Profoundly Erotic

Profoundly Erotic is a collection of essays on sex in film by Joe Bob Briggs. It starts from a simple claim: much of what people know about sexual behavior was picked up from the movies, where sex on the silver screen plays out with a polish real life rarely matches.

Briggs looks at the seminal films that shaped, and mirrored, America's shifting codes and attitudes about sex. The range runs from cult classics to Hollywood blockbusters. Ten main movies get full treatment. They include It Happened One Night (1938) and Lolita (1962), plus Belle de Jour (1967) and, from 1989, sex, lies, and videotape.

The screen figures along the way run from Rudolf Valentino and Mae West to Brigitte Bardot and Sharon Stone. Lurid stills and posters illustrate the pages. The tone is irreverent and playful, written by a cult-movie commentator with a reputation for off-kilter taste.

Sidebars titled "For Further Frisson" add capsule reviews of a hundred more films, so the book doubles as a viewing list. It follows Briggs's earlier collection Profoundly Disturbing, though it can be picked up on its own as a guide to the films that turn audiences on.