UK sex comedy director Stanley Long dies at 78

LONDON – British filmmaker Stanley Long, whose cheap and cheerful soft-core romps saw him dubbed the "king of sexploitation," has died. He was 78.

Long's family said Thursday that he died Monday of natural causes in Buckinghamshire, southern England. The exact cause of death was not specified.

A producer, director and cinematographer, Long created movies with titles such as "Nudist Memories" and "The Wife Swappers" before scoring his biggest success with "Adventures of a Taxi Driver" and other 1970s' sex comedies.

Born in 1933, Long began his career as a photographer for Picture Post magazine, and began taking nude pictures for men's magazines after a stint in the Royal Air Force. He moved into "striptease shorts" and later feature-length films.

"It wasn't easy making an exploitation movie," Long once said. "It needed a fresh script, careful planning and a lot of skill."

Long sometimes had trouble with the authorities — his 1961 documentary about London's sex trade, "West End Jungle," was banned. But he found a large audience in the more permissive atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s.

The mix of bawdy humor and nudity in "Adventures" was a hit. The film was sold to 36 countries and spawned two sequels.

In the early 1960s, Long made one of the few films in "Circlorama," a wraparound filming and screening system invented in Russia that was struggling to catch on in Britain.

Long also set up the successful post-production equipment company Salon, which has worked on big-budget movies including "V for Vendetta" and "Batman Begins."