Essential Classic Porn: ‘Pretty Peaches’ (1978)

What makes a classic a classic? The fact that it never goes out of style. If you’re a serious hardcore fan, you’ll want these movies in your collection, whether on VOD or DVD. In “Essential Classic Porn,” we look back at some of the most memorable classic porn videos of all time.

Background

1978. Jimmy Carter was president. The Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl. The first test-tube baby was born. Superman and Grease made box office cash registers jingle. And in the adult cinemas of the world, Pretty Peaches was the ripe and ready choice for porn fans. It was the latest from Alex deRenzy, who also helmed several other ’70s faves before rebranding himself in the 1990s as Rex Borsky. Highly popular upon initial release, the movie continued to be a favorite for double bills and revivals in adult cinemas for decades to come. It was also among the first movies to receive a release on the earliest home video formats, courtesy Astronics Tele-Cine.

Story

Pretty Peaches tells the story of a woman (Peaches, played by Desiree Cousteau in her breakthrough role) who crashes her jeep and loses all memory of her past (including the wedding of her father, which she’d just fled). Two young men find her unconscious body by the road and decide to take her in. (Joey Silvera, later to become known to contemporary fans for his many directorial efforts, plays one of the captors.) The innocent, trusting Peaches merrily goes along with them, not knowing that their intentions are less than pure. She ends up blundering her way into a series of sexual mishaps that blur the line between madcap comedy and ’70s-style exploitation. The story is essentially a modernized variation on Voltaire’s famous satire Candide, which also followed the misfortunes of a plucky hero as the world visited disaster after disaster upon him. 

Restored & Uncut

Pretty Peaches was shot on 35mm film and has been restored in full 2K for its current release (a substantial upgrade from the prior DVD incarnation, which was sourced from VHS rather than original film elements).

Many releases of the movie cut the notorious doctor scene. The Vinegar Syndrome release has been drawn from elements that restore the movie to its full running time, playing exactly as it did in porn theaters in 1978.

Trivia

• Juliet Anderson, later to gain fame as Aunt Peg, made her movie debut in Pretty Peaches.
• Pretty Peaches was the first porn movie director Chi Chi LaRue ever watched. “I distinctly remember sneaking into one of those theaters at age 16 to see Alex deRenzy’s Pretty Peaches,” she told XBIZ in 2009, “and I instantly became addicted. Porn became an obsession for me. I just wanted to be in the public eye.” The movie is also a favorite of AVN co-founder Paul Fishbein, who reported seeing the movie as part of a double bill in Philadelphia during his youth.
• Cousteau won a 1979 Best Actress Adult Film Association of America honor for her performance. (AFAA, since merged into the organization that became the Free Speech Coalition, gave out the most prestigious industry awards of the day. The now better-known AVN Awards did not kick off until 1984.) 

Observations

Peaches plays with ideas of consent and family roleplay in ways that no modern porn movie would dare do, but it does so with a (mostly) humorous tone. Costeau approaches her role with a dim-bulb, aw-shucks demeanor that some critics have compared to the comedic timing of Lucille Ball. (Another reviewer characterized her as the “Betty Boop of porn,” in a visual comparison that hits close to the mark.) Pretty Peaches was released in the era when porn movies were still primarily consumed in porn theaters, so it had to succeed as a full-fledged movie as well as a work of pure titillation. It functions in both ways, although retrospective reviews often point out that director deRenzy seems more interested story and style than he is at creating sex.

Follow-ups

Sequels Pretty Peaches 2 (1987) and Pretty Peaches 3 (1989) were also both directed by Alex deRenzy, though neither connected to the original movie except in general premise and did not continue the story of Pretty Peaches‘ hapless protagonist. Both are available in restored form on VOD.

Further reading

The Rialto Report tracks down some of the original Pretty Peaches shooting locations in this retrospective from 2015.

 

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