A swinging couple (Claudia Wilbur and Gerald Grant) seduces a straight-laced couple (Lynn Lowry and Casey Donovan). That's about it for plot, but the movie is fascinating. It was made long before AIDS (and, ironically, two of the actors later died of the disease) so there are no boundaries on what the couples will do and there's no moralizing on what is right or wrong. That's the great thing about the movie-it doesn't judge. I saw this years ago at a film festival and was just astonished. It's hard to explain WHY I liked it but I did. It dealt with sex roles, male and female sexuality, bisexuality in an uninhibited and fun way.

As for the sex...there's not much. I saw an uncut version and while somewhat explicit, it's tasteful. There's a man/woman coupling, and two long lesbian and gay sex scenes. In fact when this came out in 1973 it was a bomb. It was X but it wasn't explicit enough for the porno crowd or intelligent enough for the "intellectual" audience. Now it's being realized for how good it is.

It's beautifully shot in Yugoslavia, has great dialogue and all the acting is good. Also the cast is attractive and look great with their clothes off. It's available uncut on DVD (previous versions were edited) and well worth getting.

"The Score" is an amazing movie. I was expecting a pretty good saucy movie, but it easily breaks out of that envelope. It's the first Radley Metzger film I saw, but just from this single one I'd rate him as one of the great movie makers, and if the rest of his work is au pair, I'd say he is a genius. The dialogues are brilliant, and the same goes for the actors. They were all unknown to me but quality-wise they're A-list all the way, and can really show off their prowess on a very difficult subject matter. The women are very foxy too (I can't really judge the men in that department).

I'm saying all this even though I didn't really like the subject of the movie. I'm not gay or bi, and I don't find the whole swinging philosophy all that attractive, and the movie is really all about swinging and gay sex. But it's a great movie not despite but because of that, because it took me somewhere else. I would have expected a pornographer like Metzger to have thrown in more explicit scenes, which would certainly have pleased the audience, but he wanted to entertain us by telling a far-out story, in the land of leisure, bordering on insanity in the West and decadence in the East ...

This movie really surprised me and made me sit up open-mouthed. That's why I'm awarding it a solid ten points.

On a sad sidenote, Calvin Culver / Casey Donovan, who played the husband of the younger couple, died young, in 1987 from AIDS.

Plot Spoiler review.

The Blu-ray disc I watched was a restored copy of a film with the year 1976, apparently an edited version. Jack (Gerald Grant) and Elvira (Claire Wilbur) are swingers. She is bored by being able to easily score due to the Al Goldstein publication which lets them advertise. Elvira has been attempting to score with Betsy (Lynn Lowry) and Eddie (Casey Donovan). She likes the chase.

The couple swap didn't go as I would have liked as same sex couples paired up. The monologue comes across as a Creative Writing 101 project. I was not overly impressed, and in fact it brought a chuckle as I had to laugh at what passed for clever in 1970 something.

Guide Sex and full frontal nudity (M/F)