Tales of Erotica
A series of erotic short films, all with similar unexpected endings.
Bob Rafelson
Ken Russell
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by Bob Rafelson
This remake of the 1946 movie of the same name accounts an affair between a seedy drifter and a seductive wife of a roadside cafe owner. This begins a chain of events that culminates in murder.
Jason Staebler lives on the Boardwalk and fronts for the local mob in Atlantic City. He is a dreamer who asks his brother David, a radio personality from Philadelphia, to help him build a paradise on a Pacific Island, which might be just another of his pie-in-the-sky schemes. Inevitably, complications begin to pile up.
A drop-out from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil-rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.
The attractive Davida enters a shop shortly before off-time and wants to buy a bathtub. Just the manager is still there. As business is not well, he is willing to stay longer. Davida wants to try the bathtubs. Although this is not allowed in the shop the manager agrees. As if that is not enough, Davida says she wants the bathtub for two and needs to be sure it fits her needs. She wants the manager to take place in the bathtub too.
A dishonest businessman asks rich layabout Craig Blake to help him buy a gym, which will be demolished for a development project in Alabama. But after spending time with weightlifter Joe Santo and gym worker Mary Tate Farnsworth, Craig wants out of the deal. The property negotiations turn ugly, causing a brawl at the gym and a spectacle at a big bodybuilding meet, as Craig learns that it's not easy to turn your back on fair-weather friends.
Veteran film director Matty Bonkers (Bob Rafelson), a Hollywood legend, arrives in Berlin for an honorary retrospective tribute. While introducing his film MOCKERY, he receives a phone call from his producer lying in intensive care at a hospital. Blau (Trevor Griffiths) needs a favor for old times' sake. Could Matty finish a porn movie before his legs get broken by Tokyo Tony? Matty reluctantly agrees. On the set he meets movie star and ex-cello-player Inga (Fabienne Babe) - and the experience is bizarre spirited uplifting a comédie humaine
While doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager, a police detective stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery.
Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.
The story of Captain Richard Francis Burton's and Lt. John Hanning Speke's expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victoria's British Empire. The film tells the story of their meeting, their friendship emerging amidst hardship, and then dissolving after their journey.
A man who has failed as a father and husband commits a heist to make money for his fledging business, but things become complicated when his wife interferes.
Also Directed by Ken Russell
Ken Russell revisits the life of Elgar, with musical background provided by the composer's works.
Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.
Rock star Roddy Usher's wife is murdered and Rod is sent to a lunatic asylum in this gothic-comedy-horror-musical.
A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.
Ken Russell's rather loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England around the time of the Boer War. At school, she is introduced to lovemaking by a bisexual physical education instructress. While experiencing disillusionment in her first career attempt (teaching), she has an affair with a young Army officer, who wants to marry her. Unable to accept a future of domesticity, she breaks with him, and eventually leaves home in search of her destiny.
Composer and pianist Franz Liszt attempts to overcome his hedonistic life-style while repeatedly being drawn back into it by the many women in his life and fellow composer Richard Wagner.
A partly dramatised account of the life of Sir Edward Elgar classical composer. Huw Wheldon narrates the life story over backdrops of beautiful mountain scenery, especially memorable is the image of young Elgar riding his horse around Malvern Hills.
A young girl (Amelia) is distressed and feeling guilty about losing the wings she was to wear in her school play. Then she notices an angel and follows the angel into a dark building. Upstairs in the attic, bathed in heavenly light, is an artist's model - the ANGEL. The painter ascends a ladder until he is out of shot - supposedly to heaven-and reappears to restore Amelia's joy with a pair of wings.