"Private Parts" (1972) directed by Paul Bartel

Oh, God, I love this movie. Snotty teenager runs away from home and looks up her aunt, who manages the creepy King Edward Hotel flophouse in downtown LA. The hotel is filled with fetishists of all kinds, including a handsome brooding photographer who enjoys fucking transparent blow-up dolls filled with water and plunging a syringe of his own blood into them when he climaxes.

As OP says, it's a great time capsule of seedy downtown LA, including a porn store.

Bonus casting: Stanley Livingston from "My Three Sons"!

Too bad the extras on the Blu-Ray are pretty underwhelming.

I had it on VHS. Bought in a video store near the World Trade pre 9/11. Paul Bartel is always interesting. Have you seen Naughty Nurses?

Also worth seeing: Paul Bartel's "Secret Cinema," which may have been a student film and was way ahead of "The Truman Show."

R1 the Blu-ray isn't loaded with bonus features, but there's enough there that it's worth getting (I'd buy a bare bones disc if that's all that was available). I am very curious to watch the interview with Ayn Ruymen. She kind of stepped away from acting, at least in the spotlight (she apparently has done a lot of regional theater work in California for decades). Fun fact I wasn't aware of: She starred opposite Maureen Stapleton in The Gingerbread Lady on Broadway opposite and won a Theatre World Award for her performance.

r4, I hope they ask her why the characters pronounce her name so strangely. It's Cheryl (pew!), but instead of saying "Sherill," everyone pronounces it "Chair-ul."

The scene where Chair-ul trails George into an adult theater is brilliant -- camera angles, music, and setting.

“What an outfit!”

“Too many sequins.”