Score (1974)

[7]

A married couple who’ve made a game out of sexual conquest invite a younger married couple over for dinner. There’s much more in store for the evening, though, especially when booze and poppers slick the way for same-sex seduction. Some might call Score pornographic, but there’s far too much storytelling and craftsmanship put into the movie to dismiss it so quickly. While director Radley Metzger would later become known (under pseudonym) for such salacious titles as Naked Came the Stranger and The Opening of Misty Beethoven, Score was produced during an earlier period in his career more aptly branded ‘high class erotica’.

Metzger puts together a good cast — not Oscar winners, but competent enough (although Claire Wilbur did, in fact, win an Oscar for documentary short subject a few years later). The women fare better than the men — with Wilbur playing the sardonic temptress to Lynn Lowry’s (The Crazies, Shivers) wide-eyed wonder. The men are played by Gerald Grant and Calvin Culver (aka Casey Donovan), two adult film stars making an earnest attempt to bridge the gap between porn and legit drama.

The photography is inventive and often very beautiful, making terrific use of long lenses and close-ups. While the film is essentially a long build-up of foreplay headed for a twenty-minute… well, climax… it also contains a fair amount of comedy and even a dash of cathartic self-discovery for some of the characters. There’s also a fun sequence when the foursome play make-believe, dressing up as their favorite childhood personas — cowboy, fashion model, sailor, and nun.

While Score is indeed titillating and explicit, it never feels cheap or dirty. It’s more interested in the awkwardness, humor, vulnerability, and yes, beauty, of human intimacy. It doesn’t just depict sex. It’s about sex. And more importantly, it has nothing but positive things to say about it.