American adult movies from 1972 that have been cut or banned in Australia.
The X-rating, for hardcore sex, was introduced in February 1984.
Afternoon Tease
Directed by Joseph F. Robertson / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In August 1980, a 1533.84-meter (55:54) print of AFTERNOON TEASE was censored by 26.80-meters (00:58) for an R-rating.
The cuts were made to remove sex, which was said to be:
Frequency: Infrequent
Explicitness/Intensity: High
Purpose: Gratuitous
In the R-rated version, it was found to be:
Frequency: Frequent
Explicitness/Intensity: Medium
Purpose: Gratuitous
14th Mandolin was the applicant.
Review
Mike reports
Something Weird Video (us) – VHS as LORD FOTHERINGAY’S HOLIDAY – 65:18
Mrs Van Updike (Casey Larrain) is hosting Lord Fotheringay (Keith McConnell) for a weekend house party and asks her butler Jeeves (Pete Dawson) to book some classical musicians for the occasion. He dials a wrong number and gets through to the “IMA Hooker Agency” who sends over three girls. Before the mistake has been spotted they’ve stripped Lord Fotheringay who overcomes his stiff upper lip and takes part in the inevitable orgy.
AFTERNOON TEASE is a softcore film and it’s broadly played as a sex farce which is hard to take seriously. It’s very difficult to see how it needed to be cut by around ten minutes overall – nine by the distributor and one by the Film Censorship Board. The length of the cuts are confusing unless 14th Mandolin had access to a shorter print. Problematic material would have lasted no more than five minutes and are as follows.
1. The butler gets sexually over-excited and rips off his employer’s clothes while she is sleeping and sexually assaults her while berating her for treating him so badly over the years. She protests at first but starts to enjoy it later.
2. Lord Fotheringay is standing in the shallow end of the swimming pool and a woman who is under the water is implied to be giving him oral sex. She is motionless and the gardener comes over from time to time and asks if she is still alive. This is played as a running joke.
3. The gardener creeps up on the lady of the house while she is asleep and starts to grope her. She doesn’t object initially because she thinks it’s the butler, but when she realises she resists and protests. The gardener ignores her objections and once again she starts to enjoy it after a while.
4. There are a fair number of vaginal close-ups at times and fleeting glimpses of erections during the sex scenes.
Behind the Green Door
Directed by Artie Mitchell – Jim Mitchell / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In October 1981, a 64-minute tape of BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR was passed with an R-rating. It was awarded because of sex, which was said to be:
Frequency: Frequent
Explicitness/Intensity: Medium
Purpose: Gratuitous
The print was described as being the ‘modified British version’. Hollywood House Video was the applicant.
BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR is a high profile title, however, this is the only time that it has been classified in Australia.
Code Name: Raw-Hide
Directed by Stephen Lomax – Kendall Stewart / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In July 1978, a 2139.00-meter (77:58) print of CODE NAME: RAW-HIDE was censored by 63.10-meters (02:18) for an R-rating. The cuts were made to remove ‘indecency’.
14th Mandolin was the applicant.
Video release
In January 1985, a 73-minute tape was passed with an R-rating. It was awarded for sex, which was described as being:
Frequency: Frequent
Explicitness/Intensity: Medium
Purpose: Gratuitous
14th Mandolin released the tape on their King of Video label.
Review
Mike reports
Something Weird Video (us) – VHS – 79:11
Frank (Michael Finn) and Barny (Tony Lane) are two agents who have been seconded to the newly formed Pornographic Bureau of Investigations (PBI) to fight the tide of adult films taking over society. The operation (codenamed Rawhide) involves going undercover and visiting adult bookshops, porn film sets and Las Vegas sex parties.
CODE NAME: RAW-HIDE is mainly a softcore film with a few hardcore moments. In the pre-credit sequence the two agents see their Chief (Jackie Moran) who is shown reading a hardcore porn magazine when they arrive. He projects a porn loop featuring unsimulated oral sex to show them ‘the kind of filth they are up against’. They then visit an adult bookshop in which some magazines with graphic covers are shown. But the hardcore lasts no more than 00:30.
Other scenes which might have been included in the 02:18 of cuts demanded by the Film Censorship Board:
1. The two agents go to a small porn cinema to see a loop called BATTLE ALA SEX. This shows a man and a woman having softcore sex intercut with footage of a crowd at a boxing match. The sex is consensual but a narrator describes the action as though it were a fight – so there is emphasis on one person dominating the other and the woman being subdued and feeling pain, even though nothing of the sort is happening on screen. The narrator also uses very graphic language to describe the sexual action.
2. A five woman lesbian orgy takes place with extensive use of vibrators. This was probably an existing porn loop.
3. We see a very tame orgy at the end of the film but from time to time the camera focuses on an almost naked woman wearing what appears to be a swastika armband who is tied to the wall and being whipped by a man.
