| The Adventures of Lucky Pierre | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Herschell Gordon Lewis David F. Friedman |
| Produced by | Herschell Gordon Lewis |
| Written by | Herschell Gordon Lewis David F. Friedman |
| Starring | Billy Falbo |
| Music by | Herschell Gordon Lewis Larry Wellington[1] |
| Distributed by | Lucky Pierre Enterprises |
| Release date(s) | 1961 |
| Running time | 70 minutes |
| Budget | US$7500[2] |
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre is a 1961 nudie cutie sexploitation film created by exploitation filmmakers Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. The first of its kind to be filmed in color,[3] the film starred comedian Billy Falbo. It was unique for its time and genre, adding successful comedy to the nudity and sensationalist material.
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The film was conceived by Lewis and Friedman when film distributor Alfred N. Sack offered the two $7000 to create a single-reel, "color 35mm film of cute girls carousing around with beach balls, or whatever."[4] Upon learning of this reel, another distributor offered a deal to expand the film into a full-length feature film. The two spent around five hours writing the film[5], and, with Falbo, proceeded to film the movie over a four-day period in Chicago, Illinois.[4]
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre is a series of vignettes featuring the title character, Lucky Pierre, in a series of unrelated storylines involving scantly-clad or nude women.[6] Pierre, named after a childhood rhyme Friedman and Lewis remembered, would end up in a short segment where he encounters various naked women - for instance, in "Drive-In Me Crazy," Pierre attends a drive-in movie where the ticket taker and concession workers are all nude women who also appear in the film he's seeing.[7] In another, Pierre, as a painter, has three nude women posing for him in a park,[8] and another vignette had Pierre come upon two sunbathing women while birdwatching.[9]
The film was a financial success, grossing over $12,000 in a single theater over a week's run upon opening[10] and continued to enjoy financial success while avoiding the type of censorship previous exploitation films such as Mom and Dad faced.[11] The film ushered in a new form of sexploitation film, the "nudie cutie," and Friedman, who worked with the American Film Institute to catalog such films for them,[6] estimated over 600 Pierre-style films were released between 1961 and 1970.[12]
The film has had a unique influence on popular culture, given the film's b-movie status. Aiden Moffatt of Scottish band Arab Strap released a solo album under the name "Lucky Pierre" in 2002,[13] and novelist Robert Coover released a novel of the same name in 2002, about "the last of the great pornographic icons," in a plot similar to the film that inspired it.[14]
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