Cult 70s Porno Director: Zachary Strong Review

Distributor: Alpha Blue Archives Edition Details: Standard DVD Release Specs: Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1

Alpha Blue Archives has included one film directed by Zachary Strong, More Ways Than One, on their Zachary Strong collection and have included two films by Jerry Abrams, both that were written by and star Strong, The Analyst and Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak, on this release. Strong will never be considered one of the better directors from the golden age of adult films, however, he was an early pioneer of the anal sex film. This release isn't the release to get if you are looking for something that showcases the best of what Strong made over his time in the adult film industry. The Analyst is an abysmal failure of a film and More Ways Than One isn't much better. Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak, despite the film's shortcomings, is the only film on the release worth watching.

The image quality on all three features is rather poor, as is the audio quality, so even if all three films on the release are ones that you do like, this is not a release you will want for your home library. The only extra on the release is a low-quality trailer for The Analyst. You can jump to the review of The Analyst, Confessions of a Peanut Butter Freak, or More Ways Than One or just keep reading to read them all.

The Analyst is one of the first anally themed adult feature films to have been released, although some may balk at calling The Analyst a feature film. Jerry Abrams directed and prolific one-day wonder filmmaker Zachary Strong wrote The Analyst, despite the fact that Zachary Strong somtimes claims he was also the director.

In The Analyst, Preston Gartley (Paul Scharf) keeps trying to force his wife Anita (Candida Royalle) to have anal sex with him. Anita is scared of anal sex hurting and refuses, which erupts in some nasty fights. After talking with her friend Pamela (Jocelyn Martene), Anita goes to see therapists Dr. Morley (Tyler Reynolds) and Dr. Alberta Michaelson (Angela Tufts) to find out if they can help her.

About the only reason to see The Analyst is Candida Royalle. The Analyst was obviously very cheaply made and although it does have some content that was actually filmed just for the film, much of the content here are old loops that are shown to Anita in the therapist's office. There is no real attempt to tie them into the film and the viewer can easily feel ripped off by this.

The sex scenes are okay. All of them, obviously from the film's title, have an emphasis on anal sex. The origin of the loops used is unknown but I suspect most, if not all of them, were originally made by Abrams, and possibly Strong as well, before they started making feature films. The loops themselves are silent and presented with music and projector sound only. The sex scenes shot for the film have dialog and sound.

There are some jokes presented in the film but they all seem to just fall flat. And there are others that I suspect were supposed to be jokes of some sort but never really materialize. For instance, the therapists are Dr. Morley and Dr. Alberta Michaelson, which is an obvious — or maybe not so obvious — reference to Dr. Edward Morley and Dr. Albert Michelson, who conducted the famed Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887. How this is supposed to end up being a joke I am not sure since the Michelson-Morley experiment had nothing to do with sex at all. But obviously Strong was trying to do something with it. Reynolds sports some huge sideburns with a major ponytail, which makes him look rather ridiculous. Why this was done is also completely unknown, as it doesn't even make him resemble Edward Morley, but it certainly detracts from the film.

The sets aren't very marvelous either. The main sets appear to be someone's small living room and someone's bedroom. Both come across as cramped, likely because the rooms used were in actuality very small. Neither worked overly well for filming as the shooting appears cramped as well, which limits what the camera can do.

The Analyst isn't an overly great film, most of the content is recycled loops with only a little new material shot for the film. The film stars Candida Royalle, but she has appeared in far better films so The Analyst is a hard sell, even for die-hard fans of Royalle. The plot is almost non-existent. Abrams never really made an amazing film but this one isn't even in his higher echelon.

Alpha Blue Archives has done a poor job with their release of The Analyst. The Analyst was shot on film and Alpha Blue Archives has clearly used a video source for this release. The Analyst is presented in the academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 in 480i. The image looks very low definition, likely indicating that the master was a VHS tape and that the image is actually in 250i. The image contains glitches in the video and print damage. The very beginning and the very end of the film appear to be missing. Colors are oversaturated. There is an ABA bug on the right side of the screen, part way up, that comes and goes during the film. There isn't much to like as far as the video goes for this release.

The Analyst is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural audio track. The audio is in poor shape with a low volume throughout the presentation. The audio contains dirt, damage, hiss, crackles, and pops throughout. The dialog is usually discernible during the film but the audio isn't very good quality.

The only extra that Alpha Blue Archives has included on the release is for The Analyst. The theatrical trailer, sourced from a very low-quality beaten up video, is included on the release.

Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak is one of those adult films that could have been great, or could have been horrible, but ends up just being fair to middling. Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak is an oddity within the adult world as far as the plot fetish is concerned. Zachary Strong has stated that Jerry Abrams originally came up with the concept for the film because Strong enjoyed peanut butter and that Strong himself wrote the film. Billy (Strong) is afraid of girls. After a failed sexual encounter with Brenda (Kandi Johnson), Billy is brought by gas attendant Priscilla (Helen Madigan) to her place where he tells her the tale of how his Aunt Opel (Jacque Hanson) took his virginity and ended up giving him a sexual fetish for peanut butter and other humiliating sexual tales from his past.

Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak, as one can discern from the description, is a strange film that turns to various types of incest for several of the sex scenes and certainly doesn't follow any formula for that time, or any other time for that matter. The story, despite all the weirdness, is an enjoyable one and is truly unique. The characters are interesting and the story never ends up getting boring. The story is also genuinely amusing as well. The humorous situations in the film are well-done and aren't just recycled from other films.

Where the film falls apart is the amateurish production values that it exhibits. The film suffers from some rather poor editing. There is also issues with how the film was shot. For instance, the opening sex scene with Billy and Brenda is poorly shot and choreographed. The sets were clearly either hastily assembled or locations were hastily changed for the production. For instance, Bill's cousin René's (Karen Reed) room wasn't painted very well at all. The issues don't end unfortunately with the production values as other poor choices were made when making the film that bring it down. For some reason, Billy's “friend” Jeff (John Holmes) spends the entire film speaking with a horrifically fake Scottish accent. The accent, even had it been well-done, doesn't even fit the character at all. As to who's genius idea this was and how no one saw during filming that this was one of the worst possible ideas is unclear.

Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak takes a good story and mixes it with some horrible production and creative choices and takes what could have been a great film and drops it squarely down to just okay. Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak is definitely worth a watch but likely isn't worth adding as a permanent addition to your classic collection.

Alpha Blue Archives has done a poor job with their release of Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak. Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak was shot on film and the master that Alpha Blue Archives used for this collection was clearly a video tape. Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak is presented in the academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 in 480i. The image contains glitches in the video, some rather horrific, artifacts, and print damage. The image is clearly low definition and not in 480i. Colors are poor. The original titling appears to have been removed and replaced with a new shot on video titling. It appears as if the same master that was used for the Gourmet Video Collection version was used for this version as well. Overall, the image quality is very poor and unacceptable.

Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural audio track. The audio isn't in great shape. The audio has a constant hiss throughout the movie and there are frequent pops. There is also loud distortion in the audio in places. The dialog can be heard throughout the film, however, the listening experience isn't a very pleasant one.

More Ways Than One is the worst kind of adult film to come out of adult feature films, the loop carrier. There are some loop carriers that actually manage to pull off being a feature film, where some work goes into selecting loops that fit with the material shot for the loop carrier, and the loops used look like each other, but these are few and far between. More Ways Than One is not the kind of loop carrier that works as a feature film. In fact, More Ways Than One appears to have had no effort real effort put into sewing the two loops used together.

Zachary Strong, the director, has stated that there was some filler material shot for this film. Other than a little footage in the middle of the film, which lasts for about a minute and doesn't add anything, there isn't anything present that looks like it was shot for this film. As for whether it was edited out of this release or whether it is that pointless minute with Strong and his wife-at-the-time Molly Seagrim in the middle I am not clear on but it certainly doesn't look like any new footage was shot for More Ways Than One.

More Ways Than One consists of two loops; one with Strong, Linda Loveall, and an unknown male and one with Strong, Seagrim, and an unknown female that have been tied together as a “feature film.” There is no attempt at any sort of coherent story that runs through the film nor is there any attempt at all at even the hint of a story. There is a new voice over narration with a male and a female that has been added to the two loops. The voice over narration was obviously quickly done and may not have even been scripted since the female voice is heard saying, “That's the end?” at the end of the first loop. This audio flub remaining just shows the lack of attention that went into making More Ways Than One.

The first scene has Strong and another male, who is only called Dumb-Dumb in the narration, having sex with Carla (Linda Loveall), who teaches Strong that there are more ways than one to have sex. The sex scene isn't bad. Loveall looks good and has great energy in the scene. However, the mind-numbing narration takes away from the sexual action in the scene. The second scene has Diane (Molly Seagrim), who is pleasured by a girl and then Strong joins in on the action. This scene isn't as good as the first one and is again plagued by the unending mental attack that is called the narration.

Overall, More Ways Than One has to be chalked up as an abysmal failure.

Alpha Blue Archives has done a poor job with their release of More Ways Than One. More Ways Than One was shot on film but clearly, Alpha Blue Archives has clearly utilized a video master, which appears to have been an old VHS tape. More Ways Than One is presented in the academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 in 480i, or possibly 250i if the master was a VHS tape. The transfer has glitches in the video, dirt, and print damage present. The loops appear to either have been shot in sepia or were converted into sepia for More Ways Than One. However, in this release, the sepia look has been lost and the beginning of the film is dark red and the rest of the film comes across as a peach color. This release has poor image quality that Alpha Blue Archives should be ashamed of.

More Ways Than One is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural audio track. As bad as the video quality is, it doesn't even come close to how bad the audio quality is. The audio contains heavy distortion throughout the film making it hard, to sometimes near impossible, to understand the dialog or the film itself. The audio presented here is beyond unacceptable.

If Alpha Blue Archives had put three of Zachary Strong's stronger efforts on this release with a quality image and audio, this multiple film set might be worth picking up. However, one of Strong's worst films (More Ways Than One) and one of Jerry Abrams' worst films (The Analyst) are included on this release along with a decent film from Jerry Abrams (Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak). Alpha Blue Archives has used some rather abysmal masters for this release so as a result none of the films are overly fun to watch, even if you do like all three films. As a result, there is no real need to acquire this release.

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