The Animal in Me (1985)

While writing up the review for Kirdy Stevens's Taboo IV, I learned that the majority of the films he made were written and produced by his wife, Helen Terrie, so it was no surprise when I saw, during the opening credits, that The Animal in Me was written and produced by her, too. It turns out Taboo IV and The Animal in Me were released in the same year, although in terms of quality, they're worlds apart. Maybe the Taboo series had more clout, because Stevens got to shoot that one on film and was stuck with video for Animal. The former had a much more substantial cast (Karen Summer was in both, for what that's worth).



The Animal in Me stars Colleen Brennan as Maggie, a divorced romance novelist who has soured on the idea of romance, if she ever believed in it in the first place. Her daughter, Pepper (Summer), on the other hand, is still infatuated by the idea of infatuation. She's fully smitten with a new doctor at the hospital she works at - she's a nurse - Dr. Morgan (Jerry Butler).



Pepper has a rough go of it romantically. She has to contend with the unwelcome advances of her mother's boyfriend, Travis (played convincingly skeevily by Craig Roberts), then she's set up with Warren (Peter North), her friend Stacy's (Gina Valentino) boyfriend Bobby's (Tom Byron) visiting buddy, who doesn't bother to engage with her while the foursome are out in the park or hanging by a pool. When Pepper calls a cab to go home from Stacy's rather than get into Bobby's proposed "swingin' and swappin'" Warren complains that it looks like he struck out. A real "F" for effort, bud.



When she finally gets a chance to date Dr. Morgan, after creepily peeping on the young couple Maggie seduces him, ostensibly to prove to Maggie that knights in shining armor don't exist.



Ultimately, the nail in the coffin of Pepper's belief in romance isn't finding out that Dr. Morgan got it on with her mother, but when Travis - initially tender and caring when Pepper discovers her mother's and Dr. Morgan's dirty deed - wears her down and has sex with her.



The only thing that prevents it from being sexual assault is that she does technically consent: after repeated tearful "No"s, she finally says, "Okay, Travis. Give it to me, dammit, give it to me."

Easy Alice (1976)

You'd be forgiven for assuming, as I did, that Linda Wong's character was named Alice. Despite the poster heavily implying that's the case (Easy Alice starring "Hustler" cover girl Linda Wong) and the opening credits outright saying so (Linda Wong as "Easy Alice"), the only time she's addressed by name - twice by her boyfriend Joey (Joey Silvera) and once by friend Bob (Turk Lyon) - she's called "Carol."

The name "Easy Alice" is used once and may refer to Carol, but it's not explicitly evident. More on that in a bit.

First, a brief overview of the plot (such as it is) of the film.

Joey is an easygoing, happy-go-lucky guy who makes his living as a adult film actor. He refers to himself multiple times as a "model," but when asked to elaborate, says he's a "porno model." He may shoot stills, I guess, but the insight into his profession the viewer is offered is in regard to performing on film. His career doesn't sit well with his girlfriend, Carol, but despite assuring her that he's leaving the industry behind, he isn't making any strides to bring those promises to fruition.

Memphis Cathouse Blues (1982)

Plots surrounding the world's oldest profession and the hypocrisy of the religious right, politicians, and/or men in power are evergreen. Were it not for the film version of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Louie Lewis's Memphis Cathouse Blues may not have been made in 1982, but it probably would've been made eventually.

Mavis (Annette Haven) is the third generation madame of the Feline Farm, the South's premier brothel. She has a long-standing relationship with Sheriff T.J. Thomson (Mike Horner), but unfortunately, Reverand Noble Pritchit (Paul Ross) has had his fill of the community turning a blind eye to the Farm and convinces Judge Franlkin (Dale Meador) to shut Mavis down.

Centerfold Celebrities (1982)

"The tape you're about to see is called Celebrity Centerfolds.

What is a 'celebrity centerfold'?

The girls you're about to see, in x-rated action, hardcore sex, are girls that you see and fantasize about in men's magazines."

So says director Bobby Hollander in the introduction to the video Centerfold Celebrities or Celebrity Centerfolds or maybe Triple X Confessions 1 depending on which version you come across.

He goes on to say, "You'll see them in adult films and hear how they feel about posing in the nude for you, out there, to see."

