Luminous Procuress — Luminous Procuress ( Blu Ray)
From the early 1970s Luminous Procuress is an extremely heady, and at times decidedly flesh bound trip into fantasy fed hedonism, surreal and glittering gender blending, and psychedelic adventuring- all topped off with a spacy, to psych noise soundtrack. Here from Second Run is a new Blu Ray release of this visual audio trip- with a 2k & fully uncut print of the film, a few extras, and a glossy inlay booklet.
Released in the year 1971 Luminous Procuress, was made in and around the counterculture scene of San Francisco. It was the first feature-length film by Oakland Cal born Steven F. Arnold- who was a protégé of Salvador Dali, filmmaker, photographer, painter, illustrator, set/costume designer, and assemblage artist. Luminous Procuress is really a trip, in every sense/ meaning of the word- with a flowing, melding, and blurring structure- with its own odd language, and a very real feeling that anything can and will happen.
The film opens with two twenty-something men venturing into a large white house- they sit down on a sofa, before being called upstairs from the balcony by a candy flossed haired woman. When inside her lair, where she is surrounded by two oiled and small gold loin clothed men- she gestures towards a door- and so there, and our/ their trip begins. As the film unfolds, we have the men staring through shadows to the bizarre and surreally dressed circus-like performances on a conveyer stage. On curling and interlocking flesh sea of naked male and female bodies, through to glittery and grand stuttering and darting figures. We break off at a point to go outside into green parkland were brightly coloured fabric covered figures meet, jive, and dance. Before we’re back inside once more to black and white painted pharaohs, full-on & nearing hardcore sex encounters, weird and decadent feast with human table dressing, licking and caressing white painted faced nuns, and the circling worship of a clear masked faced person in dressed in green attire and bound to a throne.
The film's soundtrack moves from warming and glowing ambience, though to spacy and stretching synth scaping/ electronics, onto dizzying at times frightening psych-sound scaping- which at moments reaches all-out noise. Added to all this we have this strange language that all the characters speak- at first, I thought there was an issue with the dialogue track, as it seemed to be below the soundtrack & difficult to define, but the further you get through the more you realize this is deliberate, and when can clearly make out what is been said it’s a decidedly weird series of non-words/ sounds- which does sound connected to English, but lightly morphed and twisted.
The film runs at one hour and fourteen minutes mark- and while I did enjoy the trip I was taken on, I feel there could have been twenty or so minutes trimmed off, as I started to find myself become somewhat tired by the twisting and very trippy unfold. But that’s just me- and who knows it all might seem right to you. All in all, Luminous Procuress is truly an all-engulfing, mind-twisting, and at times puzzling visual audio trip- that could have only been birthed from the ’60s/ 70’s counterculture.
Moving onto this region free blu ray, and the new 2k print is wonderfully vivid and crisp, with an audio track that is well defined, at times fairly earth shacking in some of its rises- so a film more for a good TV set up, then earphone watching on a small screen set -up. On the extras front, we get two things on the disc- the first is a recent onscreen interview with producer Harry Tsvi Strauch- this runs nine and a half minutes. It finds Strauch talking about how he first met the film's director Steven F. Arnold, when he helped design the interior of Strauch's Haight Ashbury hippy Boutique. Moving on he talks about how the idea of an erotic art film came about, and how the cast came together. He mentions that singer/ songwriter Jackson Brown was on set and was going to be in the film, until he saw what crazy-ness was going on & backed out. As well as some general chat about the Haight Ashbury district, and LSD/ hippy culture. Next from 2018, we have film curator and author Steve Seid on the history and preservation of Luminous Procuress, giving a twenty-minute introduction to the film when it was shown at that time. He moves from talking about trying to get the film print from Strauch, and two years' worth of letters he wrote trying to get his trust. He discusses the film's structure and its themes. He talks about The Cockettes- the pansexual collective who appear throughout the film. He talks about the film's $15’000 budget, and how it was largely all filmed in an unused laundry. He mentions the film's odd spoken language, and how it was created by Warner Jepson- who also created the film's score. So, two most interesting extras.
As with all of Second Run releases, the blu ray comes with a glossy twenty-four-page inlay booklet. This features an essay by Steve Seid, new writing by film scholar/critic Elena Gorfinkel, film stills/ poster art, and of course full credits.
It certainly is great to see this total tripped out & gender blending psychedelic fantasy film getting the usual classy treatment from Second Run. Most definitely of interest to anyone who digs mind-altering visual audio fare, or those who have interested in stoned and surreal art/ erotic film art. As always if you can buy direct, and to do just that drop by here.