Cry for Cindy (1976)

Jesus, this was a wild ride.

Anthony Spinelli’s Cry for Cindy is like an episode of The Deuce crossed with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and directed by a somewhat-restrained David Lynch. That sounds like an incredible film, actually, but my time with Cry for Cindy was...complicated. 

In a nutshell, the plot is that Anna (Amber Hunt), a hairdresser, is concerned her medical student boyfriend, Dennis (Spender Travis), will drop out of school. Clients Yvonne and Nora (Maryanne Fisher and Mitzi Fraser, one-time wonders), both sex workers*, convince Anna to become “Cindy” and start turning tricks for big money. Cindy’s an instant success but is deeply conflicted when she finds herself drawn into her new life as Cindy - though also trapped by her pimp Ben (Jack Wright) -  and away from her old life as Anna and with Dennis.

The fairly rote story is made more interesting by the way it’s told. At the beginning, Cindy’s already disillusioned with her life and ends Act I by leaping from her apartment window to her death. Then, how she got to that point is revealed through memories of the few people attending her funeral.

I spent the first two thirds of the movie waffling between being ambivalent about it and sort of disliking it, in no small part because the hardcore scenes were almost aggressively un-erotic. I could be generous and suppose that they were filmed and edited as dispassionate and clinical to underscore the fact that they were simply business transactions, with no pleasure or emotion. But that directly contradicts Cindy’s tearful admission to Yvonne that she “loves every minute of what [she’s] doing.”

My opinion of the movie improved dramatically in the final third, highlighted by a non-sex scene with Cindy and a regular client, Sir Godfrey (Peter Whigham). After she’s given a glass of sherry and paid her fee, she proceeds to explain that on the way to meet him, she was attacked by “six motorcycle freaks” with Godfrey asking for details and Cindy “yes and-ing” through the entire tale. (Well, technically, she did say “no” when asked if the “freak” that forced her to blow him came in her mouth, but it still counts as a yes-and since “No, all over my face and my neck,” certainly heightened the game.)

The film finished strongly enough that I went from thinking of it as, like, a CC1000 to lamenting the fact that it was a few tweaks away from being a CC5. The first thing is that all of the hardcore scenes would need to be better. Way, way better. Rare is the adult feature that would be improved by cutting all of the sex, but Cry for Cindy is one of ‘em. Even if half the scenes were at least moderately hot, the film would be exponentially better. The second thing would be having a stronger acting lead. Amber Hunt isn’t terrible as Anna/Cindy (and she actually does pretty well in the aforementioned “tearful admission” scene), but the role requires some heavy lifting and she’s just not up to it.

Outside of the sex scenes, there was some really terrific camera work and photography:

(Inside of the sex scenes, there were so many - so, soooo many extended, extreme close ups**. Greasy, hairy close ups. Ugh.)

How about ol' Robert Rimmer's impressions:

"Many women may identify with this sexvid. Amber Hunt does one of the better acting jobs."

I can't say I particularly agree (or disagree, I guess) with either statement. Women may identify, I guess (particularly with Anna being the voice of reason when Dennis floats the idea of taking a few years off from school), and "better acting" is relative. Maybe sometime I'll sit down and look at actors that were active in '75-76 to see who I wish had been cast. (Probably not, though, let's be real....) I wonder if Amber Hunt's chops improved over time. Looking at her filmography, I've actually seen a decent chunk of it but don't have any specific recollections of her, which doesn't bode particularly well.

Overall, I definitely have a deeper appreciation of the film thinking back on it than I did while watching it. And I can see myself returning to it in time (skipping the sex scenes, for sure). I wouldn't be surprised if Cry for Cindy really improves with multiple viewings (but not the sex scenes, I'm positive of that). So, I'll give a solid CC50.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

° It's a travesty that whoever did the hair and make up to age John Leslie wasn't listed in the opening or closing credits, because they did a Marlon Brando as Don Corleone-caliber job:

From Autobiography of a Flea, also 1976

* I initially wrote “prostitutes” since that - or worse - would be the term used contemporarily, but opted instead for today’s preferred nomenclature since I wouldn’t refer to Linda Wong or Mai Lin as “Orientals”, even though I've heard Mai Lin refer to herself as such in old flicks.