Bobby's first interview is with Laurien Wilde (credited and introduced as "Lauren Wild"), who was just a few months into her adult career. She has a natural charm and while Bobby Hollander was no Johnny Carson, his conversation with Wilde was pleasant enough, and he was quick enough on his feet to drop a laugh-out-loud moment when Wilde said her preferred dick was, "Long and not toooo...round in circumference," and he asked, "Not square?!?" to which she clarified she meant not too thick.

Champagne for Breakfast (1980)

I'm immediately skeptical of adult films that run longer than 90 minutes. Unfortunately, Champagne for Breakfast does nothing to earn it's 102 minutes. Ostensibly, the film's about cosmetic company marketing VP Champagne's (Lesllie Bovee) search for a fulfilling life outside of work; a search that's aided by her new bodyguard/chauffeur Harry (John Leslie). There's a secondary story line concerning Harry's business aspirations and shady dealings with his brother-in-law that's essentially introduced and resolved in less than four minutes of screen time. It's too brief and uninteresting to really get into. The film also has attitudes towards homosexuality that are clumsy at best, outright homophobic at worst.

Champagne for Breakfast raises - and leaves unanswered - a host of questions about character motivation and decision making, but the questions are so low stakes and, again, uninteresting that I wasn't bothered by them, which is a problem. Overall, the film looked good (though there were some amusing oversights concerning reflective surfaces and crew members; see below) and the actors performed well. Acting-wise, that is; the sex scenes were mostly pedestrian and the foursome in the male brothel Champagne patronizes (Bovee, Jonathon Younger, Jon Martin, William Niles) stood out, but for the wrong reason. The "choreography" was clunky, Niles had trouble getting wood, and the climax was anti-climactic: despite Champagne pleading for the men to all come on her at once, it seemed like only Younger complied, and even then possibly to the consternation of Martin, since he was functioning as a human drop cloth, what with Champagne riding him cowgirl at the time.

Let's see how Rimmer justified his Collector's Choice rating:

"Mostly this is a laughing sexvid.... John Leslie and Leslie Bovee are good comedians. By concentrating most of the silly story line on Bovee she becomes a more interesting woman."

I'm going to assume by "laughing" he meant "light" and have no idea what he meant by the "more interesting woman" bit. It's certainly comparing apples to oranges, but in the grand scheme of things, I couldn't possibly rate Champagne for Breakfast lower than Between the Cheeks, but neither could I rate it any higher. So CC100, it is.

RANDOM THOUGHTS 

° Harry referring to his blue balls as "the stonies" was pretty amusing.

° In his Rialto Report interview, Jon Martin mentioned that producer/director Chris Warfield was "90% blind" when he produced Hot Lunch (1978; two years before making Champagne). Warfield's also credited (at IMDB) with directing adult films until 1985 (Sounds of Sex) as Billy Thornberg, though IAFD has two different entries for Warfield and Thornberg.

° IMDB also has a long list of acting credits for Chris Warfield, beginning in 1953 and ending in 1995, with a film called Unstrung Heroes, directed by Diane Keaton and starring Andie MacDowell, John Turturro, and Michael Richards. That's a weird resume!

° Like I said above, there were some problems with reflective surfaces. To wit:

Admittedly, this guy's easier to see in motion.

Arrow not required, I'm sure.

° There was a cool connection between the colors in David Morris's shirt (and the towel) and the motel he and Lesllie Bovee go to:

As well as Bovee's outfit and the motel's lamp.

Also of note is that the aqua/orange of Morris's shirt and the motel are very similar to the ubiquitous palette in AP Bio.

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Next up:

Between the Cheeks (1985)

I would love to know which came first: Between the Cheeks the movie, or "Between the Cheeks" the theme song? Logically, the song would be written to the flick, at least a one page (or in this case, face it, one paragraph) treatment, but I'd easily believe it was the other way around. The song mentions two guys: a “crazy guy…[who] says he’s from another planet” and “doesn’t know the difference between a pussy and a cat” and “another fellow...who...talks about his bitches all day long in school.” The former is played by Tony Martino, wearing a shower cap, bathrobe, and neck tie, and doing a Dollar Store Carl Spackler.

The latter is played by Marc Wallice and/or Steve Powers, in blazers, sunglasses, and fedoras, channeling Anthony Michael Hall’s character from the bar scene in Weird Science.

