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Diversions - aka “Sex Express” (1976)

Dir: Derek Ford

A handcuffed woman (Heather Deeley) and Police escort board a train, during a prisoner transfer, and as the journey begins the woman starts to create sexual fantasies involving her travelling companions…..

Perhaps one of the most notorious British sex films ever made (and also rarity at the time as most UK sex films were out and out comedies or generally light-hearted romps) prolific Sexploitation producer/director Derek Ford's ("Don't Open till Christmas") “Diversions” was released in a drastically cut down ‘soft’ version to UK cinemas (as “Sex Express”) but survived in a much stronger, hardcore, version for screening overseas, also under the “Sex Express” moniker in Germany but changed to “Diversions” for some other countries.
And in it’s hardcore incarnation there are certainly parts of this film that deserve their infamous reputation even today.

Things don’t get off to a great start though with a fantasy about Deeley being wooed by a young man whilst hiding in a farmer‘s barn.
“Did you know that apples have buttocks? Oh yes they do…beautiful buttocks” intones our young stud while holding aloft said fruit.
Cue an extended Shakespearian eulogy from him all about the glory of apples until, unable to take the erotic power of such fruity words anymore, the woman comes down from the hay loft declaring angrily “Look at me, I’m a woman not a bloody apple. Caress my breasts they’re real”!
He does... and sex ensures.

Obvious hardcore inserts now come into play but utterly fail to make the desired impression due to the fact no effort has been made to make them match the original soft core footage.
The hardcore sex is lit completely differently and worst of all shot in some anonymous room with black walls and on some kind of bed…despite the sex supposedly taking place in a barn next to some apple trays!

The second (and most infamous) vignette’s hardcore is far more successful because it’s an entire alternate scene and not just mismatched inserts.
It’s also more varied in content and genuinely effective in parts thanks to this, but even so…so far so normal.
But then something happens.

Deeley is making love to a man (Tim Blackstone) on a couch but then we suddenly leave this sex scene, at various intervals, to show the woman, now dressed as a nurse, caught up in some unidentified war zone where she is gang raped (and her patient shot) by a group of soldiers.
As we leave this red hued flashback (?) footage we suddenly see the woman produce a dagger and bloodily stabs her lover to death before smearing his spilt blood over her breasts and masturbating with the handle of the dagger!
We are now suddenly faced with something utterly unexpected (especially following the achingly conventional first fantasy sequence) and uncomfortable and things proceed to get even more crazed, and removed from the ho hum piece of porno we were up until now experiencing, when she proceeds to slice off the dead man’s penis and suck it!

“Diversions” has now become kin to those earlier, tough and often brutal , U.S. hardcore movies like “Hardgore” or “Forced Entry” and it’s a truly bizarre thing to experience in an English sex film for sure.
This shockingly extreme and audacious tale ends with an off-the-wall twist (after another spot of hardcore action featuring the very well endowed James Lister and a nice ejaculation shot) that just adds to the spaced out derangement of the whole thing.

Next up we return to normality with Deeley as a new flat owner who finds out the flat was once run by a hooker named ‘Miss Whiplash’ and horny guys keep phoning for an appointment!
Anger turns to lust though when one hopeful ‘n’ hunky punter (Tim Burr) turns up at the flat and Deeley decides to go along with the misunderstanding.
Strangely though most of the sex sequence that follows is soft core in content bar some brief ‘rear’ shots of Deeley riding the guy.
Sadly, coming after the shocking last vignette, this sequence seems particularly weak and rather drab.

Our next fantasy is back on track though as now we enter, yet again, more controversial and violent territory.
Completely removed from the ‘soft’ domestic version of the movie this next vignette enters (sort of) the world of Naziploitation as Deeley now imagines herself at the mercy of three Nazi-style guards, two male and one female.
I say ‘sort of’ in the Naziploitation genre because what we have here is more the unidentified military set-up of “Love Camp 7” (anonymous dark grey uniforms) than the explicitly Nazi perpetrators in the likes of “Ilsa”.
The woman guard in fact has what looks like a Russian uniform on.
‘Sovietsploitation’ anyone?

Deeley is slapped around a bit and forced to perform fellatio on a (rather long and silly looking) gun barrel until we actually suffer a very bad jump cut that removes a (supposedly simulated) ‘golden shower’ scene where one of the soldiers urinates in Deeley’s face. A scene present in the German version of the movie.
Sadly the German print cuts short (ha ha ) the earlier castration scene though so it seems a spot of mix and match work would be required to get a truly full print of “Diversions”.

Deeley is then tied up, spread legged, and slowly stripped and fondled by the woman soldier in a very languid sequence that belies the rather too funky music (the entire score is interesting if very hit and miss) playing over it.
And talking of music Horror fans will be suddenly thrust out of the film by a very recognisable tune suddenly playing…Yep, it’s one of the ’De Wolfe Music Ltd’ tracks used as library music in Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” about a year later!

This is all pretty tame stuff until the guard rubs a knife through Deeley’s pubic hair, but (despite a close-up crotch shot) this remains soft core.
We are soon thrust back into the movie though as the hardcore sex finally appears in the form of a lesbian sequence that turns into a three-way when one of the male guards joins in as ‘69’ and anal is combined to produce a pretty hot sequence, climaxing in a great money shot.

Next (after some voiceover thoughts from Deeley that I could not make out in my copy) we go back into a more conventional set-up as Deeley poses in front of an old tripod camera she has just bought.
Things go all supernatural (although still light-hearted) as Deeley dreams that the camera is haunted by a randy ghost (Anthony Kenyon) who sets Deeley up in a vintage photo-shoot with himself and a horny maid (Gilly Sykes).
This threesome sequence is shot lightly sped up with comedy banjo/ragtime music playing over it and is a million miles away from the other two earlier sections, and ends on an obvious little twist.

The train’s arrival at its destination snaps us back to reality once again as a nice little trick on the audience is unveiled just before the end credits.
But by this time the film has started to outstay its welcome and to be honest you could have lost the ‘Barn’ section (and perhaps the ‘Miss Whiplash’ fantasy too) to tighten the film up as well as giving it a consistently grittier edge.
The star of the show is most certainly Heather Deeley (who around 1979 simply vanished from the business and pretty much from public knowledge) who gives the film her all, looks great and goes to places very few British porn/Sexploitation actresses ever would have at the time.

For what it is (plot wise this is just a ho hum porno flick at the end of the day) “Diversions” certainly goes to some unusual places for a British 70’s sex film and the genuinely shocking and gorgeously twisted ‘castration’ segment moves it up a few notches for sure.
So an average porno flick overall but one with some very rarely seen elements that makes it a must see for those interested in the history of British adult/Sexploitation cinema.