Dynamite
Directed by John Amero – Lem Amero / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In October 1980, a 1478.06-meter (53:52) print of DYNAMITE was censored by 6.20-meter (00:13) for an R-rating.
The cuts were made to remove sex, which was said to be:
Frequency: Infrequent
Explicitness/Intensity: High
Purpose: Gratuitous
In the censored R-rated version it was:
Frequency: Frequent
Explicitness/Intensity: Medium
Purpose: Gratuitous
14th Mandolin released it theatrically, and on their King of Video label.
Review
Mike reports
Unknown source – German dubbed – 52:21
Suzy (Marcia Rivers) is a door to door sex aid saleswoman. She demonstrates her range of sex toys to a host of willing customers along with a cream that guarantees a never-ending erection.
There seems to be some confusion about the runtime of DYNAMITE. The IMDb claims 73 minute, which I think is a mistake, while US newspaper ads indicate 65 minutes at most. As of 2026, there is also a 51:05 English version.
It seems very likely that 14th Mandolin cut the hardcore before the first submission. It is very clear what the Film Censorship Board objected to when they demanded a further 00:13 of cuts.
Suzy goes to a flat and demonstrates her deluxe vibrator to a married couple. They enjoy it so much that they have sex with each other and reject her suggestion of joining in. In a sequence which is played for comedy, she becomes upset at being left out and lights a stick of dynamite which she inserts into the man’s posterior while he is thrusting into his wife who is just off screen. We cut back and forth between the dynamite and Suzy packing up her things before leaving their apartment. The cumulative length of the shots showing the dynamite is exactly 0:13. We hear the explosion just as Suzy is knocking on the neighbour’s door, but we don’t see the aftermath.
With the removal of this scene, Australian viewers may have been confused by the title as the film would contains no further mentions of dynamite.
Easy Virtue: Dairy of a Teenage Prostitute
Directed by D.L. Monty / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In June 1978, a 2137.50-meter (77:55) print of EASY VIRTUE: DAIRY OF A TEENAGE PROSTITUTE was banned because of ‘indecency’.
Lestrig Trading Co was the applicant.
Review
Mike reports
Alpha Blue Archives (us) – DVD – Trailer only
Part of CUMMING ATTRACTIONS 1970 VOL. 1
This film seems not to be extant, but the trailer gives some indication of the possible censorship issues. In one scene a female hitchhiker is picked up by a male driver who then chases her through the woods before sexually assaulting her. In another, a woman is forced to strip at gunpoint before having a knife traced across her naked chest.
Despite IMDb labelling this as a 1972 film, the trailer clearly gives a copyright date of 1970.
The Erotic Adventures of Zorro
Directed by Robert Freeman / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In February 1974, a 2883.4 meter (105:06) print of THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO was censored by 206.55 meters (07:31) for an R-rating. The cuts were made to remove ‘indecency’.
Regent Trading Enterprises was the applicant.
Banned in Queensland
On 14 September 1974, the censored R-rated version of THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO became the second film to be prohibited by the Queensland Films Board of Review.
The managing director of Regent Trading, Errol Heath, said [Cinema Papers No. 12] that it was banned after having been screened for six weeks and one day.
Uncut screenings & a revoked rating
Brendan reports.
When I saw THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO I was surprised by the explicitness. After playing six weeks, the Melbourne theatre closed until further notice. I later read in the paper that it had been screening an uncut print of the film.
The censor had removed most of each sex scene for its R-rated release. The theatre shut for a week or more after which the approved version played. The VHS release was of this cut version.
October 12, 1974
The film THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO has been withdrawn from cinemas in Sydney and Canberra after action by the Film Censorship Board.The Chief Commonwealth Film Censor, Mr R. J. Prowse. said tonight that the board had revoked the film’s certificate of registration after complaints from members of the public.
He said that some months ago a print of the film had been submitted lo the board which had declined to register it unless cuts were made. After cuts a ‘reconstructed version’ had been passed with an ‘R’ rating.
Later the board had learnt that other versions which had not been submitted had been imported and were being shown. The board had then revoked the registration.
A spokesman for Civic Theatres said yesterday that the film had been shown in Canberra for four weeks. THE STING is now being screened instead.
– Film off at ACT cinema
– Canberra Times via Trove
December 4, 1974
Film censorship as controversy is not much of an issue in Australia 1974 with only hard-core offerings like DEVIL IN MISS JONES and DEEP THROAT still on the total banned lists, and standards generally as to soft and medium-core material, provided the right ‘reconstruction’ is agreed on by the importer, becoming more liberal day by day. But every now and then something happens which points out to us rather sharply that the basic machinery of censorship can still be as repressive as ever.Some eight column inches in the Melbourne Sun of October 12 announced what proved to be an event without precedent for at least the last 20 years. THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO a German-American soft ‘X’ sexploiter produced by nudie operator David Friedman, passed with an ‘R’ and cuts by the Film Censorship Board and in release at the Melbourne Chelsea and Sydney Gala some five weeks, had had its certificate of registration revoked and had been taken off the screen.
