Pornonomy Reviews: Trashi

Trashi (1981)

Directed by:
Louis Lewis

Starring:
Copper Penny
Dorothy Lemay
Lisa DeLeeuw
Loni Sanders
Lysa Thatcher
Nicole Black
Serena
Sharon Mitchell
Tigr
David Morris
Joey Silvera
Jon Martin
Kevin James
Michael Morrison
Paul Thomas

Sci-fi, detective noir, comedy? Yes, please!

With the help of his "Igor", Boris (James), Dr. Schtup (Morrison), is in the business of creating love drones to staff his brothel (at least that's an educated guess; it's never addressed directly as far as I recall), and he has just produced his masterpiece, Trashi (DeLeeuw*). His odd laboratory has aroused the interest of the police, specifically Inspector Crotch (Silvera). A cursory questioning doesn't yield information, so Crotch enlists the aid of PI Bic Boner (Thomas) - who also acts as the narrator.

Bic gains entrance to the house by disguising himself as an exterminator. While snooping around in the basement, he's beset by the fembots, CP3X(Thatcher), Vibrata (Tigr), and finally R69D69 (Lemay), before being discovered by Boris. Tied to a bed, things look bleak for Boner before being literally saved by an orgy.

In the end, Schtup's nefarious plans are thwarted and Bic gets the...girl?...girl robot, anyway.

At a brisk 74-minutes, there's a lot to love about this film. The scenes are shot terrifically, the sound design touch of placing reverb on the robots' voices is great, the tongue-in-cheek tone of the film is perfect for Silvera and Thomas (who is always great in roles that require "charmingly aloof, with a wink"), DeLeeuw looks amazing (although it'd be nice if she'd have been able to act a little more, which she always did capably), and it includes one of the best examples of an integrated sex scene I can recall:

Bic Boner's introduction comes while he's in the throws with his secretary (Sanders). Both are in character the entire time, but there's also an admirably funny exchange in dialogue.

Secretary: Bic, you're dick's so fuckin' slick. Do your trick, Bic.

Boner: Would you like me to flick my Bic?

Secretary: Yeah, flick my Bic!

Boner: I love it when you talk to me!

Secretary: Yeah, there's so many words that rhyme with "Bic" it's great!

The delivery of the punchline is so good, it threatened to make me reassess my opinion of Sanders's acting abilities. (The few times I've seen her, she's come off as pretty wooden.)

Trashi also features a few hilariously awful accents. In his autobiography, Ron Jeremy mentioned he always strove for comedy over authenticity in accents, citing specifically his "Southern" accent in Sizzle. If you've seen the film, "comedy" would be the only explanation for his bizarre "New York Jew meets rural South Carolinian" twang. Here, Morrison and James attempt some sort of German/Austrian deal, but Morrison's sounds like some sort of German/Swedish/Indian mess, and James's waffles between the intended and an awful British accent. As the maid, Mitchell attempts a French accent initially, but by the end, it's sort of a generic "Aristocrat" accent with hints of Dracula. Of course, it's ludicrous to nitpick adult actors' abilities (or lack thereof) attempting accents - as long as they're not detrimentally distracting - so the grade won't suffer as a result.

If there is a knock against the film, it's that neither Schtup's grand scheme nor Inspector Crotch's suspicions in that scheme are ever adequately addressed. Honestly, a little more care given to the story here, in my opinion, would have made Trashi an All-Timer. As it stands, it was a lot of fun, and really well put together. A-

* Before the film starts, there's a First Amendment PSA narrated by Lisa DeLeeuw. Now, I'd assume her name is pronounced "Da-Loo", but she actually says "De-LAY-oh". After nearly twenty years of saying it one way, though, it's unlikely I'll change....