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French Blue -- The Full Story French Blue -- Ads and Reviews Classic LB "loops" added to French Blue DVD Sensations -- The Full Story Sensations -- Ads and Reviews Classic LB "loops" added to Sensations DVD |
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| Click on LB-Biography for info about LB's life adventures prior to the shooting of French Blue |
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LB met Brigitte Maier in Stockholm, Sweden in September 1973 when she was just 21 year of age and absolutely gorgeous. They had an immediate reciprocal attraction. Besides the physical aspect, Braun liked her naive charm and invited her to his headquarter in Breda, Holland. Inspired, LB decided that Maier had the right quality to star in his first full-length feature film. He had planned it for sometimes in order to show something sexually shocking at the Cannes Film Festival, despite rampant French censorship and aggressive police enforcement against pornography all over France. Distribution of sexually explicit 35mm movies in European theaters was still limited to a few small theaters in Denmark with no minimum box office guarantee. Germany was still under strict prohibition of any pornography. The American theatrical adult market was complicated because foreign porn products couldn't go through US custom and no American theater would showcase a smuggled movie. In the rest of the world there was no adult film distribution whatsoever. Since there was little or no chance to recoup the production costs, the budget had to be limited. In order to save money, LB decided to shot 30' minutes as a documentary, adding FIVE of his most humoristic LOOPS for about 40' minutes, plus a 4-minute cartoon produced by LB in the spring of 1973. Necessity worked wonders. |
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Shooting the documentary began in early November 1973. The idea was to shoot an LB "loop" with Brigitte Maier and have a cameraman shoot LB at work on the set. Braun designed a quite abstract, totally unconventional set and acted out his directorial role with deliberate pompous style in order to show his utter disregard for political correctness. The spoofing quality of the documentary was based upon a special task LB would attempt for the first time: having two erected cocks penetrating a gorgeous photo-model's anus at the same time. The chosen title was, of course, PENETRATION. By the end of March 1974, the flick was edited and ready to go. Meanwhile, LB organized the smuggling of 3 sets of 8 cans = 24 cans of 35mm. reels into France and convinced the owner of a large movie house in Cannes to screen Penetration during the Cannes Film Festival for a night or two without advertising, as a controversial premiere. A local guy would take responsibility against the police, while the theater owner would deny to know the exact content of the LB movie. |
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But when everything was ready for the smuggling from Holland to France and for the commando action in Cannes, an unexpected stroke of luck blessed the LB production. France President M. Pompidou, a right-wing conservative who hated any form of pornography, died on April 30th, 1974 -- just 8 days before the beginning of the Cannes Festival! Within a few days it became clear that the French Custom working with the official shipping agent in charge of receiving film cans for the Festival, didn't look any longer into possible violation of the censorship law if a small bribe was offered. Braun decided to ship one set of 8 film cans of Penetration through the official agent. Money changed hands and everything went well. |
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Although the film had been officially imported as a Festival item, it was unwise to make any ads. One of Braun's French fans, a man called Bob who knew almost every Festival goers, spread the news of the night showing of Penetration on every Café of the Croisette. The first show of Penetration was heralded by a full-house as a Triumph of the Sex Revolution! Two more full-house showings ensued on the following nights. People were in absolute shock. First, because they saw sex on the big screen for the first time, and second because the film was really shocking and subversive in itself. French police showed up at the beginning of the third night screening, but Bob convinced them it was only a spoof. In the confusion of the recent death of France President M. Pompidou and with all the people crowding the theater, police believed what Bob was saying. They actually got in the cinema to laugh and enjoy the movie with everyone else. Braun enjoyed the whole Cannes adventure on the phone from Holland. He couldn't go to France because in 1972 the Tribunal of Paris sentenced him to a one-year jail term without parole for production/distribution of "obscene" material and issued a warrant of arrest, which was now on file in every police station of the French Republic. As LB was battling censorship and promoting the Sex Revolution all over the world, he deemed more valuable to stay out of trouble whenever possible in order to carry on his all-important mission. |
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As a great, decisive reward, the mythical Greek Gods and Goddesses of Sex and Love who always guided and helped Braun throughout his world adventure on behalf of sexual liberation, sent a man called Daniel B. among the crowd at the Penetration showing in Cannes. The man was a highly cultivated Greek-American filmmaker who become enthusiastic with the cultural quality of Braun's (sex) movie. "Who else than a Greek could have ever been the first who appreciated all aspects of my first real movie?" said Braun in an interview. After calling LB on the phone and complimenting him for the success at Cannes, a daring Daniel took a train to Holland to meet the King of Porn in his own (famous) place. Within a month spent as Braun's guest in Breda, South of Holland, Daniel B. raised the money for the theatrical distribution of Penetration in the USA with some partners he had in a New York film company. Daniel paid to LB a minimum guarantee of $100,000 for the US theatrical distribution rights (no "loops" allowed) and devised with LB a strategy to import the 35mm inter-negative of the film into the US via Canada. |
