Southern Comforts (1971) Reviews

• any excuse to get naked

  weinerm2000-05-02

  The early 70's saw a genre of film that involved rural America, country bumpkins, as it were. One of the best was Southern Comforts. These movies really exist as an excuse for the women to get naked, and get naked they do. There are 3 main girl characters who get stranded in the sticks when their car breaks down. See them skinny dip, see them rape the country bumpkin, see them strip in a barn and strut their stuff. One of the 3 women is Monica Gayle, and her fans will not be disappointed as she spends about 75% of the film nude. Another lead character, Judy Angel, would soon appear in hard core films.

• They take em off and off and off.....

  filmo702005-05-04

  As far as Southern skin flicks of the time go this one is average. Like the other ones produced by Harry "Nyquil" Novak, it often drags to a halt with lots of poorly shot sex/ nudity filler. In order to get naked you have to take off your clothes and this movie gives us the opportunity to watch every single piece of clothing as it comes off. It must hold a record in that regard. It is also clear that this movie was shot in a few days as the girls often looked confused or can be clearly seen looking up for guidance, no second takes here. On the plus side we do get the humorous John Tull, once again playing his trademark roll as "Junior", who gives us a few good laughs in the movie. Sadly, he is heavily underused and takes a distant second stage to the endless supply of fully naked girls. But I will say that Monica Gayle is one of the girls and that alone should be enough to recommend it to certain B movie fans. So in short, if you want to see lots of natural looking busty girls naked, or you like to watch the act of disrobing, or you want to see Monica Gayle nude, or just like to see John Tull as Junior then you can't go wrong. Others looking for a plot, acting or general movie competence should look for something else.

• Bethel Buckalew? I love that guy!!

  Tromafreak2010-11-09

  The legendary Bethel Buckalew, director of Country Cuzzins, Midnight Plowboy, and countless other Novak-produced, soft-core, corn-ball, hick-porn epics, brings us yet another reason to be eternally grateful to Something Weird Video, for all they've done for us who dig the B-entertainment. Southern Comforts is just an old fashion good time. That is, if you're partial to pointless, Drive-in Exploitation. I'm sorry, did I say pointless? A movie which can't go more than 5 minutes without showing full-frontal nudity obviously has a point. So, this time, a flesh-peddlin' con-artist, along with his best girls, are stranded in Hicksville. The gang set up shop in the barn of some old hayseed and his half-wit son, Junior (John Tull). What follows is a typically questionable story, involving plenty of dumb hicks, dumb chicks, not-so-well-thought-out humor, shine-drinkin, skinny-dippin', barnyard orgies, and other backwoods tomfoolery to entertain those of us who clearly have bad taste in cinema. As usual, the actual story almost seems to serve as the filler, as the "love scenes" make up about 2/3 of the run-time. An authentic backwoods charm is evident, despite the California shooting location. I don't know why they didn't just make these ridiculous little movies full-blown hardcore. That would have been pretty rad in my opinion, which is really the only gripe I could think of off the top of my head. Tobacco Roody is the only other one of these I've seen, and I can honestly say Southern Comforts is no better, or no worse. For some Hixploitation with a point, you might want to go for something like Herschell Gordon Lewis's This Stuff'll Kill Ya. Although, if soft-core is your thing, then I guess you've already found what you're looking for. 6/10

• An enjoyably lowbrow piece of early 70's Southern-fried soft-core smut

  Woodyanders2007-03-16

  Bethal Buckalew, who churned out such choice, often innocuous and brashly facetious country-themed 70's soft-core sizzlers as "The Dirty Mind of Young Sally," "Tobacco Roody," "Sassy Sue," and the uncharacteristically sadistic roughie "Below the Belt" for Harry Novak's unceasingly cut-rate schlock feature outfit Box Office International Pictures, rates as the poor man's Russ Meyer. Although Buckalew shares Meyer's penchant for broadly caricatured rustic settings and overdrawn hayseed stereotypes, as well as a similarly ribald'n'rowdy sense of rollicking redneck humor, Buckalew's invariably slapdash movies sorely lack the dazzling technical prowess and hopped-up vitality which makes Meyer's films such awe-inspiring treats. Still, it's the very crudeness and flagrant ineptitude of Buckalew's singularly stinky cinematic unskillfulness which gives his admittedly ham-fisted flicks a certain oddly endearing cruddy appeal. Think "Hee Haw" on Quaaludes with the asinine non sequitors intact, but the added attraction of comely naked down-home gals doing just what you think on a regular basis with hunky pea-brain yokel dudes and you'll have a good idea of what your average Buckalew romp is like. This typically shoddy and witless comedic corn-pone soft-core item is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. All the essential Buckalew ingredients are present and accounted for: static cinematography, a boozy'n'woozy country swing score that sounds like it was done by a severely inebriated third-rate bar band, lethargic pacing, flat acting, dreadful dialogue, dumbbell comic relief Buckalew regular John Tull reprising his unforgettably fatuous part from "Sassy Sue" as Junior, a stuttering, muscular, lobotomized lunk with a deviant sexual appetite for farm animals (yuck!); corny good ol' boy humor, nice-looking women frequently doffing their duds (the gratuitous skinny-dipping scene qualifies as a definite steamy highlight), extremely crass jokes about marijuana, bestiality and interracial coitus, and, of coarse, a jaw-dropping plenitude of assorted sleazy soft-core sex scenes. Oh yeah -- and there's the faintest wisp of a so-called story: A shifty con man and his three tantalizing hot tramp lady friend accomplices put on a beauty contest at a cranky old crackpot geezer's seedy rundown abode. The only thing missing is George "Buck" Flower, but the terrifically trashy trio of luscious female leads more than carry the day on their own: slinky'n'saucy flaxen-tressed sexploitation veteran Monica Gayle (the traitorous Patch in Jack Hill's fantastic "Switchblade Sisters"), petite'n'perky brunette cutie pie Wendy Winders, and tall, leggy drink of dirty blonde water Judy Angel all strut their scorching sexy stuff with marvelously gleeful and uninhibited abandon. As with any given Bethal Buckalew opus, viewers are best advised to put their brains on hold prior to watching this flick in all its delightfully dopey'n'draggy dunced-out glory.