That’s Wanking! (Mapatasi, 1976)

DIRECTOR: ROD WALLOPER. RUNNING TIME: 76 mins. DVD: REDWING. PRICE £12.99 CERT 18

Intended to be a companion piece to That’s Spanking, the same director’s compilation of famous cinematic spanking sequences, this film celebrates the unjustly neglected cinema of masturbation. Experienced porn producer Rod Walloper brings together a host of excerpts from long forgotten wank flicks including, inevitably, Percy Peaslin’s Tony Handjob series. Indeed, Percy Peaslin himself is on hand (so to speak) in his Tony Handjob persona (complete with homburg, raincoat, hangdog expression and jazz mag), to introduce each excerpt. These linking sequences are probably the only disappointing aspect of Walloper’s film – each time the film cuts back to Handjob he is ‘comedically’ caught in the act of whipping his weasel, and struggles to get his knob back into his pants. This ‘joke’ quickly becomes tiresome, and one is left wondering how Peaslin ever made a living out his routine in the early 1970s.

Thankfully, the films excerpted are of a far higher quality and include the classic horror trilogy Wankenstein, Whackula and The Two Faces of Dr Jerkoff. The first features a scientist experimenting with penis transplants in his attempts to create a male member perfectly adapted to the rigours of prolonged masturbation, whilst the second concerns a female vampire who feeds on jism and seeks out young men to wank off. Perhaps the best of the three is Dr Jerkoff, which features a reclusive, socially awkward doctor who, unable to attract women, spends much of his free time twisting his crank. As a result of his experiments with his own ejaculations, he devises an elixir which turns him into a handsome athletic type who has women falling over him and soon becomes engaged to a beautiful and wealthy heiress The film ends tragically when he reverts into Jerkoff during the wedding ceremony and masturbates furiously in front of his bride and her shocked family before being shot by the police.

Lest the uninformed viewer be left thinking that wanking films are a peculiarly British phenomena, Walloper also includes some foreign gems in his compilation. These include the bizarre square dance sequence from the Hollywood frontier epic Five Fingers for Seven Brothers, in which the titular brothers, deprived of female companionship, prance around their log cabin performing the bachelor’s shuffle. Also on view are several sequences from an Italian-made 1960s Mondo movie showing various masturbatory techniques from around the world – including some African tribal rituals which appear both painful and highly dangerous. Scandalously denied a cinematic release, this fine compilation is now available on DVD from specialist stockists. It is a long overdue reminder of the days when masturbation was considered a legitimate sexual activity, before it was driven under the covers and became characterised as being merely the furtive activity of social inadequate teenagers and Star Trek fans.