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-.

Pornonomy Reviews: The Story of Joanna

The Story of Joanna (1975)

Directed by:
Gerard Damiano

Starring:
Juliet Graham
Terri Hall
Jamie Gillis
John Bush
John Koven
Roy Carlton
Zebedy Colt

Boy, oh boy, The Story of Joanna is a piece of work. Whether or not it was a conscious decision on Gerard Damiano's part, the film feels like a purposeful attempt to subvert the conventions of pornographic film. In the first 35 minutes, there is only one brief hardcore scene (Gillis, Graham), the last hardcore scene is a solid 15 minutes before the end of the movie, and that's a scene between two men (Gillis, Colt)! Along the way, there's an extended (surprisingly well-done) ballet/modern dance scene, and (more surprisingly) throughout the handful of hardcore scenes, a total lack of traditional "money shots."

Anyone with a passing knowledge of The Story of O will - correctly - assume that The Story of Joanna is about the sexual enlightening/discover of a woman by the guidance of a mysterious man. In this case Jamie Gillis chooses Teri Hall in a restaurant, brings her to his estate, and sets her on the path of physical discovery. Both Graham and Gillis excel in their roles, but knowing Gillis's ability to straddle the line between charming and disgusting, it's too bad that he wasn't pushed harder in his role.

Technically, the film looked great - in particular, the scene between Graham and Colt would have to rank as one of the best shot hardcore scenes I can remember - but suffers from uneven pacing. It's dark in tone, but not as arresting as, say, 3 AM or Damiano's Devil in Miss Jones. I'm glad I saw it, but there's little chance I'll ever revisit (except, maybe, to check out that Graham/Colt scene...). B-

Pornonomy Reviews: Foxtrot

Foxtrot (1982)

Directed by:
Cecil Howard

Starring:
Linda Vale
Marilyn Gee
Marlene Willoughby
Merle Michaels
Samantha Fox
Sandra Hillman
Sharon Mitchell
Tiffany Clark
Vanessa del Rio
Veronica Hart
Alan Adrian
Bobby Astyr
David Morris
Jack Silver
Jack Teague
R. Bolla
Ron Jeremy

It's New Year's Eve day, and a lot of people are having sex.

Similar to Babylon Pink, Foxtrot has an Altman-esque "six degrees of separation" feel. Unlike Babylon Pink, there wasn't a familiar thread running through the scenes (BP's being - mostly - a series of fantasies). And the film doesn't quite stitch all of the characters together.

About 62 of the 77 minutes are fairly strong, moving between the various characters and slowly showing how they fit together. Jack Teague is throwing a New Year's Eve party that will be staffed by his maid (Tiffany Clark) and catered by Vanessa del Rio, who's musician boyfriend (Morris) will be playing a club that's also headlined by a showgirl/dancer (Fox), who is able to go work after her babysitter (Hillman) arrives, after she makes arrangements to have her boyfriend (Silver) come over later.

On the other side of town, Veronica Hart and R. Bolla seem to be in a loveless marriage. She seems to be having an affair, while he fantasizes about the sex-crazed woman across the street (Willoughby) whom he peeps on with his field glasses. After a fight, Hart seduces a sailor (Jeremy) who has just stumbled upon his girlfriend (Michaels) in bed with another woman (Mitchell). Unless I'm missing something, the two groups don't have a common character, although I suppose in theory Hart could have been having an affair with Jack Teague....

With the exception of the ultimate scene stock footage of the NYE ball drop and the penultimate scene at the party Teague is throwing, other than the characters mentioning it every five minutes, it doesn't seem all that important what day of the year the film took place on.

So about those last 15 minutes. Whereas the lead up was competent - if not great - the end, the party, sort of fell off the rails. In a tonal shift from the rest of the film, things got a lot looser and seemed to hint at getting a lot more mad cap (for example, a woman at the party announces that she feels like taking her clothes off), which would have been fine if it had actually followed through with going crazy. Instead, there was a brief non sequitur scene that was a not-so-thinly-veiled crack at Roman Polanski (Astyr as a film director who spends most of his time in Europe as certain jailbait proclivities have gotten him in hot water). Then...well, that's it.