The three guys are in some sort of class taught by Jack Baker, explaining the difference between human women (or, “bitches” as Baker says women are referred to “in this society”) and cats and extolling the virtues of anal sex. The first five sex scenes are flashback vignettes, the last takes place in the classroom when Baker brings in Sheri St. Clair for an in-class demonstration.

On paper, I expected the Ginger Lynn scene (with Wallice, Tom Byron, and Martino) to be the standout. It was fine, but my favorite was the Laurie Smith/Steve Alexander scene, at least in part due the scene’s music, which is a mashup of a Kraftwerk pastiche and Alan Silvestri's Summer Rental theme. The costuming, spartan set, and music would fit right into Suze Randall’s Miss Passion.

One thing I can is that everybody involved in the movie commits to the material. Martino, Wallice, and Powers give everything they have to the absurdity of the material. Jack Baker has an undeniable charisma, and he was probably great at the Dozens, but he should have probably stuck to nonsex roles. I can’t recall him in a hardcore scene (this film included) that he proved himself as a moderately capable woodsman.

Gregory Dark was an undeniably important figure in the direction of pornography. A comment on the post accompanying The Rialto Report’s interview with Dark sums it up pretty succinctly (if not a touch hyperbolic):

Greg Dark is hands down the MOST innovative and interesting director to come out of the industry in the 1980s. He ripped up the rule book, and whether you like his films or not, the industry was never the same again. There aren’t many that can say that.

Just look at what came before… Talk Dirty To Me, which was good but it aped regular films.

Afterwards? Buttman, gonzo, alt porn, and so on. All as a direct result of the Dark Bros.

Since time is a flat circle, Between the Cheeks reminded me of Eon McKai’s Art School Sluts, which was directly related to me starting this blog in the first place:

Fleshbot's coverage of the production of Art School Sluts inspired me to get an online porn rental subscription; while Art School Sluts was in the first round of rentals (along with other early cracks at movies like The Masseuse, Stuntgirl, Marie and Jack: A Love Story, and Kill Girl Kill), it was rewatching the films of my adolescence - Filthy Rich and Stiff Competition - and discovering others from the same era - Barbara Broadcast and Sex World - that piqued my interest.

At Adult DVD Talk, Violet Blue said of Art School Sluts:

Finally, finally someone made an authentic, unselfconscious, intentionally ironic porn film.

I know all these people. They're at the record store counter, at the lame bar I go to with all the hipsters. But here they have hot sex. If you're under 30, see this video. The old middle-aged white guys in porn aren't going to know what hit them.

The same words could have applied to Dark’s early work. If not Between the Cheeks, exactly, then New Wave Hookers, certainly. In a sort of moneyshot ouroboros, in 2006 McKai made Neu Wave Hookers, a “re-envisioning” of the Dark classic.

Anyway, let’s see what Rimmer says:

I’ve given this one a CC rating only because it’s a classic in anal-sex video, which was the big seller on cassettes in 1985.

That is a fucking wack reason to rate something a Collector’s Choice! I did laugh out loud, though, I read:

The connection between the sequences involves a group of morons who are being taught the joys of anal sex by a black dude.

Dark’s early work is unashamedly sleazy and not really my cup of tea, but for historical importance - and the fact that Between the Cheeks and it’s ilk set the groundwork for Devils in Miss Jones 3 & 4 - I’ll rate Cheeks a CC100.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° Gregory Dark's fascination with black street culture and slang has always reminded me of Quentin Tarantino's and I wonder if on some level - conscious or subconscious - Dark cast Jack Baker the way Tarantino did/does Samuel L. Jackson to potentially ward off criticisms of racism.

° Sheri St. Clair's picture at IAFD has always looked to me like a Upright Citizen's Brigade Comedy Central show-era Amy Poehler dressed up as a porn performer:

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On deck:

Second Coming of Eva (1974)

Second Coming of Eva exists on the fence between a softcore sexploitation comedy and a hardcore film. It would have been to its benefit to commit to one or the other.

When Eva's (Teresa Svensson) discovered by her sister, Elsa (Kim Frank), in the throes of a near-orgasmic sex dream, she's sent to a Morality & Ethics School for Girls run by Baron Bo Gyllenstake (Rune Hallberg). Unbeknownst to Elsa - and the other concerned parents, fiances, and whathaveyou - the school is actually simply the estate Gyllenstake inherited from his uncle Joakim, temporarily disguised as a school in order to fool the attorney of a part of his family, intent on exposing him as a man of low character, nullifying the will, and taking the inheritance for themselves. When the girls are left under the supervision of the Baron and his staff (so to speak) the whole place turns into a non-stop party.

