude showgirls, but their glittering costumes and enormous feathered headdresses evoked opulence and upper-class respectability.

Photo: Muriel Finley, Follies girl.

Minsky's was for working class people, the Follies drew the wealthy during the depression.

Photo: Here are NYC's Ziegfeld Follies Chorus Girls taking a break at a NYC "Speakeasy" in 1924 & During National Prohibition

Many of the women at Ziegfeld's would marry rich men, others got Hollywood contracts and had their semi-nude past cleaned up. Louise Brooks, Marion Davies (who married William Randolph Hearst and was unfairly attacked in CITIZEN KANE. The word "Rosebud" was Hearst's nickname for her clitoris, so in the film Kane literally dies with her pussy on his mind. By the way, that attack on her is the only major flaw in the movie. When Kane utters that word there is no one else in the room. The entire film was based on what the word, which no one heard, meant!), Barbara Stanwyck even Billie Burke the good witch in THE WIZARD OF OZ So many Follies girls were signed by Hollywood Flo Ziegfeld would consider banning talent scouts and film producers!

From semi-nude to Hollywood contracts and rich husbands! Ziegfeld changed the American ideal of beauty.

The Mayor cracked down on the burlesque houses in time for the 1939 World's Fair, but as soon as the fair was over all the burlesque houses opened again.

Other burlesque houses opened up in the area and religious groups began pressuring the Mayor to clean up Times Square. Police in those days through the 1980's were not paid anywhere near a living wage so those not accepting bribes were looking the other way at ones that did. Attempts to clean up the area fell on deaf police ears. And then came Pearl Harbor.

Little spoken of today is that the first two waves of soldiers in the war were little more than cannon fodder. The vast majority sent to combat would be killed or injured. In Hawaii the military ran houses of prostitution, though this was and is still hidden from the public. In Times Square prostitution became a big business aimed at those doomed soldiers. This was all happening by the way, in a free market - the mob wasn't involved!

In fact police would raid gay bars that had male prostitutes and demand money from the patrons- or they would be arrested! This would continue in big cities across America into the 1970's.

With the hookers came the hustlers. In countries where prostitution is legal from Costa Rica to Amsterdam, pimping is illegal. In countries where it is illegal, pimping flourishes. The burlesque houses by the 1950's were becoming seedy strip joints where men were hustled out of their money. Burlesque attracted couples and groups of both men and women because there was a show- comedians, dance routines and comedy sketches. This was reduced to comedians (Don Rickles and Lenny Bruce first started doing comedy in strip clubs) and strippers. then finally, just strippers. With the women and couples gone, it was easier to hustle the men out of their money.

On the streets, prostitution by all genders, open drug trade, alcoholism, and con games, like three-card monte and clio, became commonplace. Inside, crime thrived in the underground corridors of the subway and the passages at the Port Authority Bus Terminal despite the abundance of police. $10 to $20 could buy your way out of an arrest.

Martin Hodas in 1966 would find some old nickelodeons that played 16mm film and he convinced the owner of an adult book store to put them in his back room. Adult bookstores in 1966 did not have porno, in fact, they even carried real books that had been banned at one time or another. The Marquis de Sade, books by "Anonymous' ', Lolita- you had to read your porn while looking at nudist magazines or pictures of women baring their breasts. For 25 cents you could watch a film strip of a woman baring her breasts. Movie theaters in the area were already showing softcore films, many from Europe, but the peepshow became such a huge hit that Hodas began making the 16mm loops himself and placing machines all through Times Square. He also built booths so patrons could, ummm, enjoy the films in private. After splitting the money with the book store owners his take was usually around $15,000 a day. In quarters!

Photo: Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground.

A group of hustlers, male prostitutes, began hanging out at Andy Warhol's Factory. They knew Times Square inside and out. Warhol decided he wanted a band to represent the Factory and play at his parties that actually paid the rent when his art wasn't selling. The band was The Velvet Underground. Considered today to be the most influential rock band of all time, though their records didn't sell until years later. Hippies were singing about LSD and pot, love and peace, the Velvets were singing about street life, sado masochism and hard drugs.

In the backdrop of this, a serial killer Richard Cottingham was picking up and killing prostitutes in the area. He became known as the Torso killer because a few of the women from Times Square were dismembered. Actually the majority of the women and teen girls were not hookers, and had been kidnapped off the streets. But the connection of the word "prostitute" to his murders made him a low priority for police. He actually bragged that he killed 100 women across the U.S.when he was finally arrested - in 1980.

Every time body parts were found in Times Square, you can imagine the fear this caused. But with prostitution came pimps and hard drugs, and until the woman decided to get rid of both, she couldn't leave the streets. Cottingham used the fetish items of sadomasochism to commit his murders.

In 1967 the film VENUS IN FURS, opened in Times Square.

Watch the film VENUS IN FURS by clicking here

That was the same year the Velvet Underground recorded their song VENUS IN FURS. The book was readily available in Times Square adult shops. Sadomasochism was in the air.

Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Comes in bells, your servant, don't forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Downy sins of streetlight fancies
Chase the costumes she shall wear
Ermine furs adorn the imperious
Severin, Severin awaits you there

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather
Shiny leather in the dark
Tongue of thongs, the belt that does await you
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Severin, Severin, speak so slightly
Severin, down on your bended knee
Taste the whip, in love not given lightly
Taste the whip, now plead for me

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Severin, your servant comes in bells, please don't forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

You can read the book here: Read the book VENUS IN FURS here

You can see the 1967 movie here: Watch the film VENUS IN FURS by clicking here

Behind the paywall: the 1969 version of VENUS IN FURS. Venus in Furs (Italian: Paroxismus - Può una morta rivivere per amore?, German: Schwarzer Engel) is a 1969 Italian supernatural erotic thriller film directed by Jesús Franco and starring James Darren.