The Last Janus Movies - Moral Welfare Parts 1 & 2

‘Moral Welfare' which combines 'Moral Welfare 1’ and ‘Moral Welfare 2’ is available at http://www.janusworldwide.com/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=171.  Copies of Janus 28, which announces the two movies and Janus 26, Janus 43 and Janus 65 which contain related stories are also available from the Janus WorldWide website.

 

 

 

‘Moral Welfare 1’ and ‘Moral Welfare 2’ were released by Janus in 1984 and there wouldn’t be another Janus movie until 2017.  The first part of ‘Moral Welfare’ runs 23:30 and the second part runs 15:30. The two parts were sold as separate movies but they were obviously intended to be viewed together.

In the early 1980s a group of tabloid newspapers, religious organizations, social activists and other groups like the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association launched a campaign against the distribution of "video nasties" (videos that contained violence or sexual content that the activists deemed unacceptable) in the UK.  This campaign led to the Video Recordings Act of 1984.  This Act introduced a requirement that commercial video recordings, such as Betamax and VHS video tapes, must be rated by the British Board of Film Classification (which had been responsible for the motion picture ratings since 1912) before they could be offered for sale or for rent in the UK.  The Board had the authority to refuse to rate films, which effectively banned them, or to require edits.  Several producers of spanking films, including Janus, Roue and Blushes, stopped making movies altogether after this Act was passed while others moved their offices out of the UK to EU countries such as Holland to escape the restrictions.

‘Moral Welfare 1’ opens almost three minutes of woman, Stella Castle, siting alone in an empty room accompanied by the sound of the ticking of a very annoying clock.  Finally, a doctor walks in and tells her to stand up.  He gives her a medical examination, of a sort, that lasts over 5 minutes to confirm that she is fit for punishment.  Towards the end of the examination she offers ‘to do anything’ to escape punishment but that attempt backfires.  After the examination she puts on a hospital gown and then she’s taken to see the Moral Welfare Officer, who is dressed in a tuxedo and bow tie for no obvious reason.  Thirteen minutes into the movie he begins her caning with an unusually long and flexible cane.   He quickly administers 25 strokes (the opening scene of her waiting lasts longer than the punishment) and then she is sent back to the doctor for a quick after-punishment examination and which is complete just after the 17-minute mark in the film.  

The second woman a small dark-haired girl of Middle Eastern decent, Jackie Habib, who is dressed in school pinafore and sash.  She receives a quick examination from the doctor and then the Moral Welfare Officer gives her a hand spanking of about 20 smacks.  Part 1 ends immediately after her hand spanking and Moral Welfare 2’ continues from where the first part ended.  Jackie receives a 15-stroke caning over her panties and then she too is sent back to the doctor for a very brief final scene which ends at the 2-minute mark of the second movie (I don’t understand why they would split the two movies where they did).

The third segment involves a punk rocker who has been called back for a second punishment session.  She, Lorraine Simmons has spiked hair and garish makeup, and she is wearing the studded clothing, belts and waist chains typical of the eighties’ punk scene.  Her story is predictable, a visit to the doctor for a ridiculous examination last much longer than the punishment session which is followed by a hand spanking by the doctor for calling him a lecher and then a session with the Moral Welfare Officer and the tawse.  One final difference is that Lorraine lies on a table for her final examination.

I wish I could say that the Janus movies ended on a high note but I think the two ‘Moral Welfare’ movies may be the worst movies ever released by Janus; they fall far short of the level of most of the earlier films.  The pace is slow, the three segments are repetitive and the whole movie is simply boring.  The sets are simplistic with black walls and a few dark set pieces.  The lighting is dim and several characters are wearing dark clothing so the disappear into the background.  There really is little reason to watch this movie and it probably better to just skip it and remember Janus for their early films.

Antonia du Bois and The Disciplinarian

‘The Disciplinarian’ is available from Janus WorldWide at (http://www.janusworldwide.com/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=171).  Copies of Janus 20, 24 and Encore Janus are also available from the Janus WorldWide website.

 

‘The Disciplinarian’ is a 16 minute long movie released by Janus in 1983.  It is set is some type of ‘finishing academy’ and it features two characters; Dr. Weltscheim, a stereotypical Teutonic authoritarian who is the Director of the Academy and a student named Antonia Du Bois.

Antonia Du Bois’ was one of the most popular Janus models of the early 80s but her career was very brief.  She first appeared in Janus 20 where she appeared in two photostories; one called ‘The Punishment Officer’ and a second composed of photos from ‘The Disciplinarian’.  The cover photo for that issue was also from ‘The Disciplinarian’.  Later that year she was the subject of an illustrated profile called ‘Will the Real Antonia du Bois Please Bend Over’ in Janus 24.  Then she disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.  Her later appearances in Janus (Janus 33, 91, 140 and Encore Janus 2, 3 & 4) all consisted of photographs taken for the previous stories or during the filming of ‘The Disciplinarian’.

