The Sin Syndicate

It seemed like a good idea at the time. It all started with our discussion with fetish historian and author Jane Garrett about 1967's Venus in Furs (Trodden Underfoot). As a follow-up, we chatted with Nathan Schiff, Long Island filmmaker and longtime friend of Furs director, Joseph Marzano (Back to Marzanoland). I guess we're masochists, we didn't get enough Lou Campa, or I just wanted to close the loop, but here we are, definitely slamming the book shut for good on this mini-saga.

For those who have not been following along, Campa was the shady producer behind Furs, along with several other sickie films orbiting around this scene. We've touched on several of them before: Venus in Furs, of course, but also, Cool It, Baby and Mini-Skirt Love. But we never really discussed two of Campa's most outrageous offerings distributed through Cinex Industries: Sock it to Me, Baby and Come on Baby, Light My Fire. An additional impetus to continue pulling this thread? The passion of Toronto's very own smutmeister, Alex DiSanto, who joins us for a volatile, heated discussion about the thespian talents of Larry Hunter (would you die on that hill?), watersports in sexploitation, and the musical talents of Darlene Cotton.

But before all that, in the news and updates we cover AGFA's latest horrotic release, Pink crossovers, Pride Month failures, and the disgusting trend of using AI to make dead people fuck. In other words: another day, another man, another episode to keep out of the hands of your neighbor, Tina.

Episode Specific:
Purchase Voices of Desire + Fly Now, Pay Later
Purchase Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes
Watch Sock it to Me & Light My Fire on Cultpix
Follow the paperbackgrindhouse
Special thanks: Alex DiSanto

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: thesinsyndicatepodcast@gmail.com

It's a Love Explosion! In an attempt to maintain our sanity amidst deadlines and life generally, we bring you another episode of our Short Ends series, which we've used in the past to feature additional discussions that have either gone long, didn't fit, or generally felt like they were worthy of standing on their own. We've slightly expanded this design to hopefully include more low-key and informal chats with friends, fans and listeners, without the pressure of one of our regular, deeply researched Sin Syndicate episodes (that you've come to know and love).

All that build up to say, we've got unofficial Gap Theatre correspondent and New Jersey native Jeffery Petrone on the show to talk about a secret screening of "Wilbur and the Baby Factory" that he recently attended. Jeffery is a passionate fan of all genres of film and has recently caught the sexploitation bug. We were excited to talk with him about his impressions of this Harry Novak distributed sort of sex film, sort of Master Race satire. Of course, we've also got plenty of news, updates and chatter from the World of Sexploitation, literally, from America to Argentina to England to Japan. Will I ever be able to rescue Casey from Roman Porno land? 

Episode Specific:
Listen to "Baby Factory"
Visit The Gap Theatre
View Jeffery's Top 10 of 1960s Sexploitation

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: thesinsyndicatepodcast@gmail.com

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: thesinsyndicatepodcast@gmail.com

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: thesinsyndicatepodcast@gmail.com

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: thesinsyndicatepodcast@gmail.com