WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Michael Ledo Plot Spoiler review.The Blu-ray disc I watched was a restored copy of a film with the year 1976, apparently an edited version. Jack (Gerald Grant) and Elvira (Claire Wilbur) are swingers. She is bored by being able to easily score due to the Al Goldstein publication which lets them advertise. Elvira has been attempting to score with Betsy (Lynn Lowry) and Eddie (Casey Donovan). She likes the chase.The couple swap didn't go as I would have liked as same sex couples paired up. The monologue comes across as a Creative Writing 101 project. I was not overly impressed, and in fact it brought a chuckle as I had to laugh at what passed for clever in 1970 something.Guide Sex and full frontal nudity (M/F)

melvelvit-1 Radley Metzger's THE SCORE is a "hip happening" where THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW's "Brad & Janet" meets WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? without all the sturm-und-drang as a couple of swingers set out to seduce a pair of naive newlyweds. It's about the furthest I've ever seen a (sort of) mainstream movie go for its time and if Metzger had lingered a moment longer on those fellatio shots (both male and female), this would be XXX. Way gayer than I thought it would be with lots of fetish foreplay (a cowboy, a sailor, a nun) but the director's hypnotic way with material like this should keep just about anyone riveted. Lynn Lowry's looks ("elfin", and then some) get on my nerves but I quite liked Claire Wilbur. The guys (Cal Culver aka Casey Donovan and Gerald Grant, who would both die of AIDS) not so much for some reason. Sylvester Stallone, like Wilbur, was in the Off-Broadway play but Metzger passed on him because he didn't like Sly's "Brooklynese". The film's loss, for sure.

Woodyanders Predatory seductress Elvira (an excellent performance by the stunning Claire Wilbur) and her equally calculating photographer husband Jack (smoothly played by the handsome Gerald Grant) are an extremely liberated and uninhibited swinging couple who make a bet with themselves that they can seduce sweet and naive newlywed Betsy (a fine and appealing portrayal by the adorable Lynn Lowry) and her boyish ecologist spouse Eddie (a likable turn by strapping blonde hunk Calvin Culver) during a week-end get together at their luxury Riviera villa. Director Radley Metzger and writer Jerry Douglas expertly craft a sharp, witty, and utterly intoxicating tale that frankly addresses such bold adult topics as role playing, bisexuality, and open relationships with an admirable elegance and intelligence which lifts this film well above the level of your garden variety smutty skin flick. Moreover, Metzger astutely nails the blithely carefree try anything sexual experimentalism of the 70's and masterfully creates a deliriously erotic atmosphere that's both enticing and arousing in equal measure. The sensual set pieces are smoking hot stuff; the lengthy and strenuous lesbian session between Betsy and Elvira in particular delivers one hell of a scorching punch. Wilbur, Grant, and Lowry all do sterling work in their roles while Carl Parker ably acquits himself in a supporting part as cocky macho telephone repairman Mike. Frano Vodopivec's sumptuous cinematography makes the most out of the gorgeous seaside Croatian locations. Robert Cornford's jaunty and jazzy score hits the tuneful spot. Highly recommended.

weho90069 Someone bashed "Score" for being a soft-core, "So What?" kind of movie. This is both unfair and uninformed. Image Entertainment's presentation of "Score" is a CENSORED print of Metzger's intensely more erotic and explicit work (particularly for 1972). Director Radley Metzger was, at this time, ramping up to his stint as legendary hardcore film maker "Henry Paris" (at which point in his career he would grind out some of the X-rated industry's most prestigious and sophisticated projects like THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVEN and BARBARA BROADCAST). In the UNCUT version of "Score" Gerald Grant and Cal Culver (nee Casey Donovan of gay porn fame) engage in explicit, X-rated sexual activity, much of which was sadly and unnecessarily excised from the chopped-up print released by Image Entertainment. The ladies' sex scene is also longer and feels more complete with the missing footage. I've read some hearsay online that Metzger actually approved of releasing the censored version of the film instead of putting out the full-blown hardcore version. Disappointing, if true, though it may have been made purely due to marketing and distribution (otherwise the title might have been lost amid countless, worthless smutty DVDs in the back-room browsing areas of video stores. (shrug)Now more than ever before, "Score" needs to be re-released UNCENSORED; anyone who has seen the film in its entirety (as I have) knows that the sexual payoffs are part of the reason the film exists at all. Heck, it is still relatively tame by today's standards, so there was little reason to snip away the various erections and oral sex scenes (penetration, while it may well have happened between the men, is never truly explicit due to shadows, etc.). "Score" can only be fairly judged seeing the film in its most complete form; otherwise it understandably plays as half-baked, which is unfair to the viewer, to Radley Metzger and his team of film makers, and to the stalwart cast. I say, if it was good enough to show in theaters in 1972, it's good enough to show on DVD thirty-one years later! Sure, the bi-sexual theme still doesn't resonate well with a lot of folks and maybe that's part of the enduring charm of "Score". Non-traditional sex identities remain today a troubling and disconcerting taboo (particularly for men). It's sad that given as much progress as we've made culturally and scientifically, there are religion-bound folks out there still not willing to admit that *honest* human sexuality is rarely polarized (as hetero- or homo-) without *some* shades-of-gray... Because of this eternal angst, the uncensored version of "Score" is great for group showings. You'll watch with glee as your friends squirm as the last act goes into explicit high- gear.By the same token, of the ultimate strengths of "Score" is that it boldly and unabashedly plunges into territory that has been for decades-on-end commercial suicide. "Score" straddles the world of porn on the one side with more serious entertainment on the other. Even now, this unfamiliar mix of genres seems refreshing; the past three decades have given us plenty of porn and plenty of mainstream entertainment, but very little that really dares to push the envelope the way "Score" did, combining the two extremes. Other groundbreaking movies of the 1970s like "The Story of O" and "Emmanuelle" also accomplished this (and disasters like "Wild Orchid" promised to, but didn't).Today audiences are lamenting that more films like this don't exist -- films with admirable production values which nevertheless aren't afraid to take the provocation initially hinted at to an explicit level. Thanks to an unfortunate distribution choice by Image Entertainment (a company that made its initial living releasing XXX hardcore porno such as "The Girl From S.E.X. to video), audiences only get a "softcore" version and continue to miss out on the relatively mild (by today's standards) but ultimately necessary climaxes in "Score".