Titillation (1982)

For the first, but almost certainly not the last, time the Rimmer List and Random Number Generator worked together to give me a film for review that I reviewed in the initial incarnation of Pornonomy. I'm going to write this review before reading what I wrote back in October 2011. So, first thing first, on to the 2021 review.

I doubt there's a genre paid homage or lampooned in adult films (at least before 1985; I'm not nearly familiar enough with films from the late '80s on to know one way or the other) more than detective noir. Titillation is a fun example.

Once upon a time, real estate magnate Felix Fitzwilly (Roy Simpson) saw a woman endowed with the bosom of his dreams. He had made a bronzed bra that would only fit his chesty Cinderalla and set to employing every private investigator he could to track her down. Near the end of both his life and the Yellow Pages, he turned to Spado Zappo (Eric Edwards, who was nominated for a 1983 AFAA Best Actor award) and Pigeon Johnson (Randy West). The writing is very good, mostly in Spado's narration ("December was the cleaning lady's day off. It was March now. She still hadn't showed.")

It wasn't uncommon for adult directors (Henri Pachard, Robert McCallum, etc. etc.) to make nonsex cameos in their films, but I like to think of Damon Christian's appearance as the door painter as a nod to Hitchcock's appearances in his films. Granted, Hitchcock never spoke and whether any of Hitchcock's films are "noir" is debatable, so it's not one-to-one, but it counts, at least, as a nod to Old Hollywood.

As a door painter, Christian's presence is an allusion to about a hundred million police and detective films and shows. I can't remember if we actually see the door painted in The Maltese Falcon, but after his partner Miles Archer is killed, Sam Space (after whom "Spado" is named) asks his secretary to have the door repainted from "Spade and Archer" to "Samuel Spade".

Casting Kitten Natividad as Jerri, the object of Fitzwilly's obsession, and Heaven St. John (aka Angelique Pettyjohn) as Fitzwilly's secretary Brenda Weeks, was another nod to a bygone era of entertainment. Both were burlesque legends. Natividad was one of Russ Meyer's muses. St. John appeared in an episode of Star Trek.

Rewatching Titillation, Heaven St. John was a revelation. I'm curious to see what - if anything - I said about her in my previous review. If her reported birth year is accurate (a big if), I was much younger than her in 2011 and just a bit older than her in 2021, which I guess could color my reaction/attraction. This time, I was struck by her acting chops and her sexual confidence, especially compared to the two one-and-done women who appeared: Shery Carter and Sandra Miller, both of whom were paired with Mike Horner (as Rooster, Brenda's boyfriend...side note: Pigeon? Rooster? What's with the bird names), the latter with Horner and St. John.

Rooster, while we're on the subject, was a largely dispensable character, although cutting him would have removed 40% of the sex scenes (50% of the hardcore scenes since the Natividad/Mike Zempter - as Fitzwilly's chauffeur, Roy, who looks like a young Jon Voight/young Jack Black hybrid - was simulated).

Sure, Rooster showed up in the film's cross/double-cross climax (with enough people getting the drop on other people to make the end of The Jade Pussycat blush), but the character's main function was to flesh out Brenda's character: Fitzwilly gave Brenda an apartment complex to run, and - reading between the lines - she decided to turn it into her own harem by only renting to nubile women and then having Rooster test out all the new tennants before bringing them into her bedroom. Which is a pretty boss bitch maneuver!

Checking in with Robert Rimmer:

[T]he plot...[is] a little hard to swallow, but Aldrich (Christian, who Rimmer credits as "Christain")makes it all palatable with silly Sam Spade-style voice-over dialogue and Eric Edwards's very good acting.

Agreed, but he also says, "all the women are very sexy, [though] none of them are very young, and none would win a beauty contest." Whoa! Get fucked, Bob!

Now let's see what I had to say, nearly ten years ago:

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.

Well, that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence! Looks like I was impressed with Heather St. John ("such a solid actress that I - wrongly - assumed hers would be a non-sex role") and also referenced The Jade Pussycat (misidentified in the text as The Jade Falcon, whoops), along with Trashi and Lust on the Orient Express. Ultimately, I was unduly harsh (especially considering I said I wasn't even paying attention?) and gave it a B-. With a whole different rating system now and a much more informed perspective, I'm going to go ahead and rate Titillation a CC25.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° Titillation is definitely goofy, but doesn't fully commit to a full-blown ZAZ-style film. The only times it gets into Police Squad territory are when the fourth wall is broken by Spado, Pigeon, and Brenda acknowledging Spado's voiceover...

...and when the bearskin rug's tongue boggles around in time with Randy West and Gina Gianetti's after their sex scene.

° I don't tend to provide much color commentary to the actual fucking in these fuckfilms, but there was something about Gianetti blowing West that felt, for lack of a better phrase, ahead of its time. Sort of a Ghost of Gonzo Yet to Come. I think it was the eye contact and drool: much more 1988 than 1982.

° "Pigeon" as a sidekick has to be a reference to something, but the best I could figure it's either Robin (Batman) and/or Hawk (Robert B. Parker's Spenser series).

° Signature Edwards Plank Alert!

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Next up:

Well, this one'll be a change of pace....