NUN NEGOTIABLE

She serves a higher power—anger.

In Japan Catholics make up about 0.3% of the population. In Japanese film, Catholics make up pretty close to 100% of the religion-based sexploitation depicted in Nikkatsu Studios’ roman porno catalog. We’ve commented on this fascination a few times over the years, and there’s no answer for its popularity except that it’s probably seen as exotic by audiences, and it’s a fetish that’s safe to explore because 0.3% of the population have exactly zero power to efficaciously protest the films. Western movies also explored nun sexuality, but examples were fewer. We’ve come across at least thirty Japanese nunsploitation movies, dating from the 1960s and into the ’90s. Shûdôjo Runa no kokuhaku, known in English as Cloistered Nun: Runa’s Confession, is therefore part of a decades-long trend.

Luna Takamura, after three years in a nunnery, moves in with the half-sister who stole her boyfriend and prompted her flight into the arms of the church. Her sister is still with this man, and the two plan to get married. Well—maybe she plans to get married. Anyway, as a woman of God, Takamura has supposedly forgiven everything. She’s working on behalf of her order trying to sell ten hectares of land so the profits can be used for further proselytization, and—wouldn’t you know it?—Mr. Cheater can get together enough money to buy it. He’s up to no good with this deal, and Takamura’s sis is a sexual scammer shaking down men for cash, but this slippery pair may be outdone, because the serene look in our godly nun’s eyes signal some ideas centered around vengeance for three years ago.

Nikkatsu filmmakers, in addition to an obsession with nuns, had an obsession with sexual assault. No means no meant nothing as far as they were concerned. We must caution about that. But as always, we make it a practice not to judge other cultures in any way that could be interpreted as high-handed. That would mean we thought ours is superior, and it manifestly isn’t. Japanese society has a reputation for sexism and misogyny, but we suspect its reckoning will eventually come. Roman porno movies will be exhibit A. However, roman porno, like other types of exploitation cinema such as blaxploitation and women-in-prison, often allows the mistreated to have their revenge. In that respect it’s an improvement on the real world. Shûdôjo Runa no kokuhaku premiered today in 1976.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna, fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.

Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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