The Sin Syndicate

To know her is to love her. Meet Francy. Or better yet, meet Curt Ledger, a name you may recognize as being attached to a notorious sexploitation film (often called the roughest roughie) called She Came on the Bus. While that film is a “classic” voice-over narration-style piece of artless trash, Ledger was also involved with another picture, a very different, and surprisingly, very good film, called It’s…Francy’s Friday, a coming-of-age dramedy about a not bad lookin’ chick played by the Teenage Tramp herself, Alisha Fontaine.
 
Joining us to discuss all things Ledger, Fontaine, male co-star Ken Chandler, and everyone’s favorite long-haired business babe, Linda Boyce, is researcher and forgotten film explorer, Shawn D. Langrick. SDL has a personal connection to these two films, especially Francy, but you’ll have to listen to learn more. What I can tell you is that we all agreed this is a special, criminally underseen movie made with real care; a tender-hearted sex film that belies its bonafides as just another quickie Curt Ledger project. So join us for Episode 34, “The Most Popular Gal in Town” as we kick start the ignition, engage in a little backseat action, and discuss all things Ledger, Bus, and Francy. Oh, and there’s also this other side-character named Hal Stone.

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Special thanks: Shawn D. Langrick

Episode Specific:
New Beverly Cinema March calendar
Watch She Came on the Bus on Cultpix

A bold attempt by a smut publisher and an exploitation director at melding fetishism with general release melodrama, Satan in High Heels is a film that aims big with its sophisticated lounge jazz LP and its lesbianic novelization tie-in. But maybe the world wasn’t ready to get fully Bizarre just yet. A few years later, One Shocking Moment would open with a sharp heel to the back of a hand, among other sadomasochistic things, but in the early 60s, exploiteers were still testing the waters of acceptability, and legality. Olga and her House of Shame were still a few years away, so temper your expectations for leather, lingerie and bondage, and you’ll find something just, if not more, interesting—a seriously well-made film featuring Hollywood players, a mononymous pin-up queen, and that lady from Dark Shadows with the crazy eyes and smoker's scream.

Behind the camera is the incredibly talented Bernie Hirschenson, who made William Mishkin’s super-smash nudie, Orgy at Lil’s Place, infinitely more watchable than it had any right to be. It all comes together surprisingly well, even if it doesn’t fully capture fet-publisher Leonard Burtman’s original vision (for that, maybe read the book). Taking us through all this and more is our special guest, our pompadoured tour guide, Alex DiSanto, the headmaster of the incredible account paperbackgrindhouse. So sink into your stilletos, grab your stiffest riding crop, and join us for Episode 33: “More Deadly Than The Male.”

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Special thanks: Alex DiSanto, Richard Pérez Seves

Episode Specific:
Get tickets to the SECS Fest screening with Jane Garrett
Watch the restored trailer
Order Scuro 08
Listen to In Film We Trust #148

Rip the curlers from your hair. Peggy’s gone. She was The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. For this episode we planned to discuss Anything for Money with Joe Sarno biographer Michael Bowen, but just an hour before recording we got the news that Peggy Steffans-Sarno had passed away the night before. She was 84 years old.

Peggy was many things: she was a New Yorker; she was a mother; she was a muse to artist Tom Wesselman, who was enraptured by her lips; she was a London trained actress that ran in the same circles as Peter Bogdanovich, Polly Platt and director Adolfas Mekas, who put her in his movie; and last but not least, she was a devoted wife and long-time, long-suffering collaborator to husband Joe Sarno, who she truly believed in as a serious artist with a special talent for peering into the depths of taboo eroticism and female sexuality.

But as Michael says, “Peggy didn’t appreciate maudlin behavior,” so we did our little part to soldier on, drifting in and out of a film-specific discussion and a celebration of her life, as a Steffans, and as a Sarno. Hell, you may even learn more about Deep Throat 2 than you ever expected, or wanted to. Rest in piece, Peggy. The work continues.

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Special thanks: Michael Bowen

We've got more secrets and more things. In this Short Ends bonus episode, we have a few important updates regarding Secret Places, Secret Things, the film covered in Episode 31: "Love Land." What is Satin Lips? How much is rent for a studio apartment at the former Westgate Hotel where the film was shot? How cute is Debbie Osborne's senior yearbook photo? Besides all things Secret, the Sin Syndicate give an impromptu review of the entire February 2026 calendar for the New Beverly Cinema's "month of erotica." You best believe we have takes.

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Contact us: [email protected]

Episode Specific:
Listen to Episode 31: "Love Land"
View the New Beverly Cinema February 2026 calendar 
Like Jacob's Sex Shockers List
Special thanks: Charles Devlin, Mike McCollum

Fasten your seatbelts, don't forget to pack your mother's diaphragm, we're heading to Main Street, USA for an evening in "Love Land." In Episode 31 of The Sin Syndicate, we are joined by author, brick-breaker and long-time exploitation film historian, Chris Poggiali, who personally chose the subject of this week's episode: actor/stuntman Gary Kent's directorial debut, the woozy, mysterious, sensual, Secret Places, Secret Things (1971).

Described by Casey as "a special experience," this underrated gem made for the Pussycat Theater chain and distributed by Fineberg & Miranda's Grads Corp feels like it shouldn't exist at all. And for a long time, it looked like it never did. But recently, thanks to film archivists and historians like Joe Rubin and Charles Devlin, this magical little diamond resurfaced in a scratchy but still comforting scan-from-British VHS. It's a rare film that gives popular sexploitation performers Neola Graef and Kathy Hilton more to do than strip and look pretty (though they do that, too), and girl next door Debbie Osborne, unsurprisingly, gives another lovable, standout performance (more akin to Cindy and Donna than Tobacco Roody) as the kind of hippie chick you could bring home to momma. 

But maybe the most interesting thing of it all is new information from Chris about two of our leading men: Hollywood-handsome Edward Blessington and The Love Butcher himself, Erik Stern. Of course, there will also be diversions to talk about the irascible duo of Lee Frost and Pete Perry, amongst other things. So, send the porter for a bottle of grog, listen to the thunder outside your window, and join us for a very special look at marriage, love, infidelity, and triumph.

Links:
Subscribe to our Patreon
Get your tickets to Casey's screening: Alice in Wonderland
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Contact us: [email protected]
Special thanks: Chris Poggiali and Charles Devlin