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In New York, the brilliant Greek-American filmmaker realized that the title Penetration was good to shocking people in Cannes, but was too strong for puritan America. Inspired by the large use of French actors and by some typically "French" situations interspersed throughout the movie, Daniel B. thought all by himself of a new title, FRENCH BLUE. But before asking LB permission to change the title of the movie from Penetration to French Blue, Daniel devised the campaign (see yellow poster) and shipped it to LB in Holland. Braun loved it, and would be forever grateful to Daniel for his excellent ideas. Supported by Daniel's unrelenting enthusiasm, French Blue premiered in New York in the beginning of December 1974. The film did very well all over the USA and was charted in Variety 50 Top Grossing Films. (See Ads and Reviews.) Braun flew to NY in mid-December 1974 to congratulate his friend Daniel and do other businesses in the States (click on Sensations -- Complete History.) |
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After registering at the Hilton on 6th Avenue, LB took the elevator with an older baggage attendant. To LB's great surprise the man made the gesture of the girl fastening the scarf around LB's head, which opens French Blue, and winked with approval. Then he told LB that he loved the movie. Who could have ever believed that a simple, working citizen of NY, the greatest city in the world, would have already seen the flick and would welcome LB in that manner? That was really amazing. With Daniel and his charming Armenian wife, Braun went incognito to a public projection of French Blue at the comfortable, well-kept, 500-seat Lido West on Time Square. He was very pleased with the reaction of the crowd. Even though most people expected the usual porn/masturbatory event, everyone felt exhilarated by this movie, which showed such a defying yet humorous disregard for every conventional aspect of sex, porn, society and human condition. Meanwhile, since Brigitte Maier was quite legitimately advertised as "Penthouse Cover Girl", the Penthouse corp. initiated a lawsuit against the US distributor of French Blue. Guccione's people asked for immediate confiscation of the prints and huge damages but Daniel had a brilliant attorney, and Penthouse lost. (See Ads and Reviews.) |
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While all over Europe and America all adult movies were now forced by law in a ghetto of solely X-rated houses, LB agreed to show his new 1975 film "Sensations" in such cinemas, but kept French Blue for a superior adventure in the name of freedom and for the right of every theater to show whatever they wanted without any phony self-censorship such as the inquisitorial rating system of the USA, which virtually destroys creative liberty and keeps people enslaved to conventional ideologies and totalitarian regimes. In Holland, by 1975-1976, the press acknowledged that French Blue had become the top grossing film of any kind ever made by a Dutch production company. It was time for a new action. Having a large following in The Netherlands, LB contacted the owners of a "regular" multiplex cinema in the center of Amsterdam, called City Cinemas. He showed them French Blue and convinced them that the spoof quality of the flick could defy censorship -- a still open question in Holland at the time. In order to sweeten the deal, LB backed his convictions with an offer no Dutch person could ever refuse: LB would give his now-famous movie for exclusive showcase at the City theater at no cost for 3 weeks! After 3 weeks, if the City would keep showing French Blue, the City company would pay LB the equivalent of $10,000 a week. The theater owners agreed. The movie would be shown in the late spring (low movie season in Holland) and they told quite honestly to LB that the chance to show French Blue for more than a week or two were virtually nil. A week or two wasn't so bad, thought Braun who always gave priority to significance of his public message than to the monetary profit. LB obtained that a huge individual poster of French Blue had to be placed very visibly on the City building in Leidseplein -- arguably the largest and most popular square of Central Amsterdam -- and had them run a good ad and PR campaign. In exchange for this commitment, LB gave the City also the exclusive to show the film in their "regular" theater chain all over Holland at no cost for 3 weeks. |
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Upon LB request, the film premiered in the 360-seat City2 on June 6, 1976, which meant the 32nd anniversary of D-Day of Normandie, and the 7th anniversary of the first legalization of pornography in Denmark almost exactly to the date. (See Lasse Braun Biography for detail on LB involvement in the Danish fight for freedom.) This coincidence could have only been masterminded by no other than the Gods and Goddesses of Sex and Love who always intervened to help LB in all circumstances of his adventurous life. The proof? After 3 weeks of unrelenting success of French Blue at the City, huge popular demand and box office success compelled the owners to keep showcasing the amazing LB movie for many more weeks! Braun went a few times incognito to watch his movie at the City. He understood that the multiple layers of humor pervading the whole movie, and some slapstick-style moments, provoked irresistible laughter throughout the crowd of the packed cinema and made people happy. |
