Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema Goes Back to Its Porno Roots This February

Ever since Sherman Torgan bought Hollywood’s New Beverly Cinema in 1978 and turned it into the city’s premier repertory house — a tradition current owner Quentin Tarantino has continued since buying the property in 2007 — the theater has been the place to go for an expertly curated mix of Hollywood classics, international art house fare, animation, and cult cinema. For seven years before Torgan’s reign, however, the New Beverly was known as the Eros and specialized in a very different kind of entertainment: porno movies.

It’s a history Tarantino paid tribute to in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…” when Sharon Tate asked “What’s happening at the dirty movie place” while having dinner down the street from the Eros at El Coyote. And this February Tarantino is honoring his theater’s past once again by turning the New Bev back into the Eros. Instead of the cinema’s usual varied mix of programming, February is all about erotica both high (Ingmar Bergman’s “Summer With Monika”) and low (Gerard Damiano’s infamous “Deep Throat”). And as usual at the New Beverly, there are some must-see obscurities programmed alongside the more famous films.

The series kicks off on February 2 with a sexploitation triple feature dedicated to one of producer Roger Corman’s most popular franchises, the “nurse” films. These movies — “The Student Nurses,” “Private Duty Nurses,” and “The Young Nurses” — distill Corman’s filmmaking philosophy to its purest form, offering up sex, action, and a dash of social commentary in an irresistible cocktail. “The Student Nurses” is of particular interest as an early work by Stephanie Rothman, who harnessed the exploitation and softcore genres to her own artistic ends throughout the 1970s; hers is an authentically feminist drive-in movie filled with carefully conceived details that make the film a delightful time capsule that still plays great today.

Perhaps the most unmissable curiosity of the calendar is a midnight screening on February 21 of Wes Craven’s “The Fireworks Woman.” Directed under the pseudonym Abe Snake in the period between Craven’s horror masterpieces “The Last House on the Left” and “The Hills Have Eyes,” “The Fireworks Woman” is remarkable for how many of Craven’s preoccupations and visual signatures are smuggled into the hardcore formula. Surreal, provocative, and confrontational, it’s essential viewing for Craven completists and one of the oddest and most fascinating movies on the February calendar.

Another midnight screening, “The Opening of Misty Beethoven” — on Valentine’s Day! — provides the opportunity to see one of the most beautifully made of all erotic films, from the best director to ever work in the form. Radley Metzger (working here under the pseudonym Henry Paris) was the Vincente Minnelli of porn, a visual stylist expertly attuned to the expressive possibilities of color, rhythm, and widescreen composition. The globe-trotting “Misty Beethoven” is his masterpiece, a smart, sexy, and funny adaptation of “Pygmalion” with an all-star cast of actors from adult cinema’s golden age.

One of erotic cinema’s other major auteurs, Russ Meyer, is also represented on Valentine’s Day (as well as the following evening) with a double feature of “Up” and “Vixen.” Meyer operates in a more comic register than Metzger; Metzger’s movies are playful but take sex seriously, whereas Meyer’s broadly comic approach treats sex more like Looney Tunes cartoons treat chases between the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. As a one man band who wrote, directed, edited, and shot his own films, however, Meyer couldn’t be more serious when it comes to his craft — a naughty Frank Tashlin, he offers the open-minded viewer a wealth of aesthetic rewards to go along with more base pleasures.

Another significant entry on the New Beverly’s February calendar is director Just Jaeckin’s 1974 softcore milestone “Emmanuelle,” which screens on February 7 and 8 paired with one of its many imitators, “Black Emannuelle.” The first film made Sylvia Kristel a star thanks to a surprisingly nuanced performance — even if her performance and those of her co-stars are mostly a pretext for sexual gymnastics, as Jaeckin doesn’t waste time trying to motivate or explain the characters’ borderline nymphomania but just presents it as a given; Emmanuelle and the supporting characters are defined only by their unanimous willingness to jump into bed (or water, or a reclining seat on a plane, or whatever is available) and make love at a moment’s notice. Regardless, Kristel plays her part with conviction and commitment, as does “Black Emmanuelle” leading lady Laura Genser — like Kristel, she became an international celebrity thanks to her work as the title character.

These are just scratching the surface — the schedule also boasts art house fare like Nagisha Oshima’s “In the Realm of the Senses,” notoriously scandalous releases like “Caligula,” and Roger Vadim’s darkly comic high school flick “Pretty Maids All in a Row,” which Tarantino named as one of his favorite films of all time in a Sight & Sound poll. The one non-sex film, appropriately, is Tarantino’s own “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which screens every Friday at midnight. Check out the full lineup at the theater’s website and do yourself a favor — check out what’s happening at “the dirty movie place” this February.

The New Beverly Cinema‘s tribute to The Eros runs from February 2 to March 1.