Gyllenstake's scheme was a little ill-conceived considering it began - and seemingly ended - with staffing the school with his friends, on the promise that they'd be surrounded by promiscuous ladies and would, I guess, figure out how to pass the whole shebang off as an actual school when the time arose. And arise it did, when the attorney, Roderick Elliot (Jack Frank) showed up, catching everybody literally with their pants down.

Ultimately, Elliot is won over after being captured and raptured by five of the female "students", and he uses his newfound sexual progressiveness to, in turn, win over Elsa and all's well that ends well!

It's established shortly after the girls' families leave the "school" that Eva is actually a fish out of water; not nearly as wild or sexually experienced as her cohort...

...especially two women who weren't enrolled by their families at all, but are actually hiding out having escaped a Beirut sex club.

With her name in the title, I would have expected that story line to be more at the fore, though the Swedish titles (Google translated as Porn in the Scandal School and Scandal at School) aren't as Eva-centric, so maybe that's that. It's also possible that something was lost in translation. I watched a dubbed version and also compared/contrasted a bit of a subtitled version and they were pretty similar, but I don't speak Swedish, so who knows how accurate either are? At any rate, Eva eventually does have a sexual awakening, which is marked - as with a few other female orgasms, including her prudish sister - by a sound effect that I can best describe as an amplified robotic dolphin crossed with the Caterwauling Charm that sounds when Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to Hogsmeade in Deathly Hallows.

Director (and writer, here) Mac Ahlberg had a pedigree as a sexploitation director, most famously for the Swedish smash hit I, a Woman. The film was a surprise hit in the United States and is credited, in part, to ushering in the era of sexploitation films and nudie cuties that would lead to the rise and eventual legalization of pornography. It was clear he knew how to handle simulated sex scenes (if I had to hazard a guess, maybe 70%?). Ahlberg was much better known as a cinematographer (including the John Landis-directed video for Michael Jackson's "Black or White" and the Stallone vehicle, Oscar), and Second Coming looked very good throughout. It seemed like shooting the the hardcore scenes was a learning-on-the-fly deal, which would make sense since, as far as I can tell, Eva was Ahlberg's first hardcore film. So, yeah, I think it'd've come out better if it had stayed completely softcore and in Ahlberg's comfort zone or fully committed to being hardcore and forced him to figure out the shooting, flow, and editing of hardcore scenes.

At the risk of repeating myself (repeating myself), this film could have been cut down to, say, 70 minutes, easily. There was a point I was *sure* it was wrapping up, and then there were 20 minutes (more than 20% of the film) left. What is this: Judd Apatow directs a Lord of the Rings movie???

Anyway, let's check in with Robert Rimmer:

[T]his sexvid has very attractive women whom you've never seen before, and an almost indefinable happy-go-lucy, slapstick sophistication that excapes American filmmakers.

Rimmer does love pointing out how unsophisticated American porn-makers are. I can't disagree that the women are very attractive, but feel the slapstick could have been slapstickier. This is the twenty first review since I restarted Pornonomy so I'm starting to see a bit of clarity for what rates as what. Eventually, I may revisit and revise some ratings, but putting Second Coming of Eva in comparison to the twenty other films I've written about in the past eight months, I'll give it a CC100.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° The English dub calls the Baron, phonetically, "Gillin-stake" whereas the subtitles call him "Goldenrod". The Swedish audio sounds something like "Gillin-stock-uh" and "gullis" is Swedish for "goldenrod", so point goes to the dub.

° This is the second film in a row with nary a popshot to be seen.

° The way the scene between Roderick and Elsa plays out, and that the actors share a (stage) surname, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Kim and Jack Frank were sex show performers.

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Up next:

Tomboy (1983)

Tomboy is a tidy little package. In an effort to get her frenemy Jeff (Tom Byron) to stop busting her chops about being a virgin, titular tomboy Jan (Melanie Scott) claims to be having an ongoing sexual relationship with mutual friend - and Mr. Popular - Alex (Steve Douglas). Jeff doesn't buy it, but Jan's able to convince Alex to go along with the ruse, including pretending to have sex (while reading from an erotic novel) as Jeff eavesdrops from outside Jan's bedroom window.