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That was really an experience for LB to hear and watch the humor-minded Dutch folks, releasing all inhibitions about sex, and feeling as if centuries of torturing sexual repression had been miraculously erased from their memories for at least the time they watched and enjoyed Braun's movie. In the fall of 1976, while French Blue was still showing at the City to enthusiastic crowds, the owners realized that the flick had become a cult movie. The box-office projections clearly indicated that French Blue was going to be shown all over Holland with tremendous success for the following 5 years (sic!) Consequently, they offered LB a 5-year contract for $200,000 a year to keep the exclusive theatrical rights for Holland of French Blue, and even offered LB the same deal on his latest movie, Sensations. But even before negotiations began, rumors of this epoch-turning deal reached The Netherlands Justice Minister, Christian-Democrat M. Van Acht. |
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Nasty letters of religious circles protesting against the movie and against the irreverent behavior of the crowds packing the City at every showing of French Blue, had already piled up at the Justice Department. The idea to swallow the huge success of such a revolutionary movie and see its big poster from every corner of Leidseplein during the upcoming Christmas season and for another 5 years, made all reactionary, totalitarian bastards sick, envious, jealous and intolerant. The millennial obsession of imposing "their" morality upon everyone else resurged with a vengeance! With a Nazi-style edict that LB could have expected in catholic Italy or puritan America but never in a country famous for centuries of tolerance and religious freedom such as Holland and Amsterdam in particular, Van Acht exhumed an old Fire Department law of 1880 and banned all "dangerous" movies from any Dutch theater with more than 49 seats for "fire-safety" reasons. |
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"Fire-safety" reasons Yes, you're reading exactly what happened and now you know how low can the bastards go to ban, forbid, proscribe and outlaw anything that has even a remote chance to reduce their bloody grip on the balls of mankind! No open, public discussions. Just pass a repressive law, call the police, put everyone in jail and possibly torture and burn every "heretic" on the stake like they did for centuries and will do again as soon as the public will fall prey of their relentless propaganda of "morality." That's the religious way, and that's the outrage. Let's take the time to vomit over such a disgrace! For LB the real surprise was however the acquiescence of the Amsterdam public and press. Evidently, Van Acht chose very cleverly the week before Christmas 1976 to deliver his treacherous blow. The Dutch people were busy. A couple of short, bottom-page articles were carried by some obscure newspapers here and there, but the whole matter was quickly strangled and buried by order of the groups who made the coup. They even paid a hefty sum to the theater owners for what the latter statistically lost because of the new law. Shadowy figures of the Dutch mafia applauded Van Acht for he gave them the great chance to keep "explicit sex" in the ghettos of the vulgar red-light districts they dominated like blood-sucking vampires. Showing bulks of undistinguishable sex-movies with no advertising, no premieres, no glamour, no reviews, no mystique in their sleazy small theaters with no disclosure of individual receipts and no box-office statements, had the sad result Braun expected. |
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The Golden Era of Pornography was over. Being banned from "regular" theaters and from any advertising beyond porn press, the quality of sex movies never rose above the poor, exploitative standard imposed with ease by the system over indoctrinated, culturally emasculated masses watching super-censored movies and TV programs imposed by police working for all reactionary/religious forces all over the world. In total, French Blue was shown at the City for 26 weeks -- 23 weeks more than the 3 weeks granted by LB for free. Anyone would have been vastly satisfied with the financial and cultural success, but Braun took it as a sign to move on to new ventures. In 1976, before the ban of the Justice Minister Van Acht, who was later to become Prime Minister of Holland, possibly as a reward for his idea to exclude sex from "regular" theaters, LB had the opportunity to make two more 35mm features in Holland and many more in other parts of the planet. Info about LB work after 1977 will be posted within a few months. |
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In the beginning of 1977, 18 months after organizing an unconventional yet very revealing scientific research on the human immune defenses, Braun received confirmation that a new bacteriological weapon of mass destruction was about to wipe out the sex revolution. The pendulum of progress had been sabotaged and was bound to swing back. The system was prepared to kill millions just to prevent public approval of real sex. Fundamentalist groups couldn't risk to see everyone abandon with disdain the organized religions dominating the western world. LB thought he had done enough with the movies and decided to leave Holland in the attempt to oppose the forthcoming mass-murder. He retired from the adult business he had virtually created from scratch, and went into hiding like the wandering exile he's always been from the beginning of his dangerous mission on behalf of the Gods and Goddesses of Sex and Love. |