In the 1967 film I Am Curious (Yellow), Lena, a Swedish girl, researches politics. At one point, she asks a former king, his powers limited by socialists, what it's like to be a last monarch. He says he tries to remain objective about it. Later, after she's taken up with Bill, a rightist who works in menswear, and found out he has another woman, Lena passes Martin Luther King Jr. on the road — it's real footage of him, but director Vilgot Sjöman took it a year earlier. She apologizes to the reverend for the violence she plans to commit when she finds her lover. Bill's full-frontal nudity in love scenes with Lena is what got the film banned in the United States in 1968. Sjöman fought the case to the Supreme Court, where he won. I Am Curious plays on two monitors in Jancar Gallery's show by the same name, surrounded by often cheesy posters promoting erotic films from that era, when soft-core was still as racy as it got. 961 Chung King Road, Chinatown; through July 28. (213) 259-3770, jancargallery.com.

Wednesdays-Saturdays. Starts: Dec. 1. Continues through Dec. 29, 2012

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