Pornonomy Reviews: Neon Nights

Neon Nights (1981)
Directed by:
Cecil Howard

Starring:
Arcadia Lake
Jody Maxwell
Kandi Barbour
Linda Vale
Lysa Thatcher
Veronica Hart
Ashley Moore
Eric Edwards
Jack Teague (as Jake Teague)
Jamie Gillis
Roy Stuart

Oh, hell yes! You know, lately it seemed like every movie I was putting on seemed to be a big disappointment. I hadn't read anything about Neon Nights before watching it, so when it started up my expectations were nil. The first thing I was struck by was the quality of the transfer. Really, if it weren't for the fact that within the first few minutes Jamie Gillis is fisting Linda Vale, the quality of the picture, camera work, and music could easily convince you that you were watching a mainstream movie from the early '80s. The way the scene was cut between what was going on in the master bedroom and teenage daughter Sandy's (Lysa Thatcher) room got me more interested, and by the time the title card hit the screen, I was sold.

Giving a plot synopsis would actually be a disservice considering the way Neon Nights plays out, so I'm going to keep that part as vague as possible. Sandy is seduced (or seduces, perhaps) her mother's boyfriend Robert (Jamie Gillis). Predictably, her mother catches them in a compromising situation, so Sandy decides to escape her mothers house and run off to New York to try to find her identical twin sister who'd run away earlier. Along the way, she's given a ride by a magician (played with twisted glee by Jack Teague) who takes her to the motel room he shares with Sweet Marie (Jody Maxwell), presumably his magician's assistant. She finally gets to New York, and to the home of her sister's employer (Veronica Hart), but not before being offered a bunch of balloons in a park by Lilah (Arcadia Lake).... I was going to say that it makes more sense when you see it, but, really, it doesn't. Finally, there's a twist at the end throwing much of what happened before into question that was intriguing enough to ensure that, eventually, I'll watch Neon Nights again.

Neon Nights was absolutely bonkers in the best possible way. Like I mentioned before, the camera work was excellent, the shots were typically interesting and well-considered (there was maybe a slight over-reliance on the "reflection in a mirror" angle, but then they are very thematically appropriate), the music was spot on and contributed to the overall ominous and surreal tone of the film, and the performances were all top notch. A

Quickie Review: Urban Cowgirls

Urban Cowgirls (1980)

The problem with Urban Cowgirls is that, as a film, it can't really decide what it's about. There are four and a half storylines throughout the film, given about equal weight and all at least somewhat tied to a country western bar. (1) Amanda (Veronica Hart) beds a younger man (Eric Edwards), a valet at the bar; (2) Amanda's sister Kathy (Georgina Spelvin) is trying to reignite a spark in her marriage to Paul (Aaron Stuart); (3) Jocelyn (Lee Carroll) is having an affair with her boss (Joey Silvera); (4) a cocktail waitress, Marianne (Hillary Summers) pines for the affection of Billy (John Leslie), the bar's owner; (and a half) Jocelyn and Amanda have a friends-with-benefits relationship.

The strange thing is, with all those things going on, nothing really happens. There's no drama. At all. I didn't find myself really caring what happened to any of the characters. Kathy seemed all right, but if she and Paul didn't get out of their rut, so what? And it would be okay if Marianne and Billy got together, but again, if not, say lah vee....

I hate to do this again, because I really like the cast (well, Lee Carroll is a little terrifying...), but Urban Cowgirls was a strictly average movie. C-

Pornonomy Reviews: Triple Xposure

Triple Xposure (1986)

Directed by:
Johnathan Burroughs

Starring:
Carol Titian
Honey Wilder
Mai Lin
Nikki Charm
Sharon Mitchell
Summer Rose
Billy Dee
Buck Adams
Joey Silvera
Kevin James
Paul Thomas
Scott Irish

One thing I can say for Triple Xposure: it starts with a bang. The opening credits are pretty great - the credits are projected onto oiled up, gyrating women - and then the opening shot of the film is a slow pan from Honey Wilder's feet, up her body, revealing that she's going down on Sharon Mitchell.

It's revealed that Honey Wilder's having trouble making ends meet, so Mitchell suggests throwing a party at which Wilder can sell a bunch of vintage dresses...which I guess she has for some reason. Mitchell and her husband (Paul Thomas) will arrange the party and invite a bunch of their rich friends.

Before the party, Mitchell lays out a plan with so many twists it would make a soap opera writer blush. The ultimate goal of the plan was to switch out a piece of forged artwork for an erotic drawing that Wilder had, unaware of its actually value. Why, exactly, Mitchell needed to go through all the trouble of throwing the party when she probably could have just switched it out at any time isn't really explained. Of course, it's really just an excuse for all the sex scenes. In fact, it's kind of funny because after everybody starts pairing off to get to it, there isn't actually anybody left mingling. None of the scenes are particularly noteworthy, but the film's edited to switch from one to another, so they don't get too tedious, either.

