Monday, April 19, 2010

Updates and California Gigolo: A Quickie Review

I know that one of the great cliches of blogging is the post either apologizing for not blogging or a promise to post content "soon," both of which I've been guilty. That said, I promise a review of Taboo, American Style (all four parts!) will go up "soon." Since it's a mini-series, I figured better to review the full arc than to write about it bit by bit. Accordingly, I had the foolish/ambitious idea to watch them all consecutively, but, alas, nearly five hours of pornography is a lot to endure. (I've got the final 20 minutes of Part 3 and all of Part 4 to finish.)

In the meantime, I'll steal a page from The Gore-Gore Girl and whip up a quickie. (Eesh, does that sound kinda dirty....)

California Gigolo (1979)

Directed by:
Bob Chinn

Starring:
Kitty Shayne
Liza Dwyer
Vanessa Tibbs (as Vannessa Tibbs)
Veri Knotty
Don Fernando
John Holmes

In the film, John Holmes is a gigolo. In California. We know he's in California because, under the opening theme song (which is likely to at least partially stick in your brain: "Gigo-gigo-gigo-gigo-gigolo") and between scenes are montages of "Southern California Scenes" like beaches, boardwalks, Rodeo Drive, and on and on and on. Possibly filmed for the movie, they're just as likely to be stock footage compiled for a tourism film. Regardless, shots like these always make me wonder if any of the bystanders in these scenes ever found out they made an unwitting cameo in a porno....

The scenes "between" montages play out as a day in the life of Our Gigolo, aided by his assistant(?), Gomez (Don Fernando). Two scenes that are noteworthy are the pairings of Holmes and Veri Knotty and Holmes and Vanessa Tibbs. The former because Veri Knotty (per usual) demonstrates the ability from which she took her name: tying her labia in a knot. It always cracks me up because unlike a talent like, say, Ron Jeremy's auto-fellatio, Knotty's quirk isn't even attempted to be worked into a narrative (RJ always seems to be told off by a woman and take solace in his "ability"), she just, at some point, stretches out her labia and ties them into a knot. The other scene (Tibbs) is worth mentioning because the set-up is almost a classic cliche (Tibbs picks up Holmes, finds out he's a "sex educator," bets him he can't show her anything she hasn't already seen, "loses" the bet when he whips out his massive dong), and while she doesn't seem uncomfortable during the scene, you have to wonder if something set her on edge since it appears to have been her only performance. (Although it appears a little more mileage was gotten from the scene due to its inclusion on The Best of Gail Palmer, although I'm not sure what - if anything - Palmer had to do with Gigolo....)

Finally, while Holmes's disastrous off-screen life is well-known and chronicled, I never viewed his films through the prism of what would have been going on after the films wrapped. After Gore-Gore Girl's comment in an earlier post, though, while I didn't necessarily have a hard time watching Holmes, I found my view slightly altered.

Anyway, Gigolo wasn't a classic, but it wasn't a dog. And it gets bonus points for Don Fernando's nutty charisma. C+

2 comments:

  1. Yay for quickies! Always a good way to avoid the "I promise I'll post soon!" dilemma. People sometimes like it short and sweet too.

    I hope I didn't spoil Johnny C. for you! I know some people like him, and I really *want* to like him because he's in so many films I want to see. Just can't get past it though. Bummer.

    Oh, and funnily enough, I watched Taboo American Style 1 & 2 this week, and am ordering the next two installments today. Awesome stuff - looking forward to your epic review.

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  2. Roger -

    I have 4 blogs and as my good friend The Lightning Bug says to me: "Nice of you to keep adding blogs that you're not gonna post to" :-)

    As far as John Holmes goes, I try to avoid anything with him. I've never seen anything (and I haven't seen that many) where he seems committed to the scene. He just looks like he has shown up, taken out his member, tried to get an erection and then wants his paycheck so he can continue getting loaded.

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