The Sin Syndicate

That’s right, we’re going Back to Marzanoland. If you’ve been a consistent listener, you’ll know that in Episode 38, “Trodden Underfoot,” we discussed the Joseph Marzano film Venus in Furs (1967) with author and fetish historian Jane Garrett. After the release of that episode, low-budget Long Island filmmaker and sexploitation super-fan Nathan Schiff reached out to us to share some stories about his own personal relationship with Marzano before his death. It’s fair to say, Nathan had stories. In fact, so many that this three hour podcast can barely contain them all.

A few selections include: film distributor Harry Novak and his notorious “archive,” producer George Weiss writing Olga copy (and teaching proper whipping and tying technique), and an auspicious final encounter with a despondent Janet Banzet. Of course, we also discuss Marzano’s sexploitation career, and hear more stories about the productions of Cool It, Baby and Venus in Furs. Plus, more about muscle-bound masseur Shep Wild and mob wife Barbara Ellen. But that’s just scratching the surface. Researchers, friends, fans, Milligan-heads, pull out your notebooks, grab a bottle of Fanta, we’re talking Marzano and Co. with Nathan Schiff, and rewatching The Degenerates for the 16th time.

Episode Specific:
Listen to our episode on Venus in Furs, "Trodden Underfoot"
Read "Sexploitation!" at the Magick Theatre
Learn more about Nathan Schiff from Bleeding Skull
Read "An Enraged Eye: Nathan Schiff’s Vermilion Eyes as Anti-Film" at Bright Lights Film Journal
View Marzano's early films at The Film-Makers' Coop
Special thanks: Nathan Schiff, Jane Garrett

Links:
Join the community on Patreon
Instagram with us at The Sin Syndicate
Follow us on Letterboxd: Gentry & Casey
Check out the Something Weird Channel
Listen to other podcasts on Someone's Favorite Productions
Contact: [email protected]

Where else will you find a worldwide exclusive about what Christina Lindberg is going to wear on the Cannes 2026 red carpet? For Episode 39, "The Power of the Horn," The Sin Syndicate have connected with our brothers from another mother, the purveyers of Swedish Sin, Rickard Gramfors & Patrick von Sychowski, co-partners of the Stockholm-based multimedia company Klubb Super 8 and streaming platform Cultpix. With so much to cover, we didn't want to focus on just one film, although their most recent release for Melusine, Come Blow the Horn! does get some special love.

Other topics include, but are not limited to: Stellan Skarsgård hanging dong, Sweden: Heaven or Hell, Swedish Roman Porno, puritanical censorship, the social realism of A Woman Heats Up a Sauna, lost American movies in the Swedish Film Archives, the mysterious Cornelius "Corny" Flickenheimer and…Mr. Penguin?

It was an absolute joy to talk to the Klubb boys, who are fighting the good fight, and in many ways, are the Something Weird Video of Northern Europe, unconstrained by genre, unafraid of controversy, and actively working to broaden cinematic horizons beyond Bergman. So, close the blinds and join us for a blowing. Just don't waste your horniness.

Episode Specific:
Visit Klubb Super 8
Subscribe to Cultpix
Buy Come Blow the Horn! 
End music by Fäbodjäntan
Special thanks: Rickard Gramfors, Patrick von Sychowski, Kalle Lagerroos

Links:
Join the community on Patreon
Instagram with us at The Sin Syndicate
Follow us on Letterboxd: Gentry & Casey
Check out the Something Weird Channel
Listen to other podcasts on Someone's Favorite Productions
Contact: [email protected]

Yes, we have this in a higher heel. Enter a world of suprasensual sexploitation with this week's deep dive into one of the earliest big screen adaptations of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s oft-referenced sadomasochism novella, Venus in Furs.

Muscle-hunk Shep Wild plays this version of Severin (named David), a shoe-salesman who is taken for a literal trip after a chance meeting with the striking Marina, played by Barbara Ellen, who is as much a creative force in this endevaor as director Joseph Marzano and producer Lou Campa. All three were coming off the sleazy success of the sinful blackmail story, Cool It, Baby (1967), but Venus in Furs was a Marzano product through-and-through, with the former experimental filmmaker given free rein to indulge in his deepest, darkest desires—as long as he stayed within the Campa/Cam-Scope budget.

