Odd Triangle

Joseph Sarno – 1968 – USA

Various couples and trios make the sex for very long periods of time in this pre-porn-era skin flick by Joe Sarno. Like his rural contemporary Russ Meyer, the metropolitan Sarno wisely kept his audiences focused on and in sympathy with middle-class women and their quest for fulfillment, rather than with the lecherous, drooling men lurking in the corners. Odd Triangle and a few of Sarno’s late 60s movies also share Meyer’s commitment to production values, except trading Meyer’s Batman-like color palette for the crisp black-and-whiteness of Sweden. Inspired by the nudity in Bergman’s art films, many producers emulated the stark monochrome aesthetic of the dour Swede while wrapping stories completely around illicit sex. The film is not groundbreaking cinematically, but it’s interesting as a time-capsule from the early days of the sexual revolution as it began to spread into suburbia.