Confusion reigned as to what had happened. Somehow or other the second, third and fourth prints of the film imported into Australia by Regent Trading Enterprises head Errol Heath had emerged from the censor’s bond store uncut and the prints that had been screening in Melbourne and Brisbane were completely contrary to the Film Censorship Board’s Certificate’s cutting requirements. This is not the first time this has happened and this writer knows personally of at least one and possibly two other movies released in Melbourne where this has happened, but ZORRO was the first to be caught out. Deputy Chief Censor Mrs Strickland advised that the Board had acted as a result of numerous complaints from the public as to the film’s content, but refused to say whether the number of complaints received were more or less than normal for sexploitation films.
Importer, Errol Heath, who is an old-timer as far as independent distribution goes and has had his run-ins with the Censors back in the bad old days, blames inefficiency within the Attorneys-General’s Department for the brouhaha (and it is well known that the inhabitants of the Imperial Arcade basement are not noted for either their efficiency or their consistency), but other informed sources suggested that this might be the work of the establishment getting back at Heath for his handling of the controversial SEX AIDS & HOW TO USE THEM and for his blasts at the kangaroo-court Queensland Film Board of Review, both publicly at the recent Annual Exhibitor’s Convention and in the pages of the trade paper Australasian Cinema.
This offshoot of Bjelke Petersen’s banana republic is headed by a self-opinionated Brisbane solicitor named [Des] Draydon. It was instrumental in banning ZORRO in Queensland on Friday, September 13. The Queensland Board meets in total secrecy; gives no reasons for its decisions and gazettes its decisions within hours giving distributor and exhibitor little time to attempt alternate programming. The only options open to an aggrieved distributor is an expensive appeal to the Queensland Supreme Court or a mutually agreeable reconstruction (i.e., cutting) of the film which may produce a version quite different to that screenable elsewhere in Australia (How’s that for freedom of trade between the states: Senator Murphy, attention please).
Late on Monday, October 14 the matter appeared to be resolved. The uncut prints of ZORRO had been cut and the Melbourne Chelsea was screening it once more. I have yet to see the cut print, but I saw the uncut print and found it far from being anything in the way of a notable censorship breakthrough. Strange to say on the Friday prior to the announcement of the ZORRO ban I had viewed the Morrissey [FLESH FOR] FRANKENSTEIN which has been passed uncut and which contains some of the most revolting scenes of sadomasochism ever seen on the screen. Does the Board now stoop to intellectual snobbery in that a Morrissey film is somehow immune from the rigours of life that a piece of ‘Z’ grade porn like ZORRO must face. Haven’t Prowse and Co. heard of precedents?
Whether Queensland will now reconsider its ban in the face of the federal cutting remains to be seen. Purists may argue that not many tears should be spilt over the fate of a film like ZORRO, but it is the principle that is important. The total arbitrariness of the Queensland Board is obvious. The Federal Board in its action of pulling off a film at a moment’s notice is just as arbitrary.
Moreover the powers of the Federal Board of Review have not been spotlighted sufficiently of late. This group composed inter alia of public servants, TV commentator and academics hears evidence for a reconsideration of the decision of the Board at first instance; then makes its decision after private discussion. It gives no reasons for its decision, (like most Australian quasi-judicial tribunals, unlike in England where detailed reasons must be given) and its decision (save for the little used appeal to the Attorneys-General) is final. One major area of censorship reform long overdue must be for both the Board and the Board of Review to have to give detailed reasons for their decisions.
Finally Deputy Chief Censor Strickland made the interesting point that had either the exhibitor or distributor in the ZORRO case refused to take off the movie, Commonwealth Customs action for prohibited imports would not lie (despite the delegation of censorial powers by the State’s Attorneys-General to the Commonwealth) but that the individual State Attorneys-General would have to take their own actions under the Summary Offences Act of each state and related legislation.
The time may soon come when a distributor or exhibitor may well feel that a County Court jury would be more qualified to express an opinion on the offensiveness or otherwise of a movie than a gaggle of Machiavellian ciphers trading under infallibility from a Sydney basement.
– Film Censorship can STILL be heavy
– Antony I. Ginnane, Cinema Papers No. 4
Moral police at the drive-in
One of the scare campaigns of the mid-1970s was the screening of R-rated films at drive-in cinemas.
December 1, 1975
The Festival of Light has asked the NSW Premier, Mr Lewis, and the Minister, for Police, Mr Waddy, to ban R-rated movies with explicit sexual content from drive-in theatres.In particular, the group has complained of current I screenings of THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO, which a spokesman described as ‘one of the most explicit pornographic films in Australia’.
