Africanus Sexualis (1970) – Free Vintage Movies

Production year: 1970
Country : USA
Genre : Erotic
Duration: 00:58:29
Language: English

Directed by : Matt Cimber
Studio : Institute for Adult Education

Description : Black Is Beautiful is one of the lucrative explicit-sex films marketed alongside Scandinavian imports during a brief window when Supreme Court decisions (notably the Quiet Days in Clichy and I Am Curious (Yellow) cases) first opened the floodgates that now have led to hardcore porn’s dominant place in our culture. Cimber cashed in while the getting was good with a series of fake documentaries now classified as “white-coaters”, which within two years were driven out of the marketplace by porn films with a storyline. (Ironically, today’s internet-dominated XXX market has generally jettisoned story lines, coming back full circle to 1970 -level content.)

The audience is treated to a double insult by Matt here, as the “hip” host / narrator plus the opening credit crawl is disgustingly condescending to African-Americans (and Black Africans as well). Much is made of debunking the myth of the “black stud” and his threat to white women, but the film itself is largely a case of idiots purporting to be taking a “serious”, Margaret Mead-style approach to an American subculture. Some phony-baloney footage of people in a pretend-African hut plus stock footage is inserted in basically a replay of the sexual positions demonstrated in Cimber’s previous Man and Woman and He & She, only this time utilizing black performers.

The film technique here is crude and slapdash, with embarrassingly dull talking to the camera (often poorly framed) shots of the uncredited host, who could easily be lampooned by Saturday Night Live’s Tim Meadows in his patented smug routine of addressing the audience directly (see : The Ladies Man). The sex scenes are shot as filler in the manner of routine 1970 product, with some vaginal and penis closeups; closest thing to eroticism would be the man suckling at the woman’s ample breasts. Bilking the poor “adult movie” audience of those times out of their money without delivering the goods was de rigeur.

Cimber has a following, including Mr. Poor Taste himself, Tarantino, with his black exploitation films of the mid-1970s, but his cynicism and base motives are on full display here. Like the Troma Team, once a pornographer, always a pornographer.