The Swap and How They Make It (1966) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Gentry ★★★

  “Don’t forget darling, I’m the one you really love.”

  The Sultan of Suburban Smut is at it again—just don’t call it a wife swap, call it a “wife exchange.” The bread is in the outer-ring ‘burbs for the 9-5 working men, but their wives are feeling homesick for the city and, because this is a Joe Sarno picture, horny for the pigskin tossing college students next door. While the businessmen work late (again), the women find themselves bored with their evening games of gin rummy, so they devise an “exchange” to keep things spicy in the neighborhood, and the bedroom (or, in the case of Karen, her best friend’s bedroom, her safe location of choice for her boy toy quickies).…

• Review by Zynab ★★★★

  Another criminally underseen and underrated Joe Sarno movie. I’m honestly shocked by the bad reviews for this one…the “boring” scenes of “endless talking” people describe were the best part for me! I literally did not find even one second of this movie boring; I was riveted by the weary, guarded figures on screen, fighting sexual battles they don’t want to. Every shot is carefully composed; there are several long takes that I don’t know how to describe except as beautifully choreographed. All those scenes in that little kitchen dining area…the way Sarno creates so much narrative tension and visual dynamism in these minimalist spaces, with stationary shots…I can never get over it.

  I would recommend not reading about the plot…

• Review by Liara K. ★ 2

  My 17th Sarno, so you know I like the guy. Pre-Sweden Sarno is generally dull and moralistic, but this one is not only dull as f*ck but deplorable. Two cases of rape: one that turns into a consensual threesome centering around the man, the other a gang rape orchestrated by a woman. The placement of the incest (compulsory for a Sarno) here only adds to the cruelty of it all. All that despicable shock therapy just for a normie het couple to learn their lesson and get the hell out? Sarno's later lesbian orgy films with a similar ending hilariously tacked on have the most aesthetically pleasing and/or realistic lesbian sex scenes like you wouldn't believe, but here Sarno lends…

• Review by Suzie Susan ★★★

  Because nothing is spookier than 1960s swingers...

  Of course this is another Joe Sarno work about the same sexual melodrama that all of his movies are about. What an absolute legend for making like over 20 movies about the same damn thing over and over again.

  The Swap and How They Make It was is more serious-minded and a little less exploitation heavy than his other movies, so I wonder if he was trying to do something that might get more mainstream attention with this movie. It's a better "movie" than some of Joe Sarno other works but it's less fun and still not enough of a real movie to actually take the material as seriously as it wants to be taken.

• Review by Holerbot6000 ★

  Another saga about the plight of the sexually starved American housewife from Joe Sarno. All of the folks in this cozy little suburban neighborhood are constantly horny such that they organize a system by which they can trade partners at regular intervals to keep things fresh in their marriages. The randomness and anonymity of it all is supposed to keep any emotional attachments from forming, but of course, that all fails miserably and all manner of jealousy, pettiness and possessiveness ensues. It all leads to a fairly shocking and highly absurd climax that turns the whole thing into a cautionary tale. I'm starting to wonder if Joe had a serious thing for incest. I also love how all the sex…

• Review by Michael_Elliott ★★★

  A couple bored housewives constantly talk about how unhappy they are that their workaholic husbands don't pay them any attention. One day driving home they pass up a couple college boys who pay them a visit and before long both wives are having affairs. Soon this here has its own problems and they learn about a wife swap party.

  THE SWAP AND HOW THEY MAKE IT is a winner from writer-director Joe Sarno. It's funny that Sarno has become a cult figure in the sexploitation genre even though his films pretty much stay away from the trappings of that genre. Sarno is a weird figure in film history because his movies aren't trashy enough to appeal to most sexploitation fans…

• Review by Chris Underwood ★★★★

  Not the non stop swaparama one might expect and the participants may show as much angst as flesh but this is still one hell of a movie. Just a little overlong but it boldly covers much ground and the 60’s were barely swinging by this time. In the beginning it appears that the movie will be about the seduction of college kids by bored housewives but this keeps broadening out until we have a sleazy (mostly off screen) rape as seeming finale but no there is more. In the end we have (again, mostly off screen) gang rape and suggestions of incest. Heady stuff and for the most part all treated most seriously and if some of the performances lapse…

• Review by Christopher ½

  This movie is Joe Sarno's worst movie ever It's ungodly long and ungodly boring and it's steamy sex is chaste and boring for the most part. A lot of drab late 60s talking scenes by actors and actresses doing their best but not making this material very investing or interesting. Could have be edited down to 79 minutes and not lose a single thing. I've never been this bored by a sex club or wife swapping.

• Review by Jake James Kath ★★★★½

  Wife swaping is one hellish event!
  Incest, rape, revenge!
  Oh my!
  And of course, all done in a chamber drama.
  Joe Sarno, you're a hero!