Seymour Block was a sharp dresser with a pencil-thin mustache and a constant smile. According to those who knew him, Block was nothing like his product. He was a devoted family man who was always ready to lend a hand to a friend or even a competitor in need. After working as a press agent for MGM during the 1950s, Block decided to strike out on his own, and in the fall of 1968, Seymour Block and Associates was established.
With an office located in downtown Philadelphia that sat above Abijah's Famous Couscous restaurant, Block distributed some of the most noxious fare to play theaters in the seventies. No comedies. No love stories. Nothing family friendly. He sold violence, death and sleaze like Charmin sells toilet paper or Hostess sells Cupcakes, Twinkies and Ding Dongs. Words such as rape, molest and degenerate were the cream filling and the icing on his nasty releases. And it worked, making Block a wealthy man.
Seymour Block and Associate's films never had happy endings. Unless one considers a murder-suicide a happy ending.
Seymour Block was an exploiter of the highest order. His company would release films that no one else would touch. His films centered on the dark side of the sexual experience, i.e. violence, rape, bondage and discipline, prostitution, white slavery . . . His films were not pretty but they caught on with the movie going public that prefers the down and dirty side of cinema and had long runs typically in major cities. His first release was SOME LIKE IT DIRTY (1966).
SOME LIKE IT DIRTY is a pseudo-documentary delving into the more unique, specialized and downright dirty forms of sex.
Things would get raunchier with 1968s THE LUSTFUL KIDNAPPER.
Filmed under the title THE NAUGHTY NABBER, THE LUSTFUL KIDNAPPER aka ALL YOU NEED IS LUST, featured a chubby, unkept weirdo who has an unhealthy fixation on a woman. He abducts her on her wedding day and tries to get her to marry him instead.
The kidnapper was played by Bert Collins, who appeared in one other exploitation film, THE FINAL CLIMAX (1968). Collins character, Alvin, sweats profusely, blubbers and stutters as he professes his love for his object of desire. Alvin coming off as more of a pathetic loser than a hostile threat.
The female lead, Belinda Anderson, does well as the scared bride to be. Anderson opened up and ran a roller rink after the movie wrapped.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: For my maiden release I wanted something that would grab people and bring them into the theater. I didn’t think that a run of the mill sexploitation film would do that. THE NAUGHTY NABBER was brought to me by a local filmmaker, Calvin Brubaker, who ran out of money and was looking for completion funds. I liked what I saw and offered to advance $2,000 for him to complete the film. We then entered into a distribution deal. I changed the title as I didn’t think that the original moniker was strong enough and sounded like a nudie cutie.
SUICIDE SEX (1968), reportedly based on true stories, that no one could ever confirm, follows those who get a sexual thrill of combining sex with suicide was coupled with SWEETS FOR THE PSYCHO (1967) which was another in the long line of crazed mommy’s boys going berserk films.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: SUICIDE SEX just fell into my lap. I paired it with a Texas based film called SWEETS FOR THE PSYCHO.
SWEETS FOR THE PSYCHO involves a quiet loner who works as a delivery driver for a bakery. He picks out his victims amongst the women that he makes deliveries to. SUICIDE SEX was the first time that a Block release was protested. It wouldn’t be the last time.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: I was shocked that anyone would take the time to protest one of these films. They were playing in these little run-down theaters for a few weeks then they’d disappear, only to be replaced by something similar. Who knows what will lead people to get a bug up their ass. I used to call this “Sweet Heat” as any type of publicity was in my favor.
The protests for SUICIDE SEX were minor, grabbing small column inches in a few newspapers, but no showings were lost.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: My wife was worried about the bad publicity, she asked me; “Are you going to tone it down for your next release?” I told her; “Of Course I am honey. I promise.”
So much for promises.
Next up for Block was CAN YOU TAME A WILD GIRL? and SVETLANA'S HOUSE OF SUBMISSION which made for a powerful combo of depravity featuring bondage and discipline, white slavery, mental and physical torture and all sorts of weirdness.
PLOT - CYTAWG: A man falls in love with a raving nymphomaniac. Following the sketchy relationship advice of a friend, the man keeps the nympho chained up in a basement and tries to change her ways.
PLOT - SHOS: Svetlana runs a brothel in the countryside that caters to men who have peculiar sexual proclivities.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: That combo was my first true blockbuster hit. Every theater owner wanted it and wanted it badly. It was a big hit in California, playing at the Pussycat Theaters chain. I made triple the amount of my normal print run, sent it out and watched the money roll in. When my wife saw our newly expanded bank statement, she forgave me for lying to her.
Block then coupled WHEN RAPE BECOMES LOVE with THE ODD SQUAD, which were two New York lensed black and white roughies.
WHEN RAPE BECOMES LOVE PLOT: While at her psychiatrist, a rape victim relates what lead to her falling in love with her attacker. A series of flashbacks is used to tell her story.
ODD SQUAD PLOT: Two recently divorced friends, a man and a woman, move in together, sharing an apartment and sexual partners.
Seymour Block would top this with . . .
EUROPEAN SEX REPORT: THE RAPE FILES, a West German production, allegedly features actual cases surrounding the act of rape.