** I believe that Vinegar Syndrome is passionate about restoration and presentation. And I know Joe Rubin can get real bent out of shape when people tell him that the aspect ratios on their VHS copies of old pornos are “better” than what VS released. But there are some shots - primarily hardcore, but some non-hardcore scenes, too - that are so claustrophobic they border on abstract.

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Okey doke, so what's up next?

Well, hello, Colleen Brennan!

In the Pink (1983)

I’m not generally one to get all ** wiggles fingers, makes Theremin sounds ** but there was something going on with the supposedly random picks for the blog. First, the movie that actually came up after That’s Outrageous was WPINK TV, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch a film with Ron Jeremy right now, so I re-rolled. When In the Pink came up, my wife pointed out that I was destined to watch something with “pink” in the title (although from the films that were in the running, turns out that was a 1 in 89 chance, so it’s not as bizarre as it initially seemed). Far stranger was the fact that it turned out to be another film from 1983 that heavily featured international locales and lightly featured Dave Ambrose (one scene in each). Ambrose only appeared in 10 films total (including a non-sex appearance in Wanda Whips Wall Street). Six of those ten ended up as Rimmer’s Collector’s Choice picks and two of the other four weren’t reviewed, so who knows if they may have warranted a CC. Even still that’s a tremendous hit rate. So this doesn’t turn into a Dave Ambrose biography, I’ll move on to the review after adding one last interesting (to me) tidbit: thanks to (yet again) The Rialto Report library, I found out (in the May ‘83 issue of Porn Stars) that he and Tish Ambrose were married.

The elevator pitch for In the Pink is that millionaire art collector Blake Covington (Scott Baker) is determined to complete own a complete collection of oil portraits of the House of Habsburg and fakes his death to conspire with his assistant Heather (Joanna Storm) to convince the Baroness (Laurie Smith) to sell the paintings to his widow Mariange (Jaqueline Lorians). BUT not all is as it seems when there’s a late-film reveal regarding Blakes supposedly-cuckolded would-be assassin “Umberto” (Zebedy Colt). The twist is entertaining at first, but completely falls apart when you think about it for, like, 10 seconds.

I make it a general rule not to read any other reviews of films before I’ve written mine. When I’m doing initial information gathering and background, if I happen to come across a preview, though, I’ll read it. Unfortunately, Erotic Film Guide labeled what ended up being a review of In the Pink as a preview so I unintentionally broke my rule. That said, the (p)review was written by Candida Royalle who provides some insightful editorializing and had many opinions I shared, too, so I’m going to excerpt some of her review and add my two cents.

IN THE PINK is another of the many "new wave" films attempting to uplift the quality of the adult film genre. As with most others, though, some of it works, and some of it just gets in the way. Fortunately for IN THE PINK, its muddled, confusing story need not interfere with the sex, thanks to an abundance of pretty girls, lush photography, and plenty of eroticism.

...We get to see lots of Paris and Venice scenery as the producers use a trick growing in popularity in the porn industry: exotic foreign locales. The technique is to cart off your stars and most essential crew members, shoot lots of exterior footage of them gallivanting around easily recognizable hot spots like the Venice canals or the Eiffel Tower, then intercut and match it with hard core footage done at home (where it's safe from customs inspectors!), and Voila! You have an expensive looking movie with strong production value. Chuck Vincent did it with BON APPETIT when he had his lovers romancing all over Paris, Rome, etc. And now, Bill Eagle follows suit, having his leads fall in love in Paris, London, Cairo. Rome, Vienna- you name it.

Generally, the interiors they used for the hardcore inserts were ornate enough to sell the “Olde Europe” feel, but there were some truly bizarre blue/green screen effects that gave some settings an aura of a performance art piece or play.

Similarly, the Italian tenement laundry set would have been right at home on stage at the 1984 Academy Awards or in Robert Altman's Popeye.

…[T]he somewhat formula sex scenes are saved by some highly creative cinematography, namely the numerous erotic closeups of anything from a woman's tongue licking her lips to some of their full screen genitalia shots done more tastefully than usual. Also worth mentioning is the music score, which enhanced the sex scenes with its building, driving rhythms and seductive, crooning melodies.

