It still sort of amazes us how many American porn movies made it all the way to Japan. Since pubic hair was illegal to show there back then, as was, needless to say, penetrative sex, the films would have been censored to local standards, making them a bit like cable softcore, but highly disjointed and very short. Yet the public must have craved these hacked up movies anyway because we have scores of Japanese posters for them. We hope to get around to sharing the entire group one day, but today we’re focused on just this one—a promo for 1975’s Beach Blanket Bango. While the title borrows from the classic teenybopper flick Beach Blanket Bingo, the movie is actually a sequel of sorts to a 1974 smut film called High School Fantasies, with most of the same cast members, though in different roles.
Rene Bond is the star attraction in this Southern California 1960s style sex romp but she doesn’t star on the poster. She’s there, though. That’s her in the right background in an Annette Funicello style wig. For some reason the position of honor on the poster is given to Cindy Taylor, who plays a bit role. But the poster is attractive anyway. It’s yet another example of how seriously Japanese film distributors took their erotica. Posters for porn were fully as interesting and well designed as those for mainstream movies. But nice as it is, since Bond doesn’t get a proper showing, we’ve given her one below. Beach Blanket Bango opened in Japan today in 1975.
