Joseph W. Sarno

Joseph W. Sarno (March 15, 1921 – April 26, 2010) was an American film director and screenwriter. Sarno emerged from the semi-pornographic sexploitation film genre of the 1950s & 1960s; he had written and directed approximately 75 theatrically released feature films in the sexploitation, softcore and hardcore genres as well as a number of shot-on-video features for the 1980s hardcore video market. Early life Sarno was born in 1921 and grew up in Amityville on Long Island. Career Sarno, a pioneer of the sexploitation film genre, completed his first adult-oriented feature, Nude in Charcoal, in 1961. Among his best-known films in the genre are Sin in the Suburbs (1964), which was about wife swapping, Flesh and Lace, The Swap and How They Made It (1966), in which his wife appeared, and Moonlighting Wives (1966). Sarno's work of the sexploitation period was typified by stark chiaroscuro lighting, long takes, and rigorous staging. He was also well known for scenarios centering on issues of psycho-sexual anxiety and sexual identity development.