I’m not so sure about the “crooning melodies”, but there was more timpani than I ever recall hearing in a porn flick. Who’d’ve thought you could set so many sex scenes to drum solos?

The women are definitely a plus in IN THE PINK. Jacqueline Lorians is just adorable with her creamy, freckled skin and very full breasts; Gina Carnale [Marie Sharp] promises to be a real hit with her olive skinned, leggy beauty; Lori Smith, who I haven't seen since we worked together in OLYMPIC FEVER seems to be getting lovelier with maturity; and Joanna Storm is always a pleasure to behold. In fact, she looks and acts better than ever in this film.

I’ll cosign Royalle’s praise of Joanna Storm. All the actors perform well, but she really sells her character.

The plot is nothing to write home about, but the film has some memorable moments nevertheless. I would like to point out a couple of my favorite scenes, such as the montage of the two couples getting it on: Heather and a museum worker with a HUGE cock…

It’s pretty incredible how industry standards have changed since the early ‘80s. Jamie St. James is packing, no doubt (there may be a bit of forced perspective since Joanna Storm seems pretty petite and St. James is a twiggy alien man), but his endowment would be par for the course now and the majority of other dongers in the film wouldn’t be seen outside of cuckold/SPH scenes.

...and Mariange and a very handsome Mediterranean type [Starbuck]. ...The two scenes build up to an electrifying pace, never letting you down for a minute. They end up in big wallowing cum shots with a nice touch of tenderness in the end. Music and intercuts are utilized most effectively in both scenes.

Candida Royalle’s right on the money. There were cuts from close up to close up that made it nearly impossible at times to tell which couple you were seeing in action, which was a really cool, evocative, and engaging technique.

The other scene I particularly liked took place inside a tiny English Royal Guardsmen's station between Jacqueline Lorians and Joey Silvera. Joey is trying his best to be the proper Guardsman , ignoring her advances, but Mariange pushes him inside saying, " I bet I know something that knows I'm here." Then she has her way with him ... a fantasy I am not unfamiliar with.

It was a cute scene, but completely superfluous and one (along with the Ambrose/Sharp/guy laundry scene) that I happily would have traded for an alluded-to tryst between Mariange and the Baroness.

IN THE PINK is headed in the right direction. It's an ambitious project attempting to uplift the standards of adult films. The women are pretty and convincing in their eroticism: the men are hot, and the sex, though routine, does deliver. In other words, it's definitely worth a peek.

Agreed!

Let’s check Rimmer’s take:

Put this one near the top of your “Collector’s Choice” sexvids. Unlike some American-made sexvids that try to capture a foreign background with stock shots, much of this one must have been shot in Paris, London, Venice, Vienna, and Luxor.

Well, yep.

It’s too bad The Davinci Code hadn’t come out 25 years earlier. Bill Eagle could have cribbed some story beats and put some of the exotic locales to better use and made In the Pink a CC10, but as it is, I’ll rate it a CC25.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° I really wonder about the title of this one. Idiomatically, “in the pink” means “in very good health”, so I guess it could be an allusion to Blake faking his own death. The ellipsis in the title card is weird.

Was there a contemporary movie that it’s emulating? Or is it an Occam's razor deal and pink is what you think it is?

° There’s a shot late in the film where Jacqueline Lorians is scaling an outdoor staircase wearing an outfit not fit for such a task where it seemed like she was going to fall to her death. It was legitimately nerve-wracking.

° Bill Eagle had Starbuck doing some very GQ poses.

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On deck:

Oh, damn. This one's been on my radar for awhile, but I haven't watched it because the description sounds bleak as hell. I guess we'll see!

That's Outrageous (1983)

You know what's outrageous? That I haven't posted in a freaking month and a half! It feels like it was maybe three weeks since my Sweet Alice review. Time has no meaning anymore.

That’s Outrageous is a film about fantasy. The plot is conveniently summed up by Paul (Jamie Gillis) in the first 30 post-opening credits seconds:

"The girl I picked up when I was dressed like the starving writer turns out, coincidentally, to be the sister of my girlfriend, all right? Now I gotta keep them separate. I want them both, I don't want them mad at each other, I don't want them to be mad at me. At the same time I want us all to get together eventually, have a little menage a trois."

