Secrets of Sex
Secrets of Sex (1969, released 1970), also known as Bizarre, is a British film, directed by Antony Balch, an experimental filmmaker and frequent collaborator with William S. Burroughs. The film is narrated by an Egyptian mummy voiced by Valentine Dyall). Production. After directing the Burroughs-influenced shorts "Towers Open Fire" (1963) and "The Cut Ups" (1967), Balch approached producer Richard Gordon in 1968 to direct an anthology film running just over an hour and entitled "Multiplication". After the script was rewritten to bring the film up to feature length and the budget doubled (32,000 pounds) filming took  place over 14 weeks in 1969. Released in February 1970, it was a huge success in the UK, running for six months at the Jacey Cinema in Piccadilly Circus alone, during which time it recouped its entire production cost. The film remained in circulation in the UK throughout the 1970s, sometimes appearing in a half hour edited version that played on the second half of double-bills. Five writers are credited with the screenplay; several others, including Brion Gysin and Ian Cullen (writer of "Cruel Passion" (1977) and husband to Yvonne Quenet, who plays Mary-Claire in the film) also  claimed to have worked on the script Many of the actresses who appear nude in the film, such as Nicole Austin and Maria Frost, were topless models who had begun to get minor acting roles in British sex and horror films of the period. Frost, who plays Lindy Leigh in the film, was so horrified she'd been given a major role in the film that she reportedly told Balch “I’m a model, I can't act.” She had previously appeared in the two Harrison Marks shorts "Maria" and "Scouts Honour". The dinosaur sculptures that feature in the “Strange  Young Man” segment are the famous Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Commenting on the film in an unpublished 1975 interview, Balch claimed “this is a very uneven film, but three episodes and a single shot, are good. I liked the ones with the photographer, Elliot Stein, and the Lady in the Greenhouse. The episode of the monster baby is a bore, but the single shot of it, at the end is brilliant.” Censorship history. The film was substantially cut for the British cinema release in 1970, with censor John Trevelyan removing over nine minutes from the film, while reportedly muttering “nasty stuff ”. Heavily cut was the "Spanish horse/Female photographer" sequence, together with assorted orgy and lovemaking scenes, while shots of men in bed together in the "Bedroom Beauties of 1929" sequence were removed entirely. Writing in the Monthly Film Bulletin (March 1970) Jan Dawson remarked of the cuts: “paradoxically, the bowdlerized version of the film moves closer to pornography than the version from which its audience is being protected. …it's sad that censorship should function against its own long term purpose and re-enforce the man-in-the-mac’s sexual furtiveness by denying him the chance to view sex  irreverently.” The film was briefly released uncut in America under the name "Bizarre" by New Line Cinema, before being withdrawn and re-released in 1972 as "Tales of the Bizarre", a drastically re-edited version that deleted around 17 minutes from the film. The 1980 UK video release on the Iver Film Services label is uncut, as is the 2005 American DVD and the 2009 British DVD. DVD release. In 2005, the film was released as a special edition DVD by Synapse Films under its American title, "Bizarre". In January 2010, the film, under its original title, was finally released  on DVD in the UK by Odeon Entertainment, featuring new sleeve-notes by author Simon Sheridan.