Seymour Block & Associates purchased the North America rights to a series of West German sex films, FOUR TALES OF LOST VIRGINITY I, II, III and IV (1972-1976). Block edited the rougher stories together into a new film. Block, never one to be known for subtlety, concocted a new title, EUROPEAN SEX REPORT: THE RAPE FILES and a sleazy add campaign that would make a back street abortionist gasp.
Just when you thought that it couldn't get trashier. . .
The pinnacle, or nadir . . . or nadinnacle of Block’s releases is considered to be MY RETARDED LOVER. Its co-feature, SHE NEVER SINNED ON SUNDAYS, which centered around a church going nymphomaniac who goes through the entire congregation pew by pew, is sleazy, but is not in the same stratosphere as it’s co-feature.
HER LUST WAS HIGHER THAN HIS IQ!
screamed the advertising . . . and for once there was truth in advertising.
Contemporary reviews of the film were slightly scathing:
“A film that rewrites the definition of “Bad Taste."
“I can’t believe that this film was even made.”
“A movie without a speck of decency or humanity.”
“Gives mouth breathers a bad name.”
PLOT: A vindictive and conniving woman shacks up with a muscular, but retarded, stable boy as a lover and tries to convince him to kill her husband so she can inherit her husband’s vast wealth.
She confides in her friend, “He may be as dumb as a box of rocks, but he makes love like a keg of dynamite.”
To the surprise of no one, all of the actors and crew chose to hide behind aliases for this one, but some of the actors are recognizable. The lawyer who suspects the wife of no good was played by Martin “Martin” Reeves. Besides having a nickname that was exactly the same as his given name, Reeves appeared in WANTON ON DELIVERY (1966), CONFESSIONS OF AN ALLEY TRAMP (1967) and Cavity #3 in a long running toothpaste commercial.
Penny Anderson who plays the best friend of the wife was the lead in both LAY IT ON ME (1967) and SWEET AWAKENINGS (1968).
The film caused a stir wherever it was played. . . But that was not enough for Block. In Philadelphia, Block hired a group of mentally deficient people from a group home, provided them with ready-made pickets, and sent them out on a cold, grey day to protest in front of the theater.
Two supervisors from the group home were fired for accepting money to allow their charges to be hired for the phony protest. The stunt worked of course and was major news in the city of brotherly love. Block made sure that it made it to both news wires, both AP and UPI ran with the story. A third, short lived, news wire service, American Press Service, APS, was initiated just because of the stunt.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: The theater was turning people away at one point, so they squeezed in two more showings and grinded all night.
CAGED INNOCENTS Aka. INNOCENTS IN CAGES was his next release.
“YOUNG GIRLS SNATCHED UP! SHACKLED! CAGED! And ABUSED!
“THE WHITE SLAVERY RACKET EXPOSED!”
PLOT: The copy line says it all. A leather clad, whip wielding woman takes out her hatred on young women. She keeps them in a dungeon and breaks them down with physical and mental abuse until they submit to her ways. She then auctions them off to the highest bidder.
Seymour knew what his audiences wanted, and he always knew from under which rock to look for new product. CAGED INNOCENTS is no different.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: CAGED INNOCENTS was brought to me by my German connection, Milton Arcos, who had been peddling Continental sleaze films since the dawn of Continental sleaze films.
Block took the last step down into the cinematic cesspool with his 1973 release BEASTIAL LOVERS.
Featuring women who have shunned human sexual partners completely and are now lovers of animals exclusively. Hard to believe now, but BEASTIAL LOVERS played in some major theaters at the time of release. At first, Block tried to sell the film as an art house exhibit, but soon the film was only playing in inner city flea pits and making money hand over hoof. Not surprisingly, no one takes any credit for the film which was reported to be filmed somewhere in South America . . . where film stock and livestock were cheap. You would have never seen Dale Evans and Buttermilk indulge in such nefarious activities. . . Well, maybe after a few drinks.
One of the featured women and her lover went on to have a career after the film was released.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: I received a letter from a film distributor somewhere in South America, he told me that he had very adult, exploitative product to sell. I was wary at first, but he sounded legit, and he was willing to make a good deal. He shipped the trailers to me in Philadelphia; I believe that there were around a dozen. My jaw dropped to the floor as I watched, as each was scuzzier than the one before. For the first time in my career, I had to say no to films because I thought that they were too crazy. I made a deal to buy the North American rights to just one of the films.
SEYMOUR BLOCK: I retitled it LOVE ON THE PLANET OF THE PRIMATES and sent it out to a few theaters in Florida. It was a bomb in Miami and Tallahassee, but did big business in Tampa and St. Petersburg, which gave me hope. As a side note, my films always, without exception, played well in the Bay area . . . They must have had a ton of sickies down there. Future playdates were scant. A few in Georgia and the Carolinas and lastly in Louisiana before the plug was pulled.
The film did get an odd fifteen minutes of fame when Former Miss Oklahoma and anti-gay spokesperson Anita Bryant found a new cause to crusade against when she saw the films playing in her local theater.
Block new the end of his type of releases was coming to an end. He retired from the film business and passed away in 1999.
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