Paul lays that explanation out for his partner Rick (Joey Silvera) - who happens to be in love with the model Nichole (Anna Ventura) they’re in Paris photographing, but is too shy to make a move. Fortunately for Rick, Paul sets it up so that Rick needs to be the male model in a shoot with Nichole. The pop some bubbly in order to break the ice, and then sparks fly.

The girlfriend Paul mentioned is Michelle (French adult film veteran France Lomay). Her sister, who knows Paul as Phillipe, is Martine (one-and-done French actress Natasha*). Paul plans a masquerade party in an effort to get Michelle and Martine in the sack together. The plan backfires, though, when all three of them get too loaded. Martine passes out first, and when Paul and Michelle get up to the bedroom, they end up passing out, too, using Martine’s butt as a pillow.

In the morning, the sisters wake up and realize that they’ve been two-timed and duped by Paul/Phillipe and leave him high and dry.

Though, really, the plan was destined to fail considering, well, they’re sisters and the possibility of siblings down to clown is far-fetched at best. Incest, of course, has been a well-worn taboo in pornography, but is just out of place in a film like this. Fred Lincoln seemed to agree considering he changed the actual sister/sister scene from the script into a fantasy scene. I wonder why he didn’t consider taking things a step farther and just make the sisters best friends, instead.

The scene between the sisters (which, not for nothing, was incredibly well-shot) brings me back to the idea of fantasy in this film. Here, Michelle considers her sister’s beauty and wonders what it would be like to have sex with her. (Presumably, that is: the voice over is in French sans-subtitles, unlike the rest of the French in the film.) Other fantasy scenes include the first scene between Michelle and Phillipe, which is actually playing out in Michelle’s head while she masturbates; the scene between Paul and model Karen (Tiffany Clark), which is her imagination; and the scene between Karen, other model Keiko (Mai Lin), and Paul’s client (David Ambrose), which is the client’s fantasy during the photoshoot. More broadly, Paul’s desire to be with both sisters at the same time and Rick’s pining for Nichole are fantasies themselves (though ones which - spoiler alert - ultimately come to fruition). And lastly, what’s a masquerade party if not a venue for living out fantasies?

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the music in the film, which was omnipresent and all over the map. The opening theme, is disco-rock earworm that’s a bit Donna Summer-y, if you squint your ears. The credits themselves, with lighting flashes and glowing text are a kind of proto-Weird Science sequence.

There are a couple songs by a Dollar Store Johnny Rivers type including one that soundtracks a restaurant scene that could be used to great effect as a music video to a much better song:

...and another song that’s a “romantic” duet with an off-off-brand Barbra Streisand (let’s call her Debra Stryzand) that kind of torpedoes what was purportedly a scorching hot scene between Joey Silvera and Anna Ventura. There’s also some accordion music for one of the street scenes to really hammer home the fact that the production’s in Paris. (The other street scene - where Paul and Rick are photographing a kind of awkwardly modeling Nichole in front of a bunch of real-life on-lookers - uses the main theme song again.)

On to why Robert Rimmer classified That’s Outrageous as Collector’s Choice (in "Classics" in the "Update"):

...Actually, his entry is just a plot recap with no subjective reasoning for a CC mark. The closest he gets is saying,, “[a]ll the conversation between Martine and Michelle is in French with subtitles, and the background cinematography of Paris night and day contributes to the realism.” True enough. In fact, remarkably, there isn’t a single glaring error in Rimmer’s write up. Way to go, Bob!

That’s Outrageous is a solid picture that’s easy to recommend. A few tweaks here and there could have made it CC10 caliber, but as is, I’m going to give it a CC25.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
That’s Outrageous was previewed in the March 1983 Porn Stars and profiled in the August 1983 Erotic Film Guide magazines, both available for reading thanks to the digital library an the amazing The Rialto Report. These few tidbits are pulled from those articles:

° Paul and Rick apparently had a bet as to whether they could score chicks without being known as high end fashion photographers, which explains why Paul was pretending to be a “starving writer” when he courted Martine.

° The masquerade scene was filmed at New York’s Hellfire Club both for inclusion in the film and as a de facto wrap party and the partygoers were mostly club regulars who supplied their own costumes.

° The street scene shooting Nichole got a little tense with the number of people that stopped and watched (Fred Lincoln: “They started to get so excited just because of the way she