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01 31st, 2004| 
| Mau Mau Sex Sex by T starring David F. Friedman, Dan Sonney, Frank Henenlotter, Mike Vraney, Carol Friedman |
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Customer Reviews: Interesting at First….. The occasional “slice of life” segments showing Sonney and Friedman as everyday folks at home are charming at first, but become well overdone halfway through the video. If you have never read up on the “educational roadshow phenomenon” before, you might find this DVD informative. Sonney and Friedman do a good job describing how they were able to insert nudity into their films in an age where the silver screen was ultra-puritanical. In the long run, however, seeing a documentary on a subject primarily through the eyes of those who lived it has its drawbacks. Hearing firsthand accounts can be translated into “firsthand claims” from two colorful characters who have a penchant for exaggerating the facts. The roadshows, the nudie films, and the B-Movies need a great documentary by an objective person who has a passion for the subject, but not by a subjective player in the business. Uninformative There is very little info about the history of the exploitation market. What little there is is entertaining, making this a worthwhile rental, but mostly you get to see things like how Dan Sonney uses a treadmill to exercise every day, or confirmation of the fact that watching a bunch of old people eating spaghetti is not very fascinating. I would have preferred hearing more than one or two sentences about Friedman’s fights against censorship. There is little detail about what actually makes these films “exploitation” (i.e. how they exploited audiences), and the brief film clips, etc., give little indication of what happened behind the camera, so there could be the misinterpretation that it was the women involved who were exploited (when they were actually treated quite well, probably better than they would have been in the major studios). So if you blink you miss, e.g., the fact that Lili St. Cyr got $50,000 for one day’s work (think of how much that was worth 50 years ago). There are other ways in which the film fails to create accurate impressions. You wouldn’t know from watching Mau Mau that H.G. Lewis, and not Friedman, directed Blood Feast. Instead the film often (unintentionally) creates false impressions about the extent of Friedman’s involvement in films he only produced or distributed (some he only brings up as examples of the genre). I would recommend listening instead to Friedman’s commentaries for his various DVD releases. All of the more pertinent info in this film is covered in greater detail in those entertaining commentaries. But one thing this film definitely demonstrates: Frank Hennenloter needs to make a documentary of his own some day. Dirty old men But lots of harm done. Yeccchhhhh. Defenders of First Amendment
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