The profile in Janus 24 describes Antonia du Bois as a nursing student from Hampstead in London. It’s difficult to know how much of the profile is true because Antonia du Bois was a fictional persona adopted by a model in an entertainment magazine that wasn’t above creating a good story; take Gordon Sargeant, the never seen editor of Janus, for example (but more about him in some future post).  Between 2010 and 2014, Nick Urzdown, who was both a writer for Janus and a performer for Moonglow, wrote a blog called ‘Memories of a Strict Uncle’ (http://strictuncle.blogspot.com/) which included a series of posts called ‘Trade Tales’ that recounted stories that had circulated inside the British spanking industry.  His ‘Trade Tale’ of June 25, 2010 was devoted to Antonia du Bois:

“In her interview Antonia told the story of being recognised by two girls on a bus. This story seems to have been half-remembered by people who often claim that her father found out about her activities which forced her to drop out in rather a hurry. Given that the girl really did live in Hampstead, one of the swisher parts of London, that story cannot be entirely ruled out. That said, she must have know (sic) what she was getting into before she made her first shoot, so it is stretching credulity a bit.

Another and more likely version is that she had a life as a catalogue model and the agency she worked for warned her that the spanking work might effect her more vanilla activities.”

An anonymous commenter to that post wrote:

"She, Anna, became a psychiatric nurse. Antonia du Bois was not, of course, her real name. I worked with her for a while.

She had attended a Polytechnic in East London when modelling as A du B so probably lived in East London during term. Her family home was in Luton. She probably quit modelling to start her nursing career. As a former colleague I could never quite work her out. Some of us knew a lot a more about her than she knew but we didn't let on.”

Of course, I can’t confirm any of that information so I will leave you to decide how much you think is true.

The movie open with Antonia waiting outside the office of Dr. Weltscheim.  Eventually she is called into the office and he goes into a lengthy tirade about her transgressions.  Finally, he decides that action must be taken and he tells Antonia to return to his office at 9 p.m. that evening and to tell no one about it on pain of expulsion.  All of this requires nearly 7 of the movie’s 16 minutes.

Antonia returns that evening and Dr. Weltscheim is outraged that Antonia has been caught smoking in the meantime.  Of course, he is lighting a cigarette himself while he sputters on but he eventually decides to begin her punishment.  He leads her over to a sofa next to the fireplace where he orders her to remove her skirt and bend over for a caning.  A series of hard strokes follow and he stops part way through to remove his jacket.  Next, he orders her completely undress and a few minutes of naked calisthenics follow accompanied by occassional smacks across her bottom with a tawse.  The final stage of her punishment will be 12 strokes with his riding whip but the scene fades to black after three but a few more are heard afterward.

In his “Trade Tale’, Uncle Nick describes the ending of the movie:

“One thing is clear and that is that Antonia was unwilling to take a serious thrashing. If you watch The Disciplinarian then you will see that the screen fades to black some three strokes into what was supposed to be a 12 whack final tawsing. Basically Antonia jumped up, fled the set and refused to return. The video was completed with a voice-over in the hope that nobody would notice.”

His description of the ending of the movie certainly is accurate, except that it is a riding whip rather than a tawse, but given what we’ve seen prior to this point I am a little skeptical of this story (I should note that Uncle Nick tells a similar story about the SfP movie ‘The Caning Machine’ as recounted in my post of September 21, 2018).  I think this fade out may have been the intended ending of movie all along and I like it; sometimes imagination is better than dramatization. 

I don’t care whether the unseen strokes at the end of the movie are real or not.  It works for me and this movie is a favorite of mine.  Personally, I think it is a better movie than the ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’ but others will likely disagree.  There are some technical issues, particularly street noise even though the movie was obviously filmed indoors and the quality of the movie which I assume was originally recorded on videotape has suffered over time.  The major weakness for me is the character of Dr. Weltscheim which I think should have been toned down to something less farcical.

The St. Winifred's Trilogy

The three parts of the ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’, a pdf version of 'Janus 15' and the digital edition of ‘Encore Janus’ number 1 published on the 30^th Anniversary of the release of the trilogy are available from Janus WorldWide at (http://www.janusworldwide.com/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=638).

The ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’ was released by Janus in 1982 and it is the basis of a series of a photostory (above) in Janus 15; the last issue of Janus published that year.  The first edition of ‘Encore Janus’ digital magazine was published on the 30^th anniversary of the release of the trilogy and it contains a story titled “St Winifred’s – The ‘Citizen Kane’ of Spanking Movies”.  That might be going a little far but there is no doubt that the ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’ is one of the classics of the spanking movie genre.  The Trilogy consists of ‘The Athlete’s Lesson (14 minutes long), ‘The Sixth Former’s Lesson’ (13 minutes) and ‘The Head Girl’s Lesson’ (20 minutes).  All three share a common setting, story line and characters and they could easily be combined into one movie but they continue to be sold as three separate parts at ₤10 (about $13) each, double the price of other Janus movies.

 

The trilogy has a cast of 8 which is unusually large for a spanking movie.  The actress playing Gilly Norton (the Head Girl) had appeared in and on the cover of Janus 12.  She also appears in the Roue movie ‘Rebel at St. Angela’s’ (a screen capture from ‘Rebel at St. Angela’s’ is shown at the left).  The actors playing Deputy Head Girl Slocombe (Lucy Palmer) and Colonel Forbes (a school patron) had previously appeared together in a photostory in Janus 14 as Michele and the Principal.  Two of the other schoolgirls (Blisset and Green) were also played by Janus regulars Tina and Angela (actually Anne Proto who appeared in 'The Kane Assignment' respectively but the last two, who play Beddows and Lovett, made their first and only Janus appearance in St. Winifreds.  Encore Janus identifies the actor playing the Headmaster as Stanley Lowe, a British con-man, and a search of the internet would seem to confirm this; the pictures certainly look alike.

The movie was filmed at what was once a London landmark, the School Dinners Restaurant on Baker Street in London.  The restaurant is now closed and the site is the Barracuda Club and Casino.  Encore Janus states that “… extensive research has not been able to determine exactly when the filming took place in 1982.  We do know that it was a Sunday though as the cast and crew had the venue to themselves for the day”.

Each segment begins with one of the girls writing the name of the segment on a blackboard with a spelling mistake that she corrects after a slap on her bottom.

The Athlete’s Lesson

Five students from St. Winifred’s School for Girls are called before a disciplinary panel consisting if the Headmaster, Colonel Forbes and the Head Girl.  Each of the five has been accused of some form of misconduct and the panel will decide on their punishment which will be accrued out immediately.  The first two girls, Blisset and Beadows, are accused of being negligent in their school work and wearing inappropriate attire in the dormitories and school pool.  Norton, the Head Girl suggests the cane as an appropriate punishment but Colonel Norton recommends the strap.  The Headmaster decides on a combination of a hand spanking together with the cane and he instructs Norton to carry out the hand spanking after which the he will administer 12 strokes of the cane.  Norton administers a bare bottom hand spanking to Blisset and then gives the same to Beadows who is wearing a body suit.  Next, Beadows receives the first caning.  Blisset follows and again her caning is administered to her bare bottom.

 

The Sixth Former’s Lesson

Norton reports that she observed two students, Lovett and Green, leading a sit in during a class and that she has decided to administer the tawse to both.  She goes on to report that she also observed them reading Playboy (rather than Janus?) and, for thi,s the Headmaster will administer a caning.  Lovett will be first.  The punishment proceeds.  A few of the strokes are repeated in slow motion but I would have preferred that hadn’t been done.  Green is next and she receives the tawse from Norton followed immediately by a caning from the Headmaster.  Finally, Lovett returns for her caning which ends the segment.

The Head Girls Lesson

The third and final segment begins with Colonel Forbes reporting that he has seen Head Girl Norton and Deputy Head Girl Slocombe (played by Lucy Palmer from 'Room 2D') ‘cavorting in the bushes’ with some local boys.  The Colonel is outraged and the Headmaster is virtually speechless; their outrage is so overblown that it is almost comic.  The Headmaster demands that Norton explain and when she can’t he decides that both should receive the slipper from the Colonel and then receive a caning from him.  Slocombe is first and she receives a lengthy slippering (actually, it looks like a running shoe) .  Norton follows and the Headmaster decides that her punishment should be the tawse rather than the slipper.  As with Lovett’s punishment in the previous section, part of Norton’s strapping is repeated in slow motion, complete with distorted sound that I found to be annoying.   The canings come next, Slocombe first followed by Norton, with both receiving 18 strokes from the Headmaster.

This is a good movie but I think editing the three segments together into one movie would improve it.  My major complaint is with the camera work which seems to be a recurring comment in my reviews.  In this case I find the framing too tight; I wish they had pulled back a little to give a wider frame although this may have been difficult given the setting.  Overall, I think St. Winifred’s is definitely a movie worth seeing.  It has one of the largest casts that I can recall in any spanking movie but I wouldn’t go so far as to compare it to ‘Citizen Kane’.