Russ Meyer's Lorna [Lorna]

California: Art Theatre Guild / Eve Productions, 1964. Original black-and-white program for the 1964 film, printed for the Art Theatre Guild. The Art Theatre Guild (ATG) began in 1961 as an independent agency distributing films (mostly Japanese) rejected by major studios. The company operated until the 1980s, with theaters in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, and Tennessee.

The first of Meyer's "noir" cycle (1964-1965), or "Gothic" period as Meyer puts it, a series of sexploitation films shot in black-and-white, powerful psycho-sexual female characters, male impotence, and a serious dramatic plot involving less of the "nudie" filmmaking style so prominent in the director's early films. Other films in his "Gothic" period include "Mudhoney" (1965), "Motorpsycho!" (1965), and the epic and legendary, "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! " (1965). "Fanny Hill" (1964) snuck in right after "Lorna," although that film is generally left out of the "Gothic" period.

"Lorna" was written by James Griffith, who stars as the Preacher narrator of the film, and stars Lorna Maitland as a voluptuous, sexually unfulfilled newlywed. Her husband, Jim (Rucker), works in a salt mine all day and studies all night, giving Lorna too much time to herself. One day, while Lorna skinny-dips in a nearby river, an escaped convict (Bradley) rapes her in the reeds. The vile act could otherwise have been exploited, perhaps comically, by Meyer, but here the scene acts as a catalyst for one repressed woman's sexual awakening. Lorna invites the convict into her home while her husband is gone, prompting Jim's coworkers (among them the underrated Hal Hopper) to tease him about Lorna's infidelity. Things take a bitter, fatal turn when Jim returns home to discover Lorna and her object of desire.

5.5 x 8.5 inches, folded once as issued. Two horizontal creases and faint foxing, else Near Fine.

[Book #139221]