Still, after all's said and done, it was pretty pointless to introduce the scheming plot in the first place, because the film, from about 24 minutes in until about the last 10 minutes (so, almost an hour), is just people fucking, with seemingly nothing to do with advancing the plot. Then, there's a bit at the very end that has Joey Silvera examining Mai Lin's forgery, which falls short of ideal, so then Sharon Mitchell and Silvera need to "punish" Lin by blindfolding and double teaming her.

And then the movie's over.

It's too bad, really, because the cast was solid, the film looked really good, and the plot, at the beginning seemed promising, but it just never delivered on that promise. Overall, it was a pretty average movie, so I guess by definition, it deserves a C.

Quickie Reviews: Three Comedies and a Drama

Girl from S.E.X. (1982)
In the vein of Our Man Flynt, The Girl from S.E.X. is a secret agent parody. S.E.X. Agent 38DD (Lisa DeLeeuw) must infiltrate A.S.S. (I forget what the acronyms stand for) to stop a nefarious plan. There were some pretty clever/dumb jokes that actually made me laugh out loud, which will always get bonus points. (The character named "Xavier Hollandaise" was a particularly nice touch, if not a little dated.) If there was one shortcoming, it was the way the sex scenes were edited. There'd be all the expected set up dialog, but when it came to it, scenes would generally cut directly to the actors naked and at it, which was a little jarring and didn't help the flow of the film. Still, one of the better comedic porns I've seen in awhile: B+

Blonde's Have More Fun (1979)
A con man sets up a health food store in San Francisco, selling an elixir concocted by an associate ("Brains", a man fried by drugs and/or feral), pitched as a cure-all that turns out to be the World's Greatest Aphrodisiac. Needless to say, the elixir sets the city's loins aflame and leads to all manners of sexual shenanigans including an orgy in the store and, in my opinion the film's highlight, a backroom tryst between Hershel Savage and Diana Holt. Stylistically at odds with the rest of the film, the scene was really, really well directed and edited. The huckster (Max Devo, perhaps? I'd have to revisit the end credits to be sure....) does a very good job as the snake oil salesman-type, although as many actors in porn or B-movie comedic roles requiring rapid speaking, he has a tendency to get a bit tedious in his monologue (as much a fault of the director and writer as the actor). All told, a pretty fun picture: B+

Nurses of the 407 (1982)
While I should have learned my lesson of raised expectations after Tigresses, I definitely have after Nurses of the 407. The promising trailer, which I'd seen on a few other dvds, the solid cast, and the concept (M*A*S*H) seemed like it'd make a solid picture. Unfortunately, there wasn't a story, the characters were uninteresting, the jokes all fell flat, and the normally comedy-dependable cast (Hershel Savage, Jessie St. James, Paul Thomas, and Joey Silvera, particularly) underperformed. I'm tempted to grade it lower, but the production values were actually pretty good, so while I'm unlikely to recommend, and certainly won't watch it again, I'll give it: C-

Raw Talent (1984)
Following struggling actor Eddie Czeropski (Jerry Butler) from stage auditions, to a to-make-the-rent porn career, to mainstream success, lost after his X past was discovered, Raw Talent is held by many (or at the very least, Jerry Butler, who used the title for his industry exposing autobiography) as one of the great adult films of all time. True, the acting, writing, directing, and look of the film are all quite good, but a huge issue, in my opinion, is the relative lack of drama. Eddie always seems to roll with the punches: you don't really get the sense that he's got an acting fire in his belly, you don't feel an ecstatic high after he gets work on a soap opera, or a crushing low after he's betrayed and his porn career ruins his burgeoning "straight" career. From a technical standpoint, I'm going to go ahead and assume the release was abridged, because three abrupt jumps - all violent in nature (a mugging, a scene between Lisa DeLeeuw and Butler in a bathroom, and a fight near the end) - have to be cuts from the original. I enjoyed Raw Talent for what it was, but can't help thinking how a few changes could have made it a ton better. B

Pornonomy Reviews: Lips

Lips (1981)

Directed by:
Paul G. Vatelli

Starring:
Brook West
Pipi Anderson
Kathy Harcourt
Lily Rodgers
Lisa DeLeeuw
Tigr
Vanessa del Rio
Billy Dee
Herschel Savage
Paul Thomas
Reggie Gunn
Ron Jeremy

I suppose it's not a bad idea for couples with unsatisfying sex lives, like John and Kathy (Ron Jeremy and Kathy Harcourt) and Neil and Linda (Herschel Savage and Brook West), to seek counseling. I am surprised, though, at the efficacy of Dr. Jim Matlock's (Paul Thomas) sex therapy resort/clinic, considering it seems all that's required to fix a sex life is for the partners to have a brief, unfaithful tryst.

