Moviemaker Takes His Flair for Erotic Fare to Showtime : Television: ‘9 1/2 Weeks’ co-writer Zalman King will follow up ‘Red Shoe Diaries’ with at least four half-hour programs.

Sex in the bathtub. Sex against a tree. Sex in a cave. Sex on a chair. Sex on the floor. Sex. Sex. . . . And now that Zalman King has your attention, he hits you with heaps of gorgeous, naked bodies, piles of passion, lots of lust and more sex, both tender and savage.

King is the sultan of erotic moviemaking--the co-writer of “9 1/2 Weeks” and the director and screenwriter of “Two Moon Junction,” “Wild Orchid” and “Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue,” which opened May 8. He’s a man whose films incite cruel barbs from many of the nation’s film critics; for many moviegoers, his name is synonymous with smut.

Yet engage this shaggy-haired, soft-spoken filmmaker in a discussion about his work and what you get are intelligent musings on relationships, obsessions, redemption and true love. For all the big themes and star-crossed romance he sees in his movies, you might as well be talking about “Romeo and Juliet” or “Anna Karenina,” not 90-minute pieces of celluloid that critics have said “give sex a bad name” and “demonstrate just how tedious and coy soft-core porn films can be.”

“I do like to present really beautiful people, but I also use sexuality and eroticism as my primary dramatic tools,” King says. “I don’t mean to say that I’m anywhere close to comparable with Tennessee Williams, but I’m working, I think, in that same American dramatic tradition of the 1950s. If you look at his plays, they were really centered on sensuality and sexuality. A lot of people are uncomfortable with it today and they are running away from that tradition, but when you look at the really great drama of that era, at Marlon Brando or James Dean in ‘The Wild One’ or ‘Giant,’ it was based very strongly on the sexual tension. That’s what cinema is about.”

Now pay TV is about that too. King has written and directed a movie, “Red Shoe Diaries,” that debuted Saturday on Showtime and will be shown again Friday and May 31, to be followed in June by at least four similarly erotic, half-hour programs.

In many ways, cable might be better suited for King’s work than movie theaters, at least in the United States, where every film is subject to a rating from the Motion Picture Assn. of America. King was forced to cut some of “Wild Orchid’s” climatic sex scene to avoid an “X” rating, and the original version of “Wild Orchid II,” which performed poorly at the box office its first week, was hit with the similar “NC-17” by the MPAA. Since many theater owners refuse to screen NC-17 films and many media outlets refuse to accept advertising for them, King had to cut the movie, which tells the story of a glamorous teen-age prostitute’s struggle for self-esteem and true love, to procure an “R.”

At Showtime, however, King said that he had no such problems: “The irony is that for all the bad things you hear about television, there I’m not censored, while in the movies I am.”

“There is a line--a limit,” said Steven Hewitt, Showtime’s senior vice president for original programming and production. “And I think that Zalman knows intuitively how to go right up to that line without crossing over it.” When pressed to define that line, Hewitt said that any mixing of violence with sex would be unacceptable.

Hewitt said that the reason Showtime decided to do business with King is that he is the finest filmmaker working in the erotic film genre. “He uses sound, lighting and camera movement to film passion in a way that is very beautiful and imaginative. We’re not just doing sex for sex’s sake,” he explained.

King’s move to television is good business both for the director and for Showtime, according to David Saunders, who was business partners with King before assuming his current job as president of Triumph Releasing Corp.

Saunders said that as financing for independent films has dried up in the last few years, cable channels such as Showtime and HBO have recognized the need to present product that is unavailable to viewers on free TV. Someone like King--a marketable name with a devout following--can make a modestly budgeted $5-million to $7-million movie without major stars for airing on Showtime and then make a tidy profit by releasing the film theatrically in Europe and on video all over the world.

King’s previous films have always fared well in Europe and on video in the United States. While “Wild Orchid” took in only about $13 million at the box office domestically, it did more than $60 million worldwide, Saunders said.

“Americans are less comfortable with sexuality in a public place, and while they flock to see it in Europe, it’s hard getting Americans into the theaters,” Saunders said. “But people want to see these movies. There is a huge audience out there for Zalman’s films on video, and Showtime allows us to reach our audience in their homes directly.”

Critics annihilated “Wild Orchid,” and while “Wild Orchid II” and “Red Shoe Diaries” feature actual plots, where “Wild Orchid” had none, they also depend on the same Zalman King staples: beautiful, self-destructive women, overwhelming passion, great cars, great clothes, great bodies and a hyper-romantic take on the power of love.

“Red Shoe Diaries” focuses on a young professional woman, about to be married to a Mr. Perfect kind of man, who kills herself after engaging in an animalistic affair with a construction worker. The movie is told in flashback as her fiance reads through her diary in an effort to discover why she committed suicide.

David Duchovney, who stars as the fiance, said that King treats his love scenes like sculpture, positioning bodies, props and background in a highly stylized, erotic dance. “He’s not interested in two pieces of flesh banging together; he’s really interested in the mystery, in the struggles between men and women,” he said.

“I’m fascinated by what people will do for obsession, how far they will go when pushed to the edge,” said King. “I think that people quickly become addicted to the things that excite them. For many people, there is this whole other sexual, sensual, passionate person inside of them. Some people just fantasize about it while others have the courage to actually act on it. Those are my characters and these are important themes. I know I’m not wasting my time exploring them.”

King, 50, the father of two adult daughters, got hooked himself on female sexuality after writing “9 1/2 Weeks” with his wife, even though the final product, its edges smoothed over for public consumption, was less substantive than the couple intended.

King began his career as an actor in such films as “The Passover Plot” and the TV series “The Young Lawyers.” In the 1970s, wanting more control over his work, he ditched acting for writing and producing. He wrote a number of unproduced screenplays prior to “9 1/2 Weeks” and produced two early Alan Rudolph films, “Roadie” and “Endangered Species.” He initially hoped to direct “9 1/2 Weeks” but relinquished the job to Adrian Lyne upon recognizing that he didn’t have the clout to make it himself.

The success of that film launched his directing career, first with “Two Moon Junction” in 1988, then with the wildly publicized “Wild Orchid” in 1990.

King is funded to begin production in the next few months on another feature-length erotic film, “Love, Lust and the Electric Chair.” And Showtime has commissioned the half-hour episodes that continue the theme of obsessive love in “Red Shoe Diaries.”

But King is ready to try his hand at a different genre. This fall, he hopes to direct a big-budget action musical called “Hot,” which he describes as “ ‘Tommy’ meets ‘The Road Warrior.’ ”

“I came to directing later in life than many, so I’m still young in that sense, still trying to develop a body of work,” King said. “I don’t regret my reputation or the kinds of films I’ve made. I am vulnerable to anybody’s potshot, but it seems that things are turning around. If I continue to work, I will earn the respect that some other directors enjoy. It will happen. I’m a patient man.”