The entry for Expose Me, Lovely at the Internet Adult Film Database claims that the "[f]ilm's title and plot capitalizes on the mainstream movie Farewell, My Lovely released a year earlier." I haven't seen Farewell, My Lovely, but reading the plot summary, while it's not a one-to-one, I could see where there would be certain elements and story beats drawn from the Hollywood adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel.
Here, Karen (Catherine Burgess) hires Frosty Knight (Ras Kean, excellent names, both character and actor) to find her brother Keith who'd been in New York for five years and had lost touch. Apparently, their father's health is failing and the old man, Frank, wanted to repair his relationship with his son before moving on to the Pacific Northwest estate in the sky.
Frosty's investigation leads him into a world of artists and hustlers, cryptic phone calls and unseen assailants. There are twists, turns, and revelations that Frank Spencer's interest in finding his son may not be as heartfelt as it seems.
The story is a flashback, narrated by a man in a hospital bed, rushed to the emergency room in the opening shot. Both the narration and the PI's dialog are rife with wry one-liners that are typical noir, though there are some lines, particularly allusions to movie scripts, that walk right up to the edge of parody. It wouldn't have been difficult for writer/director/producer Armand Weston to lean more heavily into self-reference and fourth wall breaking, but the film is played pretty straight. If anything else tiptoes that line, it's that each clue Frosty uncovers leads to a new location that seems like a bust until an unlikely coincidence triggers the next clue just as it seems that the investigation has stalled. It's goofy, but actually less egregious than, like, National Treasure where the mystery unfolds by immediately finding an incredibly unlikely clue and having the exact esoteric knowledge to decode it immediately....
Oh, and also and that Frosty has sex and basically every stage and new location of the investigation, but Expose Me, Lovely is a porno, after all. By and large, the hardcore is integrated pretty well and doesn't bog down the film's pace.
In my opinion, the best scene is a five-way between Frosty, a woman, Dawne (Cecilia Gardner), that dated Keith, Dawne's roommate Vicky (Yolanda Savalas), the cocktail waitress that furthered Frosty's investigation by ID'ing Keith's picture as her roomie's ex, Dawne's current beau, Paul (Rod Dumont), and, I guess, sex friend Robin (Annie Sprinkle).
The most remarkable is Frosty's ride with erotic artist Terry (Jody Maxwell), mainly because Maxwell just goes for it: starting with taking the term "blowjob" literally and doing this bizarre Dizzy Gillespie cheeks thing with Frosty's dick in her mouth, then by acting like the cum on her ass after the popshot was the cure for some ailment she just found out she had, frantically reaching back with both hands to scoop it up and gobble it down. And also because after Frosty finishes, he goes down on her until she comes, making it a rare scene that ends with a female, not male, orgasm.
I'm sure Weston's favorite was the scene between Frosty and his ex-wife, Shelly (Jennifer Welles) since it had a very dramatic build up and seemed to be shot and edited with a more loving touch than the other scenes. Plus, Weston presumably had a thing for Welles since the opening credits are her doing a sort of slow motion nude ballet on a bed that has less than nothing to do with the movie.
All things considered, Expose Me, Lovely is a successful detective movie. I won't damn it with the faint praise of "for a porno," regardless of how tempting the caveat is. The script could easily be given another pass or two and been shot without any sex. You really wouldn't even need to recast. The actors are fine to good and certainly on par with - if not better than - the non-hardcore cast of plenty of B-movies, particularly of the early to mid '70s and likely with much higher budgets.
Let's check on Robert Rimmer's impressions, shall we?
Variety reviewed this one "as a monumental achievement on the hardcore circuit."
The rest of his review is mostly a light plot synopsis, though he does call the "deepening mystery" "carefully developed" and notes the "great camera art" capturing the "contrasting tones of [the] flesh" of Vicky ("a sexy black lady") dancing and embracing Dawne ("a white woman").
Maybe the fact that it was cosigned by Variety was enough for Rimmer to deem it a Collector's Choice. My initial thought was to rate this one a CC50, and damned if looking at the caliber of other CC50s and comparing/contrasting with CC25s and CC100s didn't bring me back to my go-to philosophy: first thought, best thought! So CC50 it is!
RANDOM THOUGHTS
° Ras Kean did a great job as Frosty, but the when the narration started at the beginning of the film, it sort of sounded like Eric Edwards and I can't help but wonder if Edwards wouldn't have been as good - or better - in the role.
° Armand Weston worked with Edwards in two films: Taking of Christina (1975) and Take Off (1978). That actually represents a third of Weston's hardcore credits, which is wild because I was familiar enough with Weston's name that I assumed he had a career that would've been a couple dozen credits, easy.
° Despite Rimmer focusing on her "flesh tone," it was pleasantly surprising to see a woman of color (Yolanda Savalas, so named, I'm sure, due to her shaved head, which, well...yeah) in a role that wasn't a stereotype or fetish.
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