Radley Metzger

Entering the film business immediately after college graduation, Radley Metzger gradually evolved into the "Lord of the Flies" in the field of soft-core sex films. After six years of producing and directing such bachelor-party attractions as The Dirty Girls (1965) and The Alley Cats (1966), Metzger gained respectability when he served as American distributor of the critically acclaimed Swedish feature I Am Woman (1966). Metzger's brand of elegant erotica usually stops short of actual on-screen penetration; when he oversteps his bounds, as in 1981's The Tale of Tiffany Lust, he uses the pseudonym of Henry Paris. Radley Metzger's one and only mainstream film was the stylish and inventive 1978 remake of the war-horse murder mystery The Cat and the Canary; but even when presented with tried-and-true material, Metzger can't resist including a sex-deviate villain, who takes orgasmic delight in describing what tortures he has in store for tremulous (and underclad) heroine Carol Lynley.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide