Pornonomy Reviews: Bubble Gum

Bubble Gum (1983)
aka The Siblings

Directed by:
Damon Christian

Starring:
Candy Cummings
Honey Wilder
Kelly Grant
Laurien Wilde
Blair Harris
Eric Edwards
Marc Wallice
Ray Wells

Bubble Gum clocks in at just over 60 minutes. I'm guessing the total production time - writing, filming, editing, and scoring - was about 75 minutes.

The story: Carla (Wilder) has been having a long term affair with Sid (Wells). Her husband, John (Edwards), hires a private investigator (Harris) who alerts him to the long-term affair. When their daughter Paula (Wilde) comes home with to tell her parents she's marrying Sid's son Sammy (Wallice), John decides to seduce Paula's friend Bubble Gum (Cummings) to get back at Carla.

Now, as you might have guessed from the "aka" up there, Sid is Paula's real father, meaning she's engaged to her half-brother. You'd think that this would be a shocking revelation at the climax of the film, but Carla actually tries to tell Sid that he's Paula's father in the film's second scene, but, unfortunately, since he already came, he's fallen asleep. ("Men!") Hilariously, not only does she not bother to wake him up, but she doesn't see fit to break the news to Paula after she announces that she and Sammy are engaged.

Oh, and also the maid, Darcy (Grant) - who is apparently dating the PI - knows but doesn't bother telling anyone. And then, the PI, after rushing to the house when he discovers that John isn't Paula's real father, decides that it's more important to have sex with the maid in the kitchen. Bear in mind everyone is home, so either the household is pretty fast and loose with the rules, or the maid isn't particularly concerned about keeping her job.

So finally John breaks the news to Paula at the dining room table, devastating her so she naturally runs upstairs to take a bubble bath.

Then DEUS EX MACHINA! Apparently Sid ISN'T Sammy's father (it may actually be John!) so...the wedding is back on. Or at least Sammy and Paula have (simulated) bubble bath sex set to a jaunty tune that would've been great for The Apple Dumpling Gang before abruptly cutting to a mournful piano tune playing under the rolling credits.

It's been awhile since I've hypothesized that a porn was fueled largely by cocaine, but I've got to wonder about this one. Interestingly here, though, it's the editor I suspect of being totally lit.

Editing aside, Bubble Gum didn't really do anything wrong, but it's one of those movies that, in retrospect, if I'd never seen it, I wouldn't have missed out on anything. C

Pornonomy Reviews: Titillation

Titillation (1982)

Directed by:

Damon Christian

Starring:

Gina Gianetti

Heaven St. John

Kitten Natividad (Non-sex)

Eric Edwards

Mike Horner

Randy West

Mike Zempter (Non-sex)

Titillation starts promising enough. A send-up of pulpy detective stories, a PI named Spado Zappo (Edwards) is contacted by millionaire Felix Fitzwilly's secretary, Brenda (St. John, an actress I was unfamiliar with, but who was such a solid actress that I - wrongly - assumed hers would be a non-sex role), to find the man's "Cinderella": a mysterious busty lass that fit a into a brozne bra he had in his possession.

In retrospect, I'm pretty sure my mind was wandering like crazy during the film, so while I can recall specific scenes, I can't really suss out how they all fit together. Here's the plot synopsis form Anonymous at IMDB:

"Brenda Weeks works for Felix Fitswilly, an old businessman who owns a large brass bra. Felix has already hired countless detectives to locate the woman he believes is finally buxom enough to fit into that bra. Brenda's husband "Rooster" cheats on her with his new neighbor while Brenda has to try hiring top private detectives Spado Zappo and Pigeon Johnson. Brenda offers her own buxom figure to Spado Zappo to accomplish that goal. Meanwhile, the searched woman turns out to be Jerri, a woman who turns down her chauffeur, prompting him to spike her drink and rape her. But when he plans to continue from behind even when she falls asleep, Pigeon Johnson who watches from outside decides to enter and chase him away. Brenda Weeks heads off home where she and "Rooster" prove they have an open marriage by seducing their other new and buxom neighbor into a threesome. Suspecting a scheme, the detectives break into Felix' office alongside a woman called Amanda. Spado Zappo leaves them waiting, in which time Amanda seduces Pigeon Johnson. In the end, each and every character turns out to be involved in their own scheme to get the money for finding the woman. Spado Zappo has everyone by gunpoint and tells Jerri to take her top off. The brass bra fits and she immediately agrees to become rich Felix' younger lover."

Reading that over kind of rings a bell, but it neglects to mention that "Rooster" and Brenda are also involved in managing a quasi-swingers apartment complex owned by Fitzwilly, and both are concerned about what will become of their roles there if the mystery tits are found. And [SPOILER], while Jerri does agree to go off with Fitzwilly, he not only denies the $50,000 reward to all of the people that are scheming to get the money, he actually offers $100,000 to anyone that can find him and Jerri after they skip the country. Other than leaving the film open to a sequel that (to my knowledge) was never made, there's no rational reason that, having the girl on his arm, he'd encourage this group of back-stabbers to try to hunt him down....

It's really too bad that a relatively interesting premise was allowed to go off the rails. It had elements of more successful detective parody/homage porns I've seen recently: the clever tongue-in-cheek voiceovers of Trashi; the whodunnit false starts of Lust on the Orient Express; the over-the-top double-crossing final scene of The Jade Falcon; but wasn't able to tie those elements into a particularly enjoyable narrative.

For some time now, I've had an idea percolating for a porn script. If I ever happen to write it, my follow up may well be a sequel to Titillation, because hopefully knowing what went wrong, I could write it right....

Since I'm feeling generous, I'll focus on what was good (the performances were all pretty solid, and the hardcore scenes were good to really good) instead of what wasn't, and give it a B-.