Marzano wasn’t able to fully achieve his vision, but the end result is still a stylishly erotic and boundary-pushing film filled with fetish funhouse imagery and a recurring musical motif pulled from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Like that story, there’s no happy ending here, but a descent into unfulfilled sexual madness, an aching longing for the intangible, and one particularly rough game of ping-pong. Join us, along with fetish historian and John Willie biographer Jane Garrett, as we discuss this unsubtle masterwork from sexploitation’s late 60s peak. Find out what's behind the next door, kiss your beloved’s ankle, and accept your fate as “Trodden Underfoot.”

Episode Specific:
Buy John Willie: A Bizarre Life
Follow Jane Garrett on Instagram
Attend SECS Fest at the The Beacon
Special thanks: Jane Garrett

Links:
Join the community on Patreon
Instagram with us at The Sin Syndicate
Follow us on Letterboxd: Gentry & Casey
Check out the Something Weird Channel
Listen to other podcasts on Someone's Favorite Productions
Contact: [email protected]

Do you partake?

The Sin Syndicate are preemptively celebrating the Stoner's Holiday with this special 4/20-themed episode which is, let's be honest, just an excuse for us to talk about one of our favorite late 60s sexploitation hang out films, director/cinematographer Joseph Mangine's Manhattan-set story of celluloid swingers and black-clad moto bikers, Smoke and Flesh (1968). After cutting his teeth on quick and cheap nudies for Barry Mahon, the talented Brooklynite directed this directorial debut that more or less acted as a 35mm resume for his skills behind the camera. Never a gloryhound, and more comfortable molding tinfoil to create the perfect bead of light than managing a crew from the big chair, Mangine would only direct one other feature film, the Warriors meets Lost Boys cult horror flick, Neon Maniacs (1986). 

But between these two projects, Mangine lensed everything from Victorian pornos, killer worm horror films to Albert Pyun's genre defining sword and sorcery epic. In Episode 37, "Waiting for the Man," we discuss all this and more, including a special dispatch from our on-the-ground correspondent, Jeffery Petrone, who checks in with us from Wind Gap, Pennsylvania where he attended a Grindhouse Triple Feature that included one of our top 10 most wanted Lost & and in Limbo films. So grab your favorite grinder and your cardboard bong for a turned-on trip to a world of strip Grand Prix, butter brickle munchies and wife exchange research from the cuck chair. We'll bring the whipped cream.

Episode Specific:
Watch Smoke and Flesh on Cultpix
Listen to In the Shadows of the Neon Maniacs
Visit The Gap Theatre
Special thanks: Jeffery Petrone, Michael Drumbore, Stephen Scarlata

Links:
Join the community on Patreon
Instagram with us at The Sin Syndicate
Follow us on Letterboxd: Gentry & Casey
Check out the Something Weird Channel
Listen to other podcasts on Someone's Favorite Productions
Contact: [email protected]

The Sin Syndicate return with another of our Short Ends bonus episodes, this time spotlighting the second release in the Reviver mystery box series from Vinegar Syndrome's Film Archive team. But before that, we've got more sexploitation news, including another update on Secret Places, Secret Things (which was discussed in Episode 31: "Love Land"), a correction on Andy Milligan's Compass Rose (sorry Thrower daddy), a shoutout to a certain special feature on the upcoming Bunny Yeager double feature from Kino Cult, as well as a rare "what are we watching?" segment. If you don't want to be spoiled regarding the contents of Reviver 2, you should stop listening around the 50 minute mark. The music cue from Laure will be your warning to bail.

Links:
Subscribe to our Patreon
Instagram with us at The Sin Syndicate
Follow us on Letterboxd: Gentry & Casey
Listen to other podcasts on Someone's Favorite Productions
Contact us: [email protected]

Episode Specific:
Buy Reviver 2 from Vinegar Syndrome
Watch Oscar's "Winding Through" on Youtube
Order Endless Exxxtasy Vol. 1 from Ultra Flesh Archives
Order Bunny Yeager's Nude Camera / Nude Las Vegas from Kino Cult
Special thanks: Chris Poggiali

Links:
Join the community on Patreon
Instagram with us at The Sin Syndicate
Follow us on Letterboxd: Gentry & Casey
Check out the Something Weird Channel
Listen to other podcasts on Someone's Favorite Productions
Contact: [email protected]