This week we take you back to the decade of the 70’s and specifically the year 1977.A lot has taken place and changed over the last thirty eight years. So let’s take a look back at that year along with one of the true classics from porn’s golden age. If you were around back then, how much do you remember about 1977? Let’s start, as always, with what cost of living was back then.
The yearly average income for 1977 was $15,000 a year, the average cost of a new 3 bedroom house was $49,000 and if you rented, the average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment was $240. a month. When it came to cars, the average price for a brand new one was $3,700. But you could go high end and get a Cadillac DeVille for around $8,000 while the cost of a gallon of gas was now up to 65 cents. You could by a new stereo set for $250, women’s boots were in fashion and cost less than $20. Food wise a few prices then were Nabisco Oreos 89 cents, Florida oranges 10 for 99 cents, Van Camps Pork n’ Beans 4 cans for 89 cents and boneless chicken breasts $1.39 a lb. As for the news headlines Jimmy Carter is elected President. In July New York City suffers a blackout that will last more than 24 hours due to lightning strikes from thunderstorms. The Trans Alaskan pipeline opens and the Twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City are completed. The computer age begins as the first Apple II computers go on sale. The first commercial flight of the Concorde jet liner goes from London to New York and Voyager I and Voyager II are launched unmanned to explore the outer solar system.
In the world of entertainment some of the big hit films of 1977 included Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Rocky, Smokey and the Bandit, Saturday Night Fever and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In music the hit makers would include Stevie Wonder, The Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, The Eagles, Barbra Striesand and Wings. As for TV hits in 1977 among them were Hawaii Five-O, All In the Family, Happy Days, Barnaby Jones, Little House on the Prairie and The Rockford Files. In 1977 among the celebrities we lost were singer Elvis Presley, Actor/comedian Charlie Chaplin, actress Joan Crawford, comedian Groucho Marx, singer Bing Crosby and jazz pianist Erroll Garner.
In the porn world, big productions were still being done in New York but there was a shift starting towards the west coast. Some new advances in technology allow for some new cameras and shooting techniques to improve a films look. More new faces and stars begin to emerge on the porn scene. The year would also provide some excellent adult films including the one we look back at today, “Barbara Broadcast”.
Barbara Broadcast – Crescent Films – 1977 – Director – Radley Metzger – Cast – Annette Haven, C.J. Laing, Sharon Mitchell, Constance Money, Jamie Gillis, Bobby Astyr, Alan Marlowe and others.
When you come out with a great film like “The Opening of Misty Beethoven” that has everything and more that a porn film should have, what can you possibly do for a follow up? Leave it to Radley Metzger to find the answer with this gem of a film. It is totally different, humorous, fantasy, off the wall and works mainly because of the characters who make up the ensemble cast.
The story that Metzger weaves in this offering centers around a woman named Barbara Broadcast, who is modeled after former hooker Xaviera Hollander. She is a former hooker who has turned author and is exquisitely played by Annette Haven. She is met at a restaurant by reporter C.J. Laing who is there to do an in depth story about her life and what made her what she is today. It doesn’t take long for this serious interview to turn into a lot more. The reason is that in this particular upscale restaurant the menu isn’t one with a variety of food dishes, but one of sex instead. What begins to take place between customers and staff becomes very unnerving to Laing, but as she tries to do the interview, what is taking place gets Barbara’s mind and body working. We see the various sexual acts start to take place as they are ordered from the menu and carried out by the wait staff.
The sex scenes in this film leave nothing to the imagination and it is a different look from today. Women with real boobs, bush, a major absence of tattoos and not perfectly toned bodies. The sex that takes place in the restaurant has just about everything, blow jobs, facials, screwing in every position and a variety of combinations that take place throughout the film. Eventually our journalist, Laing, finds herself not being able to handle this interview the way she had hoped. Laing finds herself attracted to a waiter and they go off to the kitchen for one of the best scenes in the film. There is a lot of humor in the dialogue throughout, some of it actually adlibbed by the performers, but it all works very well in this different kind of restaurant.
The camera work is well done and gives some very good angles and visuals of the action that takes place. It is interesting to note that the film was shot in an actual one time very well known restaurant located in the Royal Manhattan Hotel in New York City. It was shut down and going on the auction block, so Metzger got the okay to use the location for his film. Because there is so much that goes on, the story tends to get lost at times. However, thanks to a very solid and professional cast, a good delivery of lines with quick humor and explosive sex in a real setting, this is a true porn classic in every way you could expect.
Like many of the classics, this has also been re mastered into a sharp, clear, vibrant film on DVD with many extras added. Radley Metzger was one of early porn’s top directors and “Barbara Broadcast” was another of his award winning and Hall of Fame films that has a well deserved place as a classic from porn’s golden age. In addition it is very interesting to note that this film can also boast that cast members Annette Haven, C.J. Laing, Sharon Mitchell, Constance Money and Jamie Gillis would all go on to win a number of awards in their careers and in addition are all enshrined in both the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame, as well as is the film itself. Needless to say, this is one porn classic that I very highly recommend looking for and enjoying with some of the great names of porn’s past.
Art Koch, National Features & DVD Editor, NightMoves Magazine and AAN
