History of Sex in Cinema:
The Greatest and Most Influential
Sexual Films and Scenes

(Illustrated)

Feature: The Red Shoe Diaries in the 1990s



The History of Sex in Cinema
Movie Title/Year and Film/Scene Description
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Red Shoe Diaries: The Movie (1992) (aka Wild Orchid III: Red Shoe Diaries)

This feature length film - the debut pilot movie (in R and unrated versions) was a prelude to the entire anthology series.

Brigitte Bako starred as live-in fiancee Alex - an interior designer who was involved with two men, revealed only after her suicide:

  • Jake (David Duchovny), a handsome and successful LA architect, a fiancee
  • Tom (Billy Wirth), a blue-collar construction worker and shoe salesman

Jake came upon two of Alex's possessions following her funeral:

  • her secret diaries where she described her love for the two men in her life, and her dysfunctional infidelity and conflict
  • a pair of red high-heeled Kenneth Cole shoes

This film launched the rest of the Showtime TV series - as Jake quested to heal his broken heart by reading the secret diaries of other females to gain insight into what Alex had done. He placed an ongoing newspaper ad to acquire the stories.

 




Brigitte Bako ("Red Shoe Diaries: The Movie")

The Red Shoe Diaries (1992-1997) - Showtime Cable TV Episodes

Zalman King was the leading creator of erotic/romantic programming for his time. These are just a few of many examples of Zalman King's long-running, late-night Showtime-TV series of glossy, soft-core films blending erotica and fantasy that aired during five seasons from 1992 -1997.

  • Season 1 (1992-1993): 13 episodes
  • Season 2 (1993-1994): 13 episodes
  • Season 3 (1994-1995): 13 episodes
  • Season 4 (1995-1996): 13 episodes
  • Season 5 (1996-1997): 14 episodes

Each of the 30-minute 'women's-oriented' episodes (66 in total) was taken from a woman's secret diary that was narrated by Jake Winters (David Duchovny (of TV's The X-Files)). He solicited the secret diaries of women who harbored secrets or were the victims of secrets. Most of the episodic plots involved the sexual awakening of a female.

Many B-level stars enacted their affairs on-screen in the Red Shoe Diaries TV episodes, airing for five seasons. The descriptions are from the purchase site:

Red Shoe Diaries (Showtime-Cable TV Episodes): Some of the More Prominent Stars
Joan Severance ("Safe Sex")
Denise Crosby ("You Have the Right to Remain Silent")
Nina Siemaszko ("Just Like That")
Audie England ("Hotline")

Jacqueline Lovell ("The Teacher")

Christiana D'Amore (aka Christiana Capetillo) ("Alphabet Girl")

Kira Reed ("The Picnic")

Arielle Dombasle ("Like Father, Like Son")
  • Joan Severance
    1992 (Season 1, Episode # 1: "Safe Sex")
    When a beautiful, consummately professional woman (Joan Severance) accepts a ride in the rain from a handsome stranger, she steps into a world where nothing is forbidden - except their real identities. As their passion grows, she finds out that there is no such thing as "safe sex."
  • Denise Crosby
    1992 (Season 1, Episode # 3: "You Have the Right to Remain Silent")
    A policewoman, Officer Lynn 'Mona' McCabe (Denise Crosby) obsessive in relationships, has met her match. When he doesn't notice her, Lynn can't stand it. She arrests him and takes him to a loft where she has his complete attention, she won't let him go until he wants her.
    1994 (Season 3, Episode # 10: "The Psychiatrist")

    Evelyn (Denise Crosby) is a psychiatrist with an interesting patient who tells of her strange sexual encounters with men. Evelyn isn't sure the stories are real but her fascination takes her on an actual journey into the depths of her own sexual desire.
  • Nina Siemaszko
    1992 (Season 1, Episode # 5: "Just Like That")
    Trudy (Nina Siemaszko) works as a receptionist in a law firm by day and law school at night. Her life is turned upside down when she falls for two attractive men at exactly the same time. Torn between two lovers, polar opposites, she must eventually pick a side.
  • Sheryl Lee
    1992 (Season 1, Episode # 8: "Jake's Story")

