Pop Cinema has reissued its 1970s New York Grindhouse Super Stars Triple Feature DVD-R edition of The Tycoon’s Daughter (1973) The School for Sexual Arts (1975), and Kathy’s Graduation Present (1975). Featuring some of the most recognizable East Coast stars of the early-seventies, this back-in-print set can be ordered from Alternative Cinema or MVD.
Adult-filmmaking giant Shaun Costello directs The Tycoon’s Daughter, an extremely rough and dimwitted one-day-wonder production highlighted only by a couple of famous faces in the cast. Shot outside the city in a more rural area, The Tycoon’s Daughter foreshadows the Patricia Hearst kidnapping but does little else of value during its hour-long runtime.
Costello made some truly incredible films in his wild and prolific career, but he also made a lot of junk. Even his major fans agree with this. Hell, I bet Costello agrees with it! He was making a lot of quickies like The Tycoon’s Daughter in the period after Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door. Costello managed to make some memorable no-budget films, but The Tycoon’s Daughter is not one of them.
The only thing at all memorable about the very grimy The Tycoon’s Daughter is indeed the cast featuring Marc Stevens, Mary Stuart, Ashley Hurst and Judy Craven. This memorable group is not served well by Costello here, wth Stevens especially delivering some of the silliest lines of (I’m guessing) improv I have ever heard. The print used here is pretty beat up, fitting for a film of this quality.
Shaun Costello is back behind the camera again for The School For Sexual Arts (1975), a far more satisfying production than the rather limp The Tycoon’s Daughter. Clocking in at a breezy 46 minutes, this Costello quickie benefits from a great cast, fun city setting and some solid cinematography by Bill Markle.
Set around a rather randy college art-class, The School for Sexual Arts is barely a film, but it has a delightfully dirty downtown feel about it that almost feels more aligned with the city’s sixties scene. Costello is improving as a director rapidly, and I found this to be among his better mid-seventies weekend wonders.
Fresh from working on some of Joe Sarno’s finest films, Julia Sorel appears for Costello here, as does Alan Marlow and Ashley Moore. The real head-turner is, of course, the marvelous C.J. Laing, making one of her earliest screen appearances. Sporting a short haircut, C.J. was on the cusp of stardom in 1975, appearing in high-profile productions for Cecil Howard and Roberta Findlay in the same year. Laing’s appearance for Costello makes School for Sexual Arts the most valuable film in this Pop Cinema collection. The print used here is in even rougher shape than The Tycoon’s Daughter, but it doesn’t take away from the film’s enjoyment level.
Closing out our Costello triple-feature is the star-packed Kathy’s Graduation Present. Probably the most iconic film found on this Pop Cinema reissue, Kathy’s Graduation Present is another one of Costello’s more successful shoot-and-split seventies films. Featuring some clever editing and amusing dialogue, Kathy’s Graduation Present is a lightly entertaining way to pass 55 minutes, although this is the lightest on plot of the three films in this reissued collection.
Kathy’s Graduation Present might be completely forgettable if it wasn’t for the appearances of three of the biggest legends of the period, Jamie Gillis, Jennifer Jordan and Annie Sprinkle, but they are exactly what makes it feel so iconic. The ensemble, by and large, is fine, but the appearance of these three Golden-Age icons is, far and away, the most interesting thing about this Costello quickie. This film is honestly a must-see for adult-film historians and lovers just for the fact that it represents one of Sprinkle’s earliest appearances. She’s already clearly a star here and it is to Costello, and his camera’s credit, that he knows it.
Despite the varying quality of the films, this 1970s New York Grindhouse Super Stars Triple Feature comes with an easy recommendation for lovers of this type of cinema and era in general. These early Shaun Costello films are extremely rough around the edges, but it is fascinating watching the (mad)man who soon made masterworks like Waterpower (1976) and Fiona on Fire (1978) grow quickly into a great filmmaker.
-Jeremy Richey, September 2026-
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