Surprisingly still without a review on IMDb, FANTASEX, I can only assume, owes its relative obscurity to rights owner Cecil Howard's decades-long moratorium on home video releases. With the film finally gussied up and available again on Blu-ray, now is the perfect time for viewers to acquaint (or reacquaint, as the case may be) themselves with this frothy Golden Age classic.
Generally described as a porn take-off on THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, FANTASEX follows shy copyeditor Bernard Lipshitz (Jeffrey Hurst), who toils away at a one-handed publishing company. Sick of his life and bored by his job, he frequently slips into reveries co-mingling his reading material with his personal desires. In addition to the requisite sex, however, there's also a healthy dollop (almost certainly born of Findlay) of surprising misanthropy, with fantasies featuring Lipshitz castrating his abusive boss with a saber, tossing his wheelchair-bound mother down the stairs, and violently raping the castigating office secretary (Jennifer Jordan) at knife-point. While the lyrical love scenes are what I remembered most from my first viewing, I was surprised to find such a nasty streak revisiting the film all these years later.
That being said, there's an earnestness at the movie's core that counterbalances this darker material. While walking in the park one day, Bernard literally bumps into a similarly meek coworker, Jane (Terri Hall), and the two - a bit too late in the film, it must be said - begin a fledgling, trepidatious courtship. Each too shy to express their feelings, they continue to retreat into fantasy, until one final, do-or-die moment in an elevator puts each character's introversion to the test.
(SPOILERS)
What really stayed with me all these years was the ending, a boldly melancholic note for a sex film to strike. As Bernard and Jane burble with repressed desire in the elevator, the audience is primed to expect the typical porno ending - a blurted confession of love and a final, tender sex scene to wrap things up. Not so in the land of Findlay and Howard. With each character too hopelessly inhibited to express themselves, they end up going their separate ways, with Jane turning back for just a moment, vainly, hoping to catch Bernard's eye. In a genre predicated on the fulfillment of fantasy, it's startling to see a film end on such a purposefully unsatisfying note, and the quiet boldness of this climax has always stuck with me. Fantasy may be all well and good, but in the end it dissipates like dust in the wind. Not so with FANTASEX - this is an erotic daydream that'll stay with you.
Generally described as a porn take-off on THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, FANTASEX follows shy copyeditor Bernard Lipshitz (Jeffrey Hurst), who toils away at a one-handed publishing company. Sick of his life and bored by his job, he frequently slips into reveries co-mingling his reading material with his personal desires. In addition to the requisite sex, however, there's also a healthy dollop (almost certainly born of Findlay) of surprising misanthropy, with fantasies featuring Lipshitz castrating his abusive boss with a saber, tossing his wheelchair-bound mother down the stairs, and violently raping the castigating office secretary (Jennifer Jordan) at knife-point. While the lyrical love scenes are what I remembered most from my first viewing, I was surprised to find such a nasty streak revisiting the film all these years later.
That being said, there's an earnestness at the movie's core that counterbalances this darker material. While walking in the park one day, Bernard literally bumps into a similarly meek coworker, Jane (Terri Hall), and the two - a bit too late in the film, it must be said - begin a fledgling, trepidatious courtship. Each too shy to express their feelings, they continue to retreat into fantasy, until one final, do-or-die moment in an elevator puts each character's introversion to the test.
(SPOILERS)
What really stayed with me all these years was the ending, a boldly melancholic note for a sex film to strike. As Bernard and Jane burble with repressed desire in the elevator, the audience is primed to expect the typical porno ending - a blurted confession of love and a final, tender sex scene to wrap things up. Not so in the land of Findlay and Howard. With each character too hopelessly inhibited to express themselves, they end up going their separate ways, with Jane turning back for just a moment, vainly, hoping to catch Bernard's eye. In a genre predicated on the fulfillment of fantasy, it's startling to see a film end on such a purposefully unsatisfying note, and the quiet boldness of this climax has always stuck with me. Fantasy may be all well and good, but in the end it dissipates like dust in the wind. Not so with FANTASEX - this is an erotic daydream that'll stay with you.