    Still mourning his lost love, Jake (David Duchovny) is seduced by mysterious photographer Kate Lyons (Sheryl Lee) who keeps him at a distance until she finally reveals her secret - she is married. Jake knows through bitter personal experience just how dangerous a game this can be.
  • Ally Sheedy
    1992 (Season 1, Episode # 9: "Accidents Happen", aka "The Fling")
    When Daria (Marina Giulia Cavalli), an Italian maid, finds a videocassette tape of her employer's fantastical and explicit love-making with Karen (Ally Sheedy), she becomes obsessed with their fantasy life until an accident brings a novel way for her to fit into the happy household.
  • Audie England
    1993 (Season 2, Episode # 7: "Liar's Tale")
    Corey, a burnt out photojournalist sent to cover the L.A. sex scene, meets a high-class call girl who fascinates her. Suddenly she's participating in acts she'd only ever photograph before, Corey is forced to feel in a way she'd forgotten.
    1993 (Season 2, Episode # 9: "Hotline")
    When Tess (Audie England) takes a job as a receptionist she discovers the company is actually a love hotline, unsure at first she quickly enjoys the fantasies and brings them home to her husband, bringing passion back into her dormant marriage.
    1995 (Season 4, Episode # 2: "Divorce, Divorce")
    Lily (Audie England) and Nick are in the middle of a nasty divorce when fate throws them together for one night. Just one night away from the everyday of their lives and this once happy couple learns to reinvent a love that they had written off as lost.
    1995 (Season 4, Episode # 12: "Laundrymat")
    Josie (Audie England), a lonely single mother, has her passions flare when she meets a handsome drifter late one night at the Laundromat. After a night together, they go their separate ways as strangers but realize that passion is what makes a soul survive.
    1996 (Season 5, Episode # 6: "Hard Labor")

    Ad whiz Aleta (Jennifer Ciesar) passionately loves Antonio (Maximo Morrone), until his unstable ex-lover (Audie England) appears at a fashion show for Hard Labor Jeans spinning a tale of betrayal, destroying Aleta's trust. Aleta must find courage to forgive and the grace of redemption.
  • Amber Smith
    1993 (Season 2, Episode # 3: "Runway")
    Alia (Amber Smith), a top model worried about her future hires cabby Miguel (James DeAngelo) to pose for her. Miguel's sensitive appreciation for Alia's fears gives her the strength to find fulfillment on the other side of the camera's scrutinizing lens.
    1995 (Season 4, Episode # 13: "As She Wishes")
    An exotic desert island holds a man marooned alone until one day a beautiful woman (Amber Smith) washes ashore. Nights on the beach kindle a relationship like neither has known before. They explore forbidden areas of desire, guilt and savage need.
  • Christiana D'Amore (aka Christiana Capetillo)
    1993 (Season 2, Episode # 12: "Alphabet Girl")
    From A to Z, the alphabet girl, a beautiful fashion model (Christiana Capetillo) finds there's twenty-six ways to love.
  • Arielle Dombasle
    1994 (Season 3, Episode # 4: "Like Father, Like Son")

    When Jeremy (Will Stewart) first met Celeste (Arielle Dombasle) she was the lover of his father (Jean-Yves Gautier). When the two meet again, Jeremy is a grown man and Celeste, an older woman. But her better judgment cannot stop her from falling prey to Jeremy's advances.
  • Jacqueline Lovell
    1995 (Season 4, Episode # 6: "The Teacher")

    A married woman Susan (Jacqueline Lovell) has a passionate affair with her tennis teacher (Mikhail Namayev) only to find out her husband Harry (Anthony Addabbo) hired him to unlock her inhibitions through tender loving instruction to help their cooling relationship.
  • Brigitte Bako
    1995 (Season 4, Episode # 7: "Swimming Naked")
    A lifeguard, who likes to swim naked at night and Olympic hopeful Alex Winters (Brigitte Bako) find an honest attraction after he catches her one night at her nightly swim.
  • Kira Reed
    1996 (Season 5, Episode # 13: "The Picnic")

    Rita (Kira Reed) is torn between two lovers, Kit and Buddy, who are best friends that don't want to share, when a picnic turns into a comical dance of who wants who and who wants who dead until she talks them into a compromise that gets her everything she wants.



Amber Smith ("As She Wishes")

Red Shoe Diaries (Direct-to-Video Movie Releases):

Nineteen other soft-core, direct-to-video Red Shoe Diaries movies, mostly composed of segments from previous TV episodes, were also released throughout and after the series' run. Currently, they are usually available for purchase as video-on-demand (descriptions from purchase site):

