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Erotic TalesErotic Tales

Erotic Tales

Cast

Hetty Baynes, Simon Shepherd

Team

Director
Ken Russell

Script
Ken Russell, Hetty Baynes

Director of Photography
Hong Manley

Editor
Xavier Russell

Sound
Dolby SR

Production Designer
Ron Allet, Less Allet

Creative Producer
Ronald Vasconcellos

Producer
Regina Ziegler

TV Editor
Ronald Gräbe, WDR

Info

Broadcaster
ARD,WDR, ARTE

Genre
Short Feature

Format
35mm; colour; 1:1,85

Length
28 min.

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch

1994

Background
Ken Russell, the enfant terrible of British erotic cinema, just happened to be in Cannes for the MIP-TV market in April 1993. And he just happened to see the one-minute video spots running daily at the stand where Regina Ziegler was promoting her new Erotic Tales series. The director of the scandalous Women In Love (1969), adapted from D.H. Lawrence, and the visually exciting The Devils (1971), his version of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, had just finished another Lawrence production: Lady Chatterly - so he simply offered his services. “I think I can have a script ready for you in a couple weeks. I’m directing a play in Bonn, so why don’t we meet again there?” In between rehearsals, over lunch at an Italian restaurant, Ken told Regina about the story of the breast pump…
The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch is an erotic tale cut from real life. Conceived by Hetty Baynes, Ken Russell’s actress wife, “it’s about sounds - rather what people think things sound like.” Take a breast pump for drawing milk, for instance - it sounds just like a vibrator! Now put the stray notion of a vibrator - running all the time behind a closed door in a hotel room - into the imagination of a fascinated pulp-fiction writer, and you have a male’s fantasy on the run: Just what kind of woman is this?!
A couple of months later, Russell was shooting on the picturesque Dorset coast at an exclusive hotel near Swanage, nearby an ancient relic that’s a tourist attraction. Hetty Baynes plays Mrs. Kirsch, Simon Shepherd the distraught, distracted writer. “Delightful kitsch!” wrote a critic. “A big tease!” enthused a festival-goer in Denver. Vintage Ken Russell.

Synopsis
The woman, in her thirties, stands gazing out to sea. The man, a rather studious type, lounges on the grass and finds the woman fascinating. The woman passes closely by without a glance in his direction. He follows her.
In the hotel dining room the man watches the woman nibbling a corn on the cob dripping with butter. A smile of satisfaction plays around the corner of her mouth. Before she has finished, "Mrs. Kirsch" is paged to come to reception. At least he knows her name.
At breakfast the following morning our man watches her toying with a sausage. The hotel porter approaches her with a bulky envelope. When she splits it open a dozen polaroids cascade across the table and she hurries with the picture from the restaurant. The man follows her to her room and listens at the door. He hears the distinct sound of a buzzing vibrator. He can't stop following her. He is always close behind wearing some pathetic disguise. Wherever he goes, he hears the vibrator sound in the distance. She devours cream cakes, goes to the cinema alone in the afternoon to watch "Sex, Lies and Videotape " A most intriguingly insatiable woman...
Back at the hotel that evening, he gathers courage to make contact and asks the waiter to deliver a bottle of e champagne and a note to her table. The waiter brings him a note from Mrs. Kirsch. She invites him for a drink in her room. She orders drinks from room service - our man dares to order a kirsch. But before the order arrives, she dashes off to the bathroom. That noise again! She returns, completely in control. Our man simply must act. He lunges for Mrs. Kirsch and confesses his obsession - he has heard the noise, the buzzing noise... Mrs. Kirsch reveals all...

Ken Russell - Director
Born in 1927 in Southampton, Ken Russell joined the NyNorsk as a dancer, then became an actor working with the Garrick Players. Freelance photographer for "Picture Post" among other periodicals. He began making films in the fifties then produced television work for the BBC(especially art programms and portraits of musicians). In 1963 he made his first feature. Russell's films are always a source of controversy for critics and public alike.

Statement by the Director:
"Erotism is in the eye (or the ear) of the beholder" Ken Russell
Filmography:
1998 Dogboys(TV)
1997 Ken Russell 'In Search of the English Folk Song'
1995 Alice in Russialand (TV)
1995 Classic Widows (TV)
1995 Mindbender
1993 The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch
1993 The Mystery of Doctor Martinu (TV)
1992 Lady Chatterley (TV)
1992 The Secret Life of Sir Arnold Bax (TV)
1991 Prisoner of Honor (TV)
1991 Whore
1990 The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (TV)
1990 Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (TV)
1989 A British Picture (TV)
1989 Il Mefistofele
1989 The Rainbow
1988 The Lair of the White Worm
1988 Salome's Last Dance
1987 Aria (segment "Turandot")
1986 Gothic
1986 Vaughan Williams
1984 Crimes of Passion
1983 The Planets (TV)
1980 Altered States
1978 Clouds of Glory: William and Dorothy (TV)
1978 Clouds of Glory: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (TV)
1977 Valentino
1975 Tommy
1975 Lisztomania
1974 Mahler
1972 Savage Messiah
1971 The Music Lovers
1971 Lovers
1971 The Boy Friend
1971 The Devils
1969 Women in Love
1968 Song of Summer(TV)
1967 Dante's Inferno (TV)
1967 Billion Dollar Brain
1966 Don't Shoot the Composer (TV)
1966 Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (TV)
1965 Always on Sunday (TV)
1964 Bartok (TV)
1964 Diary of a Nobody (TV)
1964 The Dotty World of James Lloyd (TV)
1964 Lonely Shore (TV)
1963 The Debussy Film (TV)
1963 French Dressing
1963 Watch the Birdie (TV)
1962 Elgar (TV)
1962 Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (TV)
1962 Mr. Chesher's Traction Engines (TV)
1962 Pop Goes the Easel (TV)
1962 Preservation Man (TV)
1961 Antonio Gaudi (TV)
1961 London Moods (TV)
1961 Old Battersea House (TV)
1961 Prokofiev
1960 Architecture of Entertainment (TV)
1960 Cranks at Work (TV)
1960 A House in Bayswater


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