The public-relations officer for the group, Mr Ken Harrison, said that at Caringbah, where he lived, young people and children were able to view this and other explicit films through the wire fence surrounding the drive-in.
His group had received complaints that at a country drive-in theatre, children had watched ZORRO from a hillside, and listened to a taped soundtrack given to them by a spectator who had previously recorded it inside the theatre.
– Call to ban film
– Canberra Times via Trove
January 11, 1977
Since the appointment of John Mostyn to the managing directorship of Hoyts Theatres some 18 months ago, the film industry has been closely observing the attempts by this traditionally conservative chain to jazz up its image.Others have proved less successful…the so-called ‘family’ drive-in at Bulleen in Melbourne.
The latter experiment was partly set in motion to appease a vocal minority who have been lobbying state governments in Victoria and NSW in an attempt to have R certificate films banned from drive-in theatres. Hoyts spent more than $10,000 promoting the family drive-in concept, playing combination G, NRC and M rated programs. But all to no avail — the public stayed away.
– Hoyts innovates
– Cinema Papers No. 11
January 11, 1977
Problematic Trends – Drive-ins
The greatest single cause of complaints is the showing of ‘R’ certificate films in drive-ins. Only two states have provision within their Acts to move against the showing of ‘R’ films in drive-ins. One of these is South Australia, which amended its legislation in 1973 to give the Minister power to prohibit the showing of certain ‘R’ films in particular drive-ins; the other is Queensland, which is empowered to act against the showing of films under the provisions of the 1974 Films Review Act.State officials are often asking us if a particular film is unsuitable for showing in a drive-in. It is our contention that no drive-in which can be seen from the road is suitable for an ‘R’ film. It is a case of the drive-ins being unsuitable rather than an ‘R’ certificate film being unsuitable.
– How Australian Film Censorship works
– Janet Strickland, Deputy-Chief Censor
– Cinema Papers No. 11
Video releases
In the early 1980s, K&C Video issued an 89:25 version of THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO on tape.
It was issued again in the late 1980s on Koala Marketing’s Xtasy label.
Uncut DVD releases
THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO was finally passed uncut (102:31) in November 2004 with an R (Sexual violence, High level sex scenes) rating.
It was released on DVD in February 2005 by Siren Visual Entertainment.
The only extra was a nearly 7-minute trailer, which contains more graphic sex than the film itself. This reportedly also appeared on an unknown early 1980s K&C Video release.
Review
Mike reports
Unknown VHS as THE SEXCAPADES OF DON DIEGO – 102:32
This is an adults-only retelling of the legend of Zorro, the masked avenger with a dual-identity who is called on to help when the people of his homeland are being mistreated by corrupt officials. Although it caused controversy in 1974 due to the explicitness of the sex, the main issue for the Film Censorship Board was probably the non-consensual nature of some of the sexual behaviour.
1. The citizens have been summoned to pay their annual taxes and one man, Chico (Fermín Castillo del Muro) can’t afford to pay. He lunges at the tax collector with a knife and is shot dead. His daughters, who saw him die, are told that they will have to pay ‘in kind’ instead. This is illustrated by one of the daughters, being graphically raped by the Commandante (Allen Bloomfield) for 04:23 and the other being forced to give oral sex to Sgt. Felipio Latio (Bob Cresse) for 00:14.
2. Two women are chained to the ceiling by the corrupt officials and is naked. A soldier (David Friedman) threatens the naked woman with a supposedly poisonous snake which he rubs over her body and then places on her vagina (01:15).
The remaining 1-2 minutes of cuts were likely to tone down the various consensual sex scenes in the which would have been just a little too explicit for 1974.
The Healers
Directed by Eduardo Cemano / 1972 / USA / IMDb
In May 1978, a 2066.20-meter (75:19) print of THE HEALERS was banned because of indecency.
A censored 1562.10-meter (56:56) version was passed with an R-rating in August 1978.
There is little information about the applicant, K&S Wilcsek. The Commonwealth of Australia Gazette lists the company as being wound up voluntarily on 7 June 1984.
Borderline hardcore
Simon reports.
After Hours Cinema (us) – DVD – 77:33 (NTSC)
The sex in THE HEALERS is not fully hardcore, no erections, cum shots or penetration, but it does push the boundaries. Surprisingly, for a movie of this type, there is a (simulated) gay sex scene. However, it is hard to understand why it lost 18-minutes to the censor, as the film is played for laughs and the sex is shown to be fun.
The After Hours Cinema DVD titled EDUARDO CEMANO’S SEXUAL HEALING TRILOGY also includes FONGALULI (1973) and MADAME ZENOBIA (1973).
Further reading
For more censored Eduardo Cemano, see the database entry for FONGALULI (1973).