Crazy Nights — Crazy Nights( Blu Ray)
From prolific euro trash director Joe D'Amato, Crazy Nights was a late 70’s Mondo film, which focused on the fleshier & sleazed side of things, with a very pronounced disco/ 70’s kitschy edge. The film largely focuses on the more softcore side of things, but here and there we have examples of the stronger stuff- with at points some quite nasty moments. Here from the folks at Full Moon Features is a region free Blu Ray release of the film.
Released in the year 1978 Crazy Nights- aka Mondo Erotica, Follow Me was an Italian production, and it follows the normal tropes and flow of your typical Mondo film, though with of course some very campy 70 touches firmly in place. The film finds French singer, songwriter, and disco queen Amanda Lear curating the whole thing, and between the clips, she performers a few of her own tracks, as well as introducing what’s coming up next, either in the discothèque or in the rooms/ land of opulent properties.
The film runs just over the one hour and forty-minute mark, and as you’d expect with a Mondo- it’s a mixed bag of clips, be they real or created for the film. After an around nine-minute preamble/ performance of Ms Lear’s (apparent) disco hit "Follow Me", we go first to Las Vegas. Here we find a group of suited men in a small club, on the stage is a topless woman in a crude paper bunny hat- she has a string tied around her neck, and each member of the audience has a piece of string which may be attached to her. She starts dancing and they start pulling- with at first other easter/ bunny related items on stage rising. Then one guy gets the one connected to her neck, he rushes up on stage- she goes behind a green stage wall- with him dropping his pants to go at it a glory hole, to get a nasty surprise- this first section is amusing if just tamely titillating. As we move on, we go to Tokyo- finding a male & female couple biting bits of paper off each other, before they start making it away with each other. We have a selection of different striptease sets, some quirky/ others less so- including an African dance two-piece, French couple dancing/ stripping to light classical music, and a leopard printed tasselled covered stripper from Brazil. Around midway things turn more extreme/ weird, as we find a reporter going to a castle near Berlin to check out a private S & M club- peering into different rooms- we see a naked man tied to a throne- he gets whipped, then cut with a knife by a woman- before having lemon squeezed into the wounds before she goes down on him. In another room, an elderly man is whipped on a table, before off-screen his bits are nailed into. With this part of the film been finished off with two mock necrophilia encounters- first up a woman in bride gets up, then an old playing dead man is straddled. Next, still staying in the hardcore gear- we see two adult stars being interviewed in their home fully dressed, as on-screen behind them is footage of the pair having oral sex.
After this things calm down to the more playful/ softcore again- as we go to Marseille, to see a short in stature magician pulling various things from his assistants' lady bits- first a string of banners, a wig, a fake snake, and even a full French flag. In Stockholm, we find a cloaked woman whose nude underneath levitating things on stage- first vases, candelabras, and stage props, then a man in the audience's toupee- before inviting a selection of men on stage to drop their pants, then she gets an instant rise from the men. Towards the end, we have two female strippers dressed as 18th-century lord & lady, who throw all off- to get down and dirty. With the film leading out with credits of Lear trying on various glamorous wigs as the credits roll.
On the whole Crazy Nights is an entertaining enough Mondo film- sure it would have been nice to have more shocking/ extreme stuff, but what we do get on that side is quite unexpected and fairly nastily sleazed. Lear is passable enough as the host, with some great camping it up moments along the way. With, of course, the whole thing is wrapped in a 70’s kitschy-ness, which is amusing, though at times a little overwhelming if your patience for euro disco is not great.
This new Blu Ray is region free, and like most of Full Moon releases it’s a pair bones affair- with the only extras being a trailer reel. The print here looks largely good and bold, with the whole campiness really enhanced.
So, if you're either a Mondo film fan, or enjoy 70’s campiness edged sleaze this will be something you’ll be wanting to dig into. Let us hope Full Moon have more slices of lesser-known euro sleaze lined up for release this year, as while their release are sparse on the extra side, they always select quirky and strange titles to reissue.