The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig

The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig is a pornographic feature shot in Philadelphia in February 1973 by Ray Hoersch, later known as R.C. Horsch, and John Butterworth, whom Horsch described as a news cameraman for KYW-TV. It featured the New York performers Georgina Spelvin, Tina Russell, Darby Lloyd Rains, and Helen Madigan and depicts rape, bondage, urination, and sex with a character presented as a schoolgirl.¹²

Production

Horsch said that the budget was a little over 20,000 dollars, of which 60 to 70 percent came from Salvatore "Sam the Barber" La Russa, who ran the Bag of Nails bar at 13th and Locust Streets, "money that he had laying around in a shoebox behind the bar. We're talking about organized crime." He said the film was shot in the house of his girlfriend, the wife of a Philadelphia assistant district attorney, and that a hospital scene was shot in the emergency room of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania under permission obtained for a student film; his later website gave the emergency room as Hahnemann Hospital's and the house as the Chestnut Hill home of a local assistant district attorney, and listed further locations at the Bag of Nails and on a vintage SEPTA trolley. The same website credited Paul Taylor as the lead, "Barney," and an actress billed as Any Mathieu or Any Hunter.¹³⁴

Distribution

Horsch said that staff of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office attended the premiere at the 1812 Theater on Chestnut Street, that La Russa arranged distribution through Philadelphia organized crime, and that the film was sold to the distributor Sam Lake for 50,000 dollars; his website described Lake's company as Mature Pictures, Inc.¹⁴ The trade magazine Take One reported in the spring of 1973 that "Bob Sumner's Mature Films in New York followed up Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig (starring Ms. Spelvin) with High Rise."⁵ The Boxoffice booking guide of February 1974 listed "Erotic Memoirs/Male Chauvinist Pig," a sex drama of 75 minutes, from the distributor Mature, with a date of October 15, 1973.⁶ Horsch said that the film reached number 42 on a national chart; his website gave number 38.³⁴ Al Goldstein wrote in Screw that the sex in it was disgusting.²⁴ La Russa died of a heart attack in 1996.⁷