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The Sin Syndicate

The Sin Syndicate

Written by: Someone's Favorite Productions
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The Sin Syndicate is a podcast hosted by writer Gentry Austin and adult film historian Casey Scott focused on the Golden Age of American sexploitation, when the morals were loose, the laws were murky, and the intercourse was all simulated. Join us semiweekly as we peer into adults only theaters and sticky floored cinemas looking for colorful nudies, B&W roughies, and softcore sex films.Someone's Favorite Productions Art
Episodes
  • Back to Marzanoland

    Back to Marzanoland
    May 20 2026
    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
    Show More Show Less
    3 hrs and 12 mins
  • The Power of the Horn

    The Power of the Horn
    May 7 2026
    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
    Show More Show Less
    2 hrs and 9 mins
  • Trodden Underfoot

    Trodden Underfoot
    Apr 29 2026
    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
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 57 mins
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