Wouldn't you know it, though, Jan actually does lose her virginity to Alex and finally finds out why so many people are fixated on sex.

The theme of sexual awakening is furthered by having Jan's brother Ted (Marc Wallice), also a virgin, shown the ways of love by a friend of their mother's (aptly named "Mrs. Robinson" and played by the inimitable Kay Parker)...

...as well as Jan's masturbatory self-discovery and a lesbian dream sequence (featuring Scott, Rosemarie, and Karen Summer) in which Jan's searching for her "lost" virginity.

Since the dream came right after she masturbated - presumably for the first time - while being peeped on by Jeff (knowing she was being watched, but pretending not to) as he jerked himself off, I wonder if she equated being able to turn a man on with a degree of sexual maturity, and thereby not technically being a virgin. Jan mused to herself and others multiple times throughout whether men did (or could) get hard thinking about her, so it was obviously pretty important. Additionally, the only sex we're sure Jeff has had is with his cousin (Laurien Wilde). They don't dwell on it, but the idea of sexual experimentation among cousins (especially initial experimentation) sure isn't foreign to our culture, broadly, or porn, specifically.

There were a few elements, narrative and technical, that could have been cleaned up. The Ted/Mrs. Robinson scene had a tonal whiplash. Accidentally walking in on Ted getting out of the shower, Mrs. Robinson's so flustered, she has to down a half-pint of gin and then attacks embarrassed Ted as a sex-crazed maniac. After he begs her to stop, she apologizes and explains that it's been ages since she's been with a man. Then, while Ted's consoling her, he sheepishly admits he's never been with a woman before, and then she assumes the role of sexual mentor. Rather than the ping pong-ing roles, it would have benefited from a more straightforward approach. (Although, I guess to play my own devil's advocate, maybe this was a truer representation of the conflicting feelings two people might have in a situation like this.)

Similarly, Alex's thoughts and feelings for Jan are a little muddled. When she first asks him to help her convince Jeff they're fucking, he says that if it was up to him, she'd have lost her virginity already. But then later, he claims that he'd never thought of her sexually. (Devil's advocating again, I suppose even though he directly contradicted himself, saying he'd only ever thought of her platonically could have been a misdirect considering he admitted after they had sex that he'd made up having a date later on that evening, planning to stay with Jan.)

The main issue with the film, though, was that Melanie Scott could not act. At all. Despite her wooden performance, there were some lines and scenes that were amusing to outright funny and I can only imagine how much they'd have improved with an actor that was even moderately capable. Off the top of my head, I "dream cast" Tara Aire (who's a good to great actor) or Renee Summers (who appeared in director Howard Christian's next - and final - film, Loose Times at Ridley High). Initially, I thought Rikki Blake since she has a square jawline similar to Melanie Scott - which sort of added to the tomboy-ish nature of character - but her career didn't begin until the year after Tomboy was released.

Let's check Roh-baire Ree-mair's opinion:

Melanie and Doug are a very attractive couple, and as a matter of fact, so is everyone else who appears in this happy-go-lucky story....

Rimmer's "review" is a brief recap of the plot without any glaring errors (I won't ding him for calling Steve Douglas "Doug" since the credits were all over the place, accuracy-wise). He doesn't clarify what makes the film a "Collector's Choice" or offer a reason that women may like it (as he's so often wont to do), so I can't address his entry, really, one way or another. I signed off my Rendezvous with Anne post hoping that I enjoyed the next film more than I did that one. And I did. While Scott's performance in Tomboy was worse than any in Rendezvous, literally everyone else in Tomboy was lightyears better. As is so often the case, a few tweaks here or there could have actually put Tomboy in CC25 territory, but as it is, I'll give it a CC100.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° Jeff calling his cousin's breasts "living footballs" is an all-timer.

° There was a subtle, but noteworthy, emphasis on female pleasure. In her second hardcore scene after opening with a blowjob, Laurien Wilde mounts Klaus Multia's face saying, "You're not going to cheat me. I want you to make a few 'runs around the field' before I let you make a 'touchdown'." Then, Ted's lesson with Mrs. Robinson begins with her instructing him on all of her "sensitive parts." And, of course, there was ample time focused on Jan exploring her own sensitive parts.