I have to admit that I'm generally pretty lukewarm on the film. Perhaps I'm judging it overly harshly consider the only other Howard film I've seen is Neon Nights, which is an all-timer, in my opinion. But, I guess the positives outweigh the negatives soooooo...B-

Pornonomy Reviews: Getting Lucky

Getting Lucky (1984)

Directed by:
Paul G. Vatelli

Starring:
Angel West
Barbara Alton
Shana Evans
Duschca
Janey Robbins
Renee Summers
Mary Ann Richards
Misty Dawn
Rosemarie
Cynthia Brooks
Eric Edwards
Craig Roberts
Marc Wallice
Todd Keller

Another day, another Vatelli flick. This one's a blast from the past, though. Like Dangerous Desires, this is a film I saw nearly twenty years ago, but couldn't remember the title. As soon as it started, though, I knew immediately that Getting Lucky was the film I was thinking of.

Honoring the teen flick staple of taking place in a single day (seen from American Graffiti to Adventures In Babysitting to Superbad - which, okay, probably takes place in, like 30 hours, but who's counting?), Getting Lucky starts at a high school graduation party and ends the following morning. In between, it follows three friends, recent grads played by Todd Keller and Craig Roberts, and "slightly older guy who hangs out with high schoolers that doesn't seem too weird at the time but is pretty creepy when you get older and think about it" Eric Edwards. Intending to head out to a club, the group gets broken up when, stopping at a liquor store to get beer en route, Roberts (who's character "Moon" was probably intended as a sort of scene-stealing slob - Booger, for instance - but just doesn't pan out) is "abducted" by three horny chicks in a van who've made a bet amongst themselves, while cruising around drinking beer, that they can make a guy come ten times in a single night.

Next, after Keller and Edwards get to the bar, Edwards is propositioned by a couple of hustlers (Robbins and Evans). After explaining that normally he's the one paid for sex, they decide that "whoever enjoys it more will pay." Which, yeah, will totally work out....

Left alone, and feeling low because he wasn't able to score with his girlfriend before leaving the party, Keller shuffles out into the street, nearly being run over by a limo. Lucky for him, the rich passenger (Duscha, who's "introduced" by this film, and after the introduction...yeah, I guess I wouldn't have been too torn up if we'd never "met"), offers him a ride (if you catch my drift, wocka wocka).

It's unfortunate, really, that for starting as strongly as it did - there was a really great "they're not really talking about what you think they're talking about" moment to open the movie, and the handwritten "Fuckin'" on the "Happy Graduation" banner is a nice touch - Getting Lucky loses a lot of steam after it gets into what should be the meat of the action. Still, Getting Lucky is a solid reflection of its era, one that arguably defined the teen sex comedy, and is probably better than most of the American Pie knock-offs from the past decade. B-

Pornonomy Reviews: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland - An X-Rated Musical Fantasy (1976)

Directed by:
Bud Townsend

Starring:
Angel Barrett
Astrid Hayase
Kristin Steen
Juliet Graham
Kristine DeBell
Nancy Dare
Bree Anthony
Terri Hall
Alan Novak
Bruce Finklesteen
Ed Marshall
John Lawrence
Ron Nelson
Tony Richards

I either missed a central point of Alice, or it just wasn't super well-considered. In the beginning, Alice's (DeBell) boyfriend (Nelson) alludes to the fact that he'd like to have sex, but she wants nothing to do with it. Dejected, he leaves, pointing out that she's an adult, and adults in relationships have sex. All this lays the groundwork for an obvious transition to Wonderland where Alice will embark on sexual discovery, but instead, when she gets there, her stance is that she's been too busy growing up to have a childhood, so she's going to grow up again. Growing up "again" seems contradictory to the fact that she was still living life as a "girl" in Normalland.

The story of Alice in Wonderland is pretty impossible to play straight. By it's absurd nature, it can go in one of two ways: dark (see, for example, Through the Looking Glass) or light. This film (especially since it's a musical) tends towards the latter, although, in my opinion, not nearly enough. While there are a few quasi-zany moments (the White Rabbit's "The Queen's a bitch" aside, for example), much of the film is played well, just not particularly entertaining.

A few notes of interest:

1. A few cast members (Dare and Hall) were also in the aforementioned Through the Looking Glass;
2. It would be possible to convince a gullible friend that the actor that plays the Mad Hatter (Novak) is a young Jerry Seinfeld;
3. There is a "gag" in which two of the Queen's knights are gay, resulting in the King referring to them as "fags" in verse. Interestingly, though, neither the gag nor the slur actually seem malicious nor judgmental, merely matter-of-fact.