The main problem with Lips (other than the fact that the name seems to have been picked out of a hat*; there's hardly the oral fixation such a title would suggest. In fact, Neckerchief Bonanza would have been far more appropriate since literally every actress wears one....) is that there's no narrative cohesion. While the scenes aren't completely disconnected (you at least know how the characters got in the situations...well, for the most part, anyway) the idea of a film taking place in a couples' sex therapy lends itself to far better execution than what was put on film.

I don't mean to say the film was bad necessarily, just kind of underwhelming. Oddly, the most interesting sex scene was one that wasn't: after assistant carpenter Arlene (Tigr) gets busy with John and Kathy, she decides to let her boss Skip (Reggie Gunn) finally score after repeated advances. Only when finally presented with Arlene's body, Skip's unable to perform. Either Tigr is the best ad lib actress in the history of porn, or that was a scripted soft scene, which seems like a really bizarre thing to write in.

I wouldn't actively steer anyone away from Lips, but it wouldn't be the first (or fifth) Vatelli film I'd recommend. C+

* And the box cover has even less to do with the film than the title does.

Pornonomy Reviews: Roommates

Roommates (1981)

Directed by:
Chuck Vincent

Starring:
Kelly Nichols
Samantha Fox
Veronica Hart
Bobby Astyr
Don Peterson
Jack Wrangler
Jamie Gillis
Jerry Butler
Ron Hudd
Ron Jeremy
(and a bunch of others)

While perhaps not as hard to get my brain around as Taboo American Style, I've had a hard time coming to grips with exactly what I was going to write about Roommates. First, the objective facts: Roommates is a film about three women sharing an apartment in New York City, embarking on new or different career trajectories, and is directed by Chuck Vincent, one of the few openly gay directors of straight hardcore films (the only I can think of off the top of my head, truth be told). The scope of the effect of Vincent's sexual preference on the end product can be debated, but that there is some effect, is likely a given.

Billie (Samantha Fox) is a high class call girl looking to leave the profession: turning her back on lying on her back, you could say. (Good one, Rog!) In order to keep her apartment on a lowly production assistant's salary, she places an ad for roommates which is answered by Joan (Veronica Hart), a drama student moving to New York to follow her dreams of acting on Broadway, and Sherry (Kelly Nichols) an LA model - with an epic substance abuse problem - looking to check out the New York scene for awhile.

From the top to the bottom the cast is excellent, the writing quite good, the direction and cinematography top-notch - including a non-sex scene as tense and scary and a sex scene as gripping and squirm inducing (both on the strength of Jamie Gillis acting as only Jamie Gillis could) as you'll find in any film, porn or mainstream. And yet the reason I kept waffling on how to review and grade the film is that the sex scenes, by and large, aren't particularly "sexy," though primarily by design. Only two (Fox/Wrangler* and Hart/Butler) are completely consensual and playful or sweet. The others are either preying on the delusions of a mistress (Hart) fueled by the threat of blackmail (Fox) or show the perils of drug abuse (Nichols).

On a tangent, one thing that stood out to me was the scarcity of pop shots. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I clamor for them, but even in a less facial-oriented era, they were the norm and a film that had two (I think), one of which was strictly, uh, manual (Gillis) stands out. It's tempting to attribute the quirk to Vincent's sexual orientation, but I don't recall the few other Vincent pictures I've seen holding to this "low pop" formula.

So, after much musing and chin stroking, I'm giving Roommates a B+.

* Samantha Fox and Jack Wrangler have such great chemistry that it's a travesty they only acted together three times: The Filthy Rich and Jack and Jill (another Vincent picture) besides Roommates. I'm really interested in checking out Jack and Jill, now, to complete the set.

Pornonomy Reviews: Taboo American Style Parts 1-4

Taboo American Style (1985)
Directed by:
Henri Pachard

Starring:
Carol Cross
Gloria Leonard
Kelly Nichols
Raven
Sarah Bernard
Taija Rae
Frank Serrone
Joey Silvera
Paul Thomas
R. Bolla
Steve Lockwood
Tom Byron

Holy cow. This mini-series was a lot to digest.

It seems strange to say that a film (for simplicity's sake, and since I watched this series as a whole instead of by the parts, I'm going to refer to Parts 1 to 4 as "the film") that features acts of incest and has the word "taboo"* in the title isn't about incest, but Taboo American Style really isn't about incest: it's about a teenage girl shrewdly and mercilessly manipulating everyone around her in order to achieve her goals of power and, later, film stardom.

