The Altar of Lust

The Altar of Lust (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Viveca (Erotica Lantern) is on the couch of her therapist who she tells about her stepfather raping her in Sweden. From here we see the various stories she's telling, which includes her move to America and her turn into lesbianism.

THE ALTAR OF LUST comes from director Roberta Findlay and was apparently the first movie she did without any assistance from her ex-husband Michael. If you're familiar with the type of "roughies" that the two were making in the 1960s then the style of this film will look familiar. This here was before DEEP THROAT changed everything to hardcore so you've basically got a cheap softcore picture that doesn't have too much to recommend in it.

The film was shot silent with dubbing used. Or, more accurately, narration used to tell us what we're basically looking at on the screen. This thing clocks in at 81-minutes and was a real chore to sit through as there's just nothing here that separates it from the countless other sexploitation pictures out there. It certainly helps that Lantern is so darn cute so seeing her run around naked throughout the movie is certainly the highlight. The biggest problem with the movie is that it simply drags. There's no real plot, just a bunch of simulated sex scenes and after a while they get quite boring.

Cited as her first solo movie, made without the collaboration of hubby Michael (who merely helps out in the narration as the voice of a shrink), THE ALTAR OF LUST is also interesting as a transitional film memorializing the switchover from softcore to hardcore in adult cinema.

Findlay was to make more softcore films in the future, notably her wonderful romantic melodrama THE CLAMDIGGER'S DAUGHTER and later a series of clumsy & ineffective horror movies, but by 1971 hardcore had already taken over the exhibition side of the business. Its victory was complete the following year with the release of DEEP THROAT.

A young girl Viveca, who flashbacks reveal was raped by her step dad, moves to New York with her boyfriend, a pre-mustache Harry Reems. He has another girl friend, Marie (a pretty Kelly Lynch-type) and eventually we are treated to a menage a trois by the principals.

With a party scene involving a sexy belly dancer as filler, film portrays fairly convincing dramatics, culminating in the heroine's shrink resorting to unorthodox therapy -balling his patient on the psychiatrist couch! In-joke has Michael Findlay as voice of the shrink making reflexive statements like "I make no moral judgments" in voice-over, and frequently pressing Viveca to reveal her possible incestuous thoughts.

Viveca is well played by an unknown actress, assigned the colorful pseudonym here of "Erotica Lantern". Maybe she'll show up in the new GREEN LANTERN movie, in 3-D! Supporting femmes Susie Mann, Arlena Blue and Laura Cannon all make an impressive visual impression.

The unusual aspect of THE ALTAR OF LUST is Findlay's stretching the softcore envelope. Besides the de rigeur split-beaver closeups, there are several scenes (signalled by footage in the trailer, which is attached to many Something Weird video releases) in which explicit finger penetration (of the vagina) is shown -that's virtual XXX territory. Superstar Reems' penis is on view quite a bit too, even shown erect in a shower scene.

These fleeting moments are hardly enough to satisfy a hardcore porn enthusiast, but they do put THE ALTAR OF LUST into a different category from traditional softcore.

The rather absurdly named Erotica Lantern stars as Viveca Hansen, an emotionally troubled blonde who recounts her sexual history to shrink Dr. Rogers (Fred J. Lincoln) in a bid to cure herself of lesbian tendencies. In a series of flashbacks, we see how Viveca was raped by her stepfather Hans (C. Davis Smith), found love with stud Don (Harry Reems), and experienced pleasure with Marie (Suzy Mann) and Linda (Laura Cannon). At the end of the film, having heard all of the juicy details of Viveca's love life, Dr. Rogers personally administers his special form of cure, making good use of his psychiatrist couch.

A grubby, low-budget slice of vintage filth from Roberta Findlay, Altar of Lust is a strange beast that uncomfortably straddles the soft-core/hardcore divide, making it hard to see who it will appeal to: it's far too raunchy for those looking for soft-core titillation, it's not quite explicit enough for those after some full-on hardcore action, and for those like me, who mistakenly expected it to be a horror film (I really should do my homework in future), it's extremely low on gore and scares! (ie., there isn't any).

Certain near the knuckle scenes suggest that the performers became very well acquainted with each other during filming, but a lack of revealing camera angles makes it unclear as to whether the sex is real or simulated (I suspect that there was a spot of both); either way, it's all extremely tedious, with endless dull scenes of Reems' hairy ass rising and falling between splayed legs. I imagine that even avid fans of 70s smut will find Altar of Lust hard to watch in one go.