While reading about the Era's music (and music in Sexploitation films generally), I came across a blog that had Alice's soundtrack available for download. While the songs weren't bad - especially by adult film standards - I can't think of an occasion that I'd voluntarily listen to the soundtrack outside of the film.

The film's choreography, and the way the "action" is shot (although, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, there isn't any intercourse until nearly 45 minutes into the film - prior to that the scenes are manual or oral - which would be unthinkable by modern standards). The craft of the action-framing is especially impressive considering the director was one-and-done in adult.

While Alice is undoubtedly the best porn musical I've ever scene (admittedly in a field of one film), the novelty of it being a musical can't quite make up for the fact that it's not as "fun" as it could be. There is a lot in there that, handled slightly differently, could have been an all-timer, but as it stands I was left underwhelmed. B-

Hey, something new finally!

You shouldn't take the stasis of this blog as an indication that I haven't been watching adult films. I have been, but for some reason, I haven't had the drive to write about them when they're over. Well, here are a few I've seen over the past few months, most recent first:

Little Orphan Sammy (1976)
One thing I can say for the movie is everybody in it gives 100%. It's very much a movie of it's time. As a parody, it feels a lot like Blazing Saddles or Murder By Death. (A more direct comparison would be The Girl from S.E.X., I guess.)

Daddy Sawbucks (Neil Flanagan in a non-sex role) has developed a formula for turning garbage into oil, and Hata Mari (Jennifer Welles) wants it. In order to get an "in" with Sawbucks, she adopts Sammy (Rocky Millstone) from an orphanage. Sammy and Daddy Sawbucks have some sort of connection, but why, if they're so close, Sammy is living in an orphanage is never explained. Millstone plays Sammy like a super patriotic Beaver Cleaver (sincere, without a doubt, but he comes across with more than a slight touch of "serial killer") that says "leapin' lizards" a LOT. Each of the five sex scenes Sammy is involved in spring from his All-American desire to "help." I never realized that eating ladies out was a civic duty, but that's a lesson I took from the movie.

The movie is light and fairly well paced, and the aforementioned commitment of the cast make up for some of its short comings. B-

Lust on the Orient Express (1986)
This had been on my radar since X-Ray's review and I finally got around to watching it. It turned out to be a sterling example of why I need to relax my semi-arbitrary 1985 cut-off.

The story - a potboiler mystery writer (John Leslie), in need of inspiration, sets of on a pan-European trip with his wife (Gina Carrera) aboard the Orient Express and stumbles upon a murder and jewel heist plot - was solid, the cast, acting, and production value were terrific. So much so that were it not for the sex scenes (most of which felt pretty organic, and not tacked on, which is a problem with a lot of adult films that have quasi-mainstream qualities), it easily could have been a movie I watched on USA on a Saturday afternoon in the late '80s. A-

Garage Girls (1980)
I really wanted to like this film - if for no other reason than the leading ladies looked effing amazing in their overalls-and-nothing-else get ups - but after reading GGG's review, figured it was best to temper my expectations*.

While not a terrible film, Garage Girls is a prime example of a "If Only" porn, a movie that could and should have been much better than it was. The premise, four women (Brooke West, Cris Cassidy, Dorothy Lemay, and Lisa DeLeeuw) start an auto shop and are antagonized by chauvinist male mechanics, is simple and solid enough to make a good porno. The problem is that frequently that plot line takes a back seat to scenes, characters, and plot developments whose sole presence seems to be to make the film "zany." Look, zany is fine as long as its fun and not frustrating. Unfortunately, more often than not, Garage Girls was the latter. C (I could have graded it a little lower, but it gets bonus points because, seriously, the actresses are all super hot.)

Dixie Ray, Hollywood Star (1983)
Dixie Ray has a lot going for it: a pretty interesting story (blackmail, crossing and double-crossing involving a fading starlet in 1940s Los Angeles), relative attention to detail (the noir feel was captured quite well through costuming, sets, camera work and editing, but bizarrely, towards the end of the film there's a LONG scene in which an actor can be seen stretching and, seemingly doing calisthenics, in the reflection of a mirror; "breaking the fourth wall" is an understatement), and fantastic cast. What it didn't have going for it, was natural-feeling sex scenes. It's not an exaggeration to say most scenes were: John Leslie walks into a room, questions a suspect in the blackmail investigation, fucks them. I can't remember the last time the "action" in an otherwise solid film bored me so much. C+

People (1978)
Like Odyssey (a film I really need to revisit), People is a series of unrelated vignettes. Unlike Odyssey, the scenes in People have a common (although simple) theme: interpersonal relationships. This being the last review in the post makes People the film I watched longest ago (that's a clumsy way to word it, I know, but you get the drift), so the details are a little fuzzy in my brain. Trust me, the film deserves a much better review than this....

