Grading feature films from the Golden Age of Porn against a criteria that includes conventional critical standards proportionally reduced by budget, time, and circumstance is relatively easy, if one has a mind open enough to do it. Loops are a little bit of a tricker prospect. For the most part, they weren’t made to be poured over with a microscope in an attempt to detect a grand artistic statement. They were made quickly and they meant to be watched quickly. Loops don’t dally, and they were made for viewers who were looking to get straight to the point and don’t want a lot of pillow talk on either end of the action. More than any other kind of film performance, the action in loops is often explicitly and unsubtly played directly to the viewer, and the success of a loop depends greatly on the ability and talent of the performers cast in them. Performing in a loop is about looking good and selling a moving fantasy come to life in ten minutes or less. Loops are simply a pure hit to the libido and their appeal is purely that.
Given their historical importance and just how many stars subsidized their careers churning them out, loops definitely deserve a great deal of love and attention. Unfortunately, they’ve often been treated indifferently, tossed together on collections with little or no thought given to applying a spit and polish on them. True to their mantra of “Take Pride in Your Porn”, Ultra Flesh Archives has put their money with their mouth is with Wildheart: The Leslie Winston Collection, a miraculous celebration of form and content, and the first in a planned series featuring some of the Golden Age’s finest and brightest stars.
Not only does the set demonstrate the restoration wizardry of UFA honcho Mark Murray, it’s also such a loving showcase to Leslie Winston, the star at the center. Though she didn’t do a ton of high profile feature films, she was able to make an impression in her eye-popping scenes in such titles as Svetlana’s Bad Girls and Gary Graver’s Peeping Tom, where the only problem is that there simply isn’t enough screen time devoted to her. But Winston DID do a good deal of loop and magazine work and it therefore makes a great deal of sense that she was the subject of the first volume of the series.
Above everything else, Leslie Winston is such a great showcase artist who is perfect for the format. Not much for the dialogue that was expected in feature films, she’s mostly all action and is ready to party the second each film begins. A voluptuous stunner who radiates the warmth of her Southern California home base, Winston has full, sensuous lips that can wordlessly work with her eyes to create erotic pouts or visages of uninhibited passion. She’s a performer in every best sense of the word and is never not the focus point, regardless of whoever else is sharing the screen with her.
The main course of Wildheart are the fifteen loops that are included, totaling close to 140 minutes of action. Personally selected and painstakingly restored by Murray, what’s on display is a great sampler plate of Winston’s work that includes her 1980 hardcore debut with Randy West, some bondage, a lactation loop (a fetish that apparently became a smashing side-gig for Winston), and a host of other scenarios that include one-on-ones, lesbian antics, and every combination of ménage a trois. All considered, it’s a little bit of everything and the lion’s share of them were delightfully shot in actual apartments and homes so, if the viewer is of a certain vintage, the furniture, carpets, and decor you remember from your childhood are all important aspects to the mise-en-scene (the NFL curtains are a true memory enema as some neighbor kids had those; for the record, they were part of a bedroom set that included matching sheets and pillowcases).
The loops come with the option of watching them with two audio options. One is backed by the sound of a film projector which is at a rather soothing decibel level that could be described as hypnotically meditative, no small thing given the fact that this added flourish has sounded like an assaultive buzz saw on loop collections released by other outfits.
The other audio option is a wall-to-wall commentary with Leslie Winston. Specifically, it’s an epic conversation between Mark Murray and Winston. Given their friendship and his own journalistic instincts, this proves to be an invaluable, warm, and informative addition, and it definitely provides a reason to rewatch the collection of loops (if you needed one). During the chat, Murray lays out the mission behind the project, and the conversation itself covers Winston’s biography which is peppered with anecdotes including fetish work, Quaalude specifics, and O.J. Simpson’s bachelor party.
Aside from the loops, worth the price of the package by themselves, Wildheart is packed with a bevy of fun extras. Two Beauties and a Beast is an additional Winston loop that features a threesome that brings into full relief Winston’s perfect blend of irresistibly cute and devastatingly sexual, and also how she could dominate a scene with just sheer presence.
There is a three minute restoration video that gives the viewer a look at the work that went into bringing these to life by using moments from the loops in side-by-side comparisons of their Raw Scan, Restoration, and Final Versions. It also serves as a good remember that these cannot be remastered to the point where they look better than they did when they were purchased through the mail upon their release. And it’s also wise to keep in mind that the television you’re watching these on is going to be larger, and the technology that runs the display is going to be far more sophisticated and detail-oriented, than anything they were designed to be projected on. But the proof is in the pudding as each one of the loops looks absolutely amazing. None are washed out and the colors look vibrant. They aren’t smoothed down to look unnatural as Murray rightly kept some of the grit and a little bit of damage to ensure that the integrity of the loops remained intact. Put simply, this the gold standard for how these should be treated.
Next up is a photo gallery that runs for over five minutes that contains scans of the covers for the loops used in the collection (which is quite nifty), plus other photos chronicling Winston’s career in magazines, films, and photos up through the present day. It’s an image gallery to build dreams on as it is quite apparent that there is theoretically enough material out there that one hopes is in favorable enough condition that Ultra Flesh Archives could produce a second collection of Winston loops if they so desired. God knows we need them in these troubled times.
Also included is The Succulent Disco Sounds of Sex! – “A Wild Three-Way”. This seven minute romp is a super fun bonus as it is the recording included on a flexi-disc insert from the March 1979 issue of Velvet Talks! magazine. Very much a product of its day and may seem completely foreign to those today, but this was incredible stuff in 1979 when most people didn’t have the kind of discretionary income to own a VCR.
The package is rounded out with Big Night with Knight and All Nude, both of which run just over three minutes combined. These are very short subject, black and white nudie cheesecake films; inessential, but still a fun piece of contextual history.
I’d be tempted to keep Wildheart in the mini paper bag that housed the whole set if I didn’t think a row of these UFA Blu ray spines aren’t going to look absolutely sexy on a shelf one day. The sturdy slip that houses the regular Blu ray case is numbered, and the loose extras inside include a condom, some collector cards including one of Winston, and a terrific reproduction of a mail-in ad from a sex mag that includes a list and synopsis of all the loops in the set. Also included is a strip of the film that went through the scanner imbedded in flat card stock that’s covered in text explaining the history of 8mm and Super 8mm film types.
Loops don’t often get their fair shake, and neither does Leslie Winston, for that matter. We should all be very glad that this set is here to help right the course in both instances. Very well selected and lovingly transferred, each and every piece of Wildheart makes up a satisfying whole. Nothing drags out, and nothing feels extraneous. Winston is such an incredibly joyful and sensuous presence, and it covers her very well from enough angles and periods that this collection never feels like much-too-muchness. The restoration work is absolutely incredible, and the extras run from absolutely crucial to incredibly entertaining . To put the finest point possible on it, this is just one hell of a set and there are not superlatives that can be said for it.
Apollo Twin 