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Next up:

Virgin and the Lover (1973)

Ah, if only Virgin and the Lover had been made in 1983 and not 1973. In a January 1988 Adam Film World article, director Kemal Horulu was praised for his "deep, complex, interesting" films and European story telling. Horulu says he "concentrate[s] on the story and [tries] to make things pretty." Given the rave reviews of Lustful Feelings (1977), Woman in Love (1978), and Blue Ecstasy (1980) accompanying the article Horulu seems to have figured out how to make compelling hardcore films. It's really too bad he didn't have his ducks in a row earlier.

The log line Vinegar Syndrome gave Virgin and the Lover ("A filmmaker lives in a sensual dreamworld in which he is torn between love for a beautiful woman and strange desires for a female mannequin.") only scratches the surface. On paper, the film is about gender norms, fragile masculinity, and mental health. On film, those themes get lost in a meandering, muddled mess.

Eric Edwards plays Paul, a filmmaker dating his therapist's (Reggi Defoe) secretary, Julie (Leah Marlon). Julie also has a less serious, primarily physical relationship with bohemian actor/photographer Andy (Jonathan John, who looks like a Rankin/Bass character).

Julie would like to ditch Andy (and semi-successfully tries to pawn him off on her coworker Joyce - Olinka Podany) for Paul, but is exasperated by Paul's reluctance towards physical intimacy.

Through his conversations with Dr. Tracy, we're told that until three years earlier, Paul was a virgin. He "had always been intimidated by women. The terrible specter of sexual failure clung to [him] with dead fingers." While attending a masquerade dressed as a woman, Paul was seduced by a woman dressed as a man. After his lover died in a car crash, Paul's crippling fear of sexual intimacy returned and he could only find lust and satisfaction by dressing a mannequin in his partner's masquerade outfit while wearing the dress he donned to the party. Interestingly, the mannequin didn't just function as an avatar for his lost love, but became any woman Paul was drawn to, including Stephanie (Darby Lloyd Rains), an actress from a lesbian porno Paul was working on (how a man with such a complex surrounding sex ended up making porn wasn't explored or explained) and Sandra (Susan Sloan), a former model turned horse carriage driver (totally normal career trajectory). Ultimately, in an effort to understand Paul, Julie throws ethics to the wind, reads Dr. Tracy's notes, and uses her newfound insight to seal the proverbial deal, and then she and Paul lived happily ever after.

Arguably more compelling than Virgin and the Lover itself, the film-within-the-film, Two Women, Parts I & II, deserves some attention. 

 

About it, Paul says:

I had never made a film about lesbians, even though the theme had always fascinated me. It seemed to me that the quality of their love was different. Deeper. More Erotic. The mystery of a woman's love for a woman. It's depth; passion; it's fulfilment were facets of the human condition I could barely imagine. Still the mystery of that private world stimulated me. Rarely had any sexual manifestation proven so exciting.

Two Women features Darby Lloyd Raines and Jennifer Welles as roommates. If I had to hazard a guess, they'd rate 5.5 and 1.6 on the Kinsey Scale, respectively. That is, Stephanie (DLR) being between "Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual and Exclusively homosexual", and Lynn (Welles) between "Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual and Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual." In Part I, Darby assumes a stereotypically female role, preparing dinner (which amounts to dumping a bag of potato chips on a plate and lighting some candles) and getting angry at Jennifer for being late without calling. "I can understand a man playing games like this, but a woman shouldn't be so devious."

Stephanie's attitude softens when she realizes that Lynn is upset and frustrated (read: horny) since her date declined to come up to their apartment. After Lynn takes a shower, Stephanie pours her a glass of wine and offers to "take the edge off" Lynn's frustration. Paul screens Part I after declining to accompany Julie up to her apartment after a date (though Julie doesn't get her edge taken off by another woman, but rather by Andy), and is then finds his mannequin assuming the guise of Stephanie.

Part II has Stephanie assuming a typically male role, sporting a not insubstantial strap-on. Interestingly, after securing the harness, there's a very deliberate shot of her putting on a shirt; the black and red in the pattern suggest the outfit Paul's mannequin wears.