In his review of the film, Jimmy mentions it's a shame that if most people know anything about Gerard Damiano, it's that he directed Deep Throat (an assertion I only partially agree with; while not as solid as Odyssey or People or DMJ, I quite enjoy Throat...), watching this film, it's plain to see Damiano has some serious chops. A

* I just revisited GGG's review to see why I remembered it making me temper my expectations (I didn't re-read it immediately before writing my thoughts because I wanted to make sure my review wasn't influenced). Turns out, her review was overwhelmingly positive, save one brief homophobic slur by De Leeuw. For whatever reason, that must have been what stuck with me. All told, I think her review is an interesting counterpoint to mine.

Pornonomy Reviews: She's So Fine

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Pornonomy Reviews: Inside Seka

I realize I said A Place Beyond Shame was going to be the next review, but a series of uninteresting events have bumped Inside Seka to the number one spot.

Inside Seka (1980)

Directed by:
Seka
Ken Yontz*

Starring:
Bobbie Burns
Christie Ford
Merle Michaels
Suzanne Raven (as Portia)
Seka
Tara Mann
Ashley Moore (as C. More Ashley)
David Ruby
George Payne
Ken Yontz
Marc Valentine
Mike Feline
R. Bolla
Ron Hudd
Ron Jeremy
Roy Stuart


With a name and format (the tried and true sex scenes as recollections) giving every indication of a compilation, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Inside Seka wasn't. In this case, the scenes are shown as Seka recounts the acts to her husband while they have sex. Prior to the film, I was unfamiliar with Ken Yontz, so I didn't realize that her "husband" was actually "her husband." In addition to telling that Seka and Ken were actually married, the freeze frame at the end of the film said "[a]ll the events in the motion picture you have just seen have been true or actual reenacted events of my special fantasies," a sentence begging for an editor. I mean, if the events reenacted were of her special fantasies, wouldn't that just make them "enacted"?

Anyway, back to the film.... The first scene, Ken and Seka in the throes of missionary, is returned to after each of the dirty talked recollections are finished. Those scenes feature a pretty complete set of m and f combinations (f, mf, ff which becomes ffm, mfmm with a tangential m, and mf and mf swap; pretty much everything short of a relatively rare fff and a never-to-be-seen-in-straight-porn mm). Some highlights include an erotic but unbelievable Seka solo (I can't imagine a woman alive voluntarily contorting herself the way Seka does while masturbating), Plato's Retreat (which seems to be about the most quaint swingers' club in the world; one man, one woman, missionary for all!), one of, if not the best - for lack of a better term - titty-fucking scene I've ever seen, and perhaps most notably, a(n) (in)famous shot of Ron Jeremy sucking his own penis.

As a brief aside in regards to RJ's autofellatio, I remember reading him say that he has and will never finish himself off orally, which strikes me as probably untrue and ridiculously (though harmlessly) homophobic. It sort of reminded me of a part in Chemistry (one of the few post-1985 movies I've seen in the past five years) when Kurt Lockwood, while being anally penetrated by Mika Tan with a strap on, is quick to point out that he's only turned on by it because she's a woman. We get it, we get it; you're straight....

Since Jeremy's "talent" shows up on film very few times, it was a pretty big coup for Inside Seka to show it in it's most logically comical way. Seka, orally servicing three guys in a warehouse rebuffs her boss's advances telling him to go suck his own dick...so he does.

Throw away gimmick aside, the film has generally solid production values (the Plato's scene is very poorly lit, though), as-usual excellent performances by R. Bolla and Merle Michaels, and, of course Seka. The only problem I had with the film was that the climactic (pun partially intended) scene in Plato's was the longest, least interesting scene killing the otherwise great pacing. B-

As a post script, the review wouldn't be complete without mentioning the ridiculous theme song which, if the internet is to be believed (and really, when isn't it?) was to be possibly released on record. Yipes.




* "[w]ith unmentioned but very hands on support from Joe Sarno."