The scope of the film is far to great to provide a scene by scene account, and although some might scoff at the idea of worrying about "spoilers" in a porn, there are enough startling moments that it'd be a disservice to lay them out here.

The film primarily involves the well-to-do Sutherland family: father Harding (Paul Thomas), mother Emily (Gloria Leonard), soon to leave for college son Tom (Tom Byron), and daughter Nina (Raven, who, throughout the film, sports a cavalcade of absurd hair styles). Tom is interested in Lisa Chinaski (Taija Rae), the daughter of the family's handy man Jack (R. Bolla). In order to keep up appearances, Emily forbids Tom from seeing the girl, a decision that ultimately backfires when Nina orchestrates a liason between Tom and Lisa later that night. Not only are we introduced to Nina's penchant for sneakiness, but to the fact that the Sutherland household needs to enact a "close your bedroom door!" policy.

After subsequently undermining her mother by sleeping with Lisa's brother, Clete...yes, Clete (Frank Serrone), Nina strikes her mother a definitive blow by leading Harding to the location of an elicit tryst between Jack Chinaski and Emily. Nina is then able to capitalize on her father's vulnerability by coaxing him into a sexual relationship. Now that I think about it, that's the definitive blow.

From this point forward, she is able to orchestrate about every inappropriate pairing you can imagine - shy of any male/male contact, of course - without seeming to derive any physical pleasure from these encounters; merely the psychological satisfaction of controlling others. Ironic considering the first time Nina is shown in a sexual situation it's while she's guiding Lisa through the theory and practice of achieving orgasm.

In a recent post, The Gore-Gore Girl wrote that she frequently finds herself watching a non-pornographic films with "structure, style, or some other intangible element that makes you continually think you're watching porn." Conversely, I find myself often watching a porn and thinking how it's story could be adapted for a "normal" rating. I kept thinking that in TAS, if Nina was an au pair, or friend-of-the-family's daughter visiting over summer vacation (basically anything that wouldn't make her fucking the father figure unmarketable) it easily could have been grouped with Poison Ivy or The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. There were multiple times during the span of the film that I actually expected someone to get murdered! A lot of the ambient score, um, underscored that feeling since it wouldn't have been out of place in a psycho-sexual thriller. (To beat this idea into the ground, the tension that builds during the scenes between Emily and her therapist, Dr. Berman - played by director Henri Pachard** - is very Basic Instinct-y.) Additionally, there's a point at the height of the "Nina runs the house" phase of the film, that almost has paranormal undertones, like the kid that can control people in that Twilight Zone episode (and part of The Movie, of course).

Ultimately, Nina's able to use her powers of manipulation to realize her dreams of movie stardom. I'll leave it to you to guess if she ever gets a sort of comeuppance to pay for her actions, which you may get right, however perhaps not in the way you think you'd get it right.... Ooh, cryptic!

Overall, the film is very well realized and acted. I found myself noting on multiple occasions the quality of the camera work and scene staging (although it was a little disappointing that, in Part IV, after a bunch of great production, the boom mic had to make an appearance; ah, well, I guess it is porn, after all). If there was one knock against the film, technically, it would have been in some of the editing. There were a few occasions when there was pretty great tension building - as in the aforementioned therapist scenes - but the scenes suffered from a bit too much repetition, cuts between a character and a door you expected to open, for instance. Still, that's a pretty small demerit in the scope of the overall film.

Lastly, I've said before that I consider whether or not I'd recommend a film to one of my less porn-versed friends. Taboo American Style suffers a sort of double-whammy (it's not a comedy - the easiest films to recommend to a newbie - and it deals with a bunch of incest), but in terms of it's pretty great direction and cast and it's unique structure (a true four part mini-series, as opposed to a few films that are sequels), I'd willingly recommend to anyone I thought could handle it. B+


* Taboo American Style appears in the Wikipedia entry for the Taboo film series, but while I may be wrong, I don't think that's accurate. Granted, I'm not familiar enough with the Taboo series to know how related #3-23 are - I've seen 1 and 2, and 2 was tangentially related to the first - but it seems to me TAS is its own entity. I'd wager that it was titled "taboo" because the word, in the wake of the first few films, became synonymous with incest. And it probably didn't hurt that the first few films were pretty successful. To that end, it's kind of funny that "American Style" was included, too, given the supposed "snowclone (xxx), (nationality) Style" as a "minor cultural meme...". As a weak analogy, it'd be like naming a movie about the revenge of a super hero "Super Man Strikes Back."

** While it's probably more common than I realize, I though Pachard making a cameo in his film was great. Like, I really enjoy the work of Paul Vatelli, but I wouldn't know him if we sat next to one another on an airplane. Unless, I guess, Stiff Competition was the in-flight movie and the topic came up....