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The Playmates (1973)

The story is about Jane Kinsey who is making a documentary on swingers and is unable to find romance for herself. Throughout the movie, she presents different ways of “hooking up” which includes everything from the Renaissance to the various tactics of the 70s (which consist of bad pickup lines and girls hitting on guys).

After wandering around and studying various examples, she runs into Joe Strovack (who is a TV host). She ends up going on his show and falling for him. After some weird dreams, she finally gathers the courage to tell him how she feels. The movie has a good ending with them on a bed in a field with a great overall soundtrack (especially the last song “Peace is a flower”).

I happened to catch one of the last 35mm revival flicks of a soft cut at a local theater. It was funny seeing it on the big screen because while the color was faded, the 3D worked quite well. The weird thing about the DVD cut of this movie is that it contains more sex, but less dialog scenes and dirty jokes than the theatrical version (which makes no sense because the DVD cut is listed as an “Unrated Director’s Cut”.

Overall this movie is definitely worth checking out because of it’s rarity and cast of classic porn stars from L.A. in the 1970s. It’s a little weird because some scenes are in faded 3D and some are 2D (perhaps because of lack of budget). The reason I mention that is because I have an anaglyph (Red & Blue) 3D lens myself and I know it can be hard to setup 3D shots. If it is not setup properly, you get eye sores from the colors being shifted too far (plus, the effect won’t work).

Because this was shot on sound stages and various parts of LA without permits, they probably had to skip using the 3D lens in a few places (parks, alleys, etc). The other fun part of this movie is that it was shot when making porn was illegal in California in the 1970’s.