  • Red Shoe Diaries # 2: Double Dare (1993), 1 hour 32 minutes
    Follow the private fantasies of three provocative women in this exploration into a realm of the erotic senses. A steamy cab ride with a stranger, office games with an adventurous married woman, and a cop who has an arresting encounter.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 3: Another Woman's Lipstick (1993), 1 hour 31 minutes
    Desire has no limit and pleasure no price in this odyssey that follows three women's tales of illicit passion and ultimate obsession. A woman's desire for her husband's lover, a daring game of hide and seek with two men, and a red-hot road trip.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 4: Auto Erotica (1994), 1 hour 23 minutes
    A sultry maid's private fantasy is unleashed when she finds a couple's secret chamber. An architect is lured by a mysterious beauty into a game of temptation and seduction. And a woman races a hard-driving man into the depths of obsession.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 5: Weekend Pass (1995), 1 hour 26 minutes
    A bounty hunter gets her man, a wild night brings a beautiful woman and a handsome drifter together for Christmas Eve, and a pool hustler learns to discern the game of pool from the game of life and love.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 6: How I Met My Husband (1996), 1 hour 25 minutes
    A classic car brings an heiress face to face with the man of her dreams, on New Year's Eve the bells call a woman to desperately seek the one that got away, and finally a dominatrix finds her husband in the most unlikely place.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 7: Burning Up (1997), 1 hour 29 minutes
    A model turns the camera on a cabby and discovers life after modeling, a woman is kidnapped by a man determined to make her his wife, and a woman becomes fascinated by a fireman. Can she realize the line between fantasy and obsession in time?
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 8: Night of Abandon (1997), 1 hour 26 minutes
    A wild blissful night in Brazil during Carnival, a burned out photojournalist's obsession with a high-class call girl awakens her ability to feel again, and a passionate boxer seduces a happily married woman.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 9: Slow Train (1996), 1 hour 30 minutes
    A sexy housewife's job at a phone fantasy company gets her husband's attention when she begins taking her work home with her, a woman gets new life in a stranger's Paris apartment, and a case of mistaken identity leads to marriage.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 10: Some Things Never Change, 1 hour 25 minutes
    New beginnings, past lovers and twenty-six erotic poses come together in this Red Shoe Diaries collection from master sensualist Zalman King.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 11: Farmer's Daughter (1997), 1 hour 18 minutes
    A board game leads to passion and sensuality, a housewife learns a new meaning of a birthday cake, and a young man's passion is too much to resist an older woman he's loved for years.
  • Red Shoe Dairies # 12: Girl on a Bike (2000), 1 hour 19 minutes
    Intimate words quicken the passions of two secret admirers, two strangers on a train take a voyage of desire, and a man spots his perfect woman in Paris in this Red Shoe Diaries collection from master sensualist Zalman King.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 13: Four on the Floor (1996), 1 hour 26 minutes
    A rap star brings a young dancer out of her shell when she gets her big break, a car crash on a rainy night strands two couples together in a house with only one bed, and a patient's stories bring out a psychiatrist's own sexual desires.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 14: Luscious Lola (2000), 1 hour 28 minutes
    A shy woman captures the heart of the man she loves by playing the role of a sexy seductress, a sailor returns from sea to a bounty of sexy female companionship, and a woman wants marriage to an older man yet keep a young lover too.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 15: Forbidden Zone (2002), 1 hour 27 minutes
    Passion beyond limits, seduction beyond control, pleasure beyond imagination. Experience irresistible fantasy, daring desire and endless excitement in this special Red Shoe Diaries collection from master sensualist Zalman King.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 16: Temple of Flesh (1997), 1 hour 21 minutes
    A woman falls for a Mexican wrestler but she can't separate the man from the mask, a woman promises her husband a strip tease for their anniversary, and the amorous daughter of a vineyard owner nurses an injured cyclist.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 17: Swimming Naked (2001), 1 hour 24 minutes
    A small town lifeguard shares passion with an Olympic swimmer, a woman about to be engaged takes a daring leap into the arms of her dream lover, and a young dancer reignites the passion of a tortured genius.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 18: The Game (2000), 1 hour 28 minutes
    A photographer spies a game of strip poker but it isn't until she joins in that she experiences the joy of being a player, a lost diary reminds a lonely woman of the ecstasy of true love, and a fashion designer's designs inspire lust.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 19: As She Wishes (2001), 1 hour 17 minutes
    A couple faces the end of their marriage until an Angel graces their lives, a marooned man's life is changed when a beautiful woman is washed ashore, and finally a trapped astronaut looks at the sensual path of her life.
  • Red Shoe Diaries # 20: Caged Bird (2007), 1 hour 16 minutes
    Sexy tough woman Dakota finds love with a sensitive story-telling guard Charlie Parker in prison, an ex-boyfriend Daniel proves almost deadly in his obsession to win back his lost love Daisy, and a woman's marriage is saved by the tender instruction of her tennis teacher.
 

Red Shoes Diaries: Las Vegas (2006) (TV movie)

Directed and written by Zalman King. Only a TV pilot, without a subsequent series.

 

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