Before they get it on, Lynn asks Stephanie what pleasure she'll get from their tryst and Stephanie answers, "The satisfaction of giving you pleasure." After getting Lynn off, Stephanie dips over to a beside chair for a rather aggressive masturbation scene, pleading for Stephanie to "help [her] come." This time, after watching the scene, instead of returning to his place for a fantasy romp with either Lynn or Stephanie, he wanders the streets, saying in voice over "For some obscure reason, the film now depressed me. I felt terribly lonely." The only difference between the turn on of Part I and the turn off of Part II was the inclusion of the phallic object.

When he does return home, he goes through the process of dressing and making himself up and starts dancing with the mannequin who takes the form of Julie.

It turns out, though, that it actually is Julie, who has presumably has dressed as the mannequin. It's a little disconcerting to think that Paul was unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. Every scene before, it was obvious that Paul was aware that the mannequin was inanimate and that he'd drift off into fantasy where she'd become "real". Here, though, he's dealing with a flesh and blood woman from the outset and projects her as lifeless.

While there are certainly scenes and themes that lend themselves to deeper thought and conversation, Virgin and the Lover ultimately suffers from:

1. A first-draft script. A lot of the voice over narration and dialog tries too hard to seem "literary" with more misses than hits. The opening credits state that the film's an adaptation of a French Novellette, but the French National Library doesn't support that claim.

2. Substandard simulated sex scenes. Adult films often lean too heavily on penetration close ups, sure. But at least those allow for the camera to cut to something. Here, with nearly half the "action" scenes being simulated, there are only so many angles that can be shot and pretty much all of them end up too long by half. Leah Marlon is credited as having a "non-sex" role, but if the final scene between her and Edwards was simulated, it was at least convincing. The same can't be said for the scenes with Jonathan John who seemed to have a tenuous at best notion for how genitalia fit together.

3. An unnecessary hardcore scene with Marc Stevens, Helen Madigan, and Julia Sorel. Chartiably speaking, the inclusion could function as a juxtaposition of the freewheeling promiscuity of Julie's friends (her past/present) and the conservative, reserved nature of Paul (her future). With rare exception, scenes with Marc Stevens just make me a little sad. I doubt he ever really came to terms with his sexuality and often seemed to struggle to maintain an erection with women, particularly problematic for someone so intent on branding himself as "Mr. 10 1/2".

4. A 90-minute run time. While Center Spread Girls was an outlier Virgin and the Lover reaffirmed my position that 75 minutes is the longest an X-rated film needs to be.

5. Inconsistent narration. Sure, "show don't tell" is generally a good rule, but I don't really have a bias against voice over. The problem here is that 92% of the voice over is Paul's perspective, 6% is Julie's, and 2% is the doctor's. Either the story only should have been from Paul's perspective, or the other characters should have had more to say.

Welp, let's see what Bobby Rimmer-roo has to say:

It has a...psychological story line that keeps you interested throughout th efilm, plus exceptional sexmaking, cinematography and good acting. Horolu [sic] gives a sense of reality to most of his films that keeps you watching.

Agree to disagree on the "exceptional sexmaking". In his review, Rimmer titles the film Virgin & Her Lover and somehow dates the film as 1980, though he does state that he has "a feeling that this film was made a few years earlier." He also claims that "[t]he virgin is a mannequin!" (see also his erroneous title) which, yeah, I don't think so. The likeliest explanation for the title is that it's basically nonsense that sounds like it could've been a French book. My next best guess is that Paul is the virgin since he was one until his ill-fated relationship with the woman from the masquerade and has effectively been one since. Anyway, like so many films I've watched since (re)starting this blog, Virgin and the Lover is a few tweaks away from a very, very good film, but as it is, it'll rate a CC100.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° There was a Turkish Olympian named Kemal Horulu that was born in 1926. Same guy? Sure! Why not?

° Darby Lloyd Raines reminds me of a kind of mean grade school bus driver.

° At one point, Julie tells Paul, "I do like you so much. I could eat a whole apple pie!" What the fuck does that mean?

° The truly rotten make up job on Olinka Podanny makes it look like she has five o'clock shadow.

° Kemal Horulu sure seemed obsessed with getting actresses into bridge pose.

° The opening credits show two characters named Polly, but Darby Lloyd Rains is definitely named Stephanie. Initially, I thought maybe she was playing an actress named Polly playing a character named Stephanie, but Jennifer Welles is credited as playing Lynn which is her name in Two Women, so the credits must've just been an oversight since it would've been nuts to name two characters "Polly", the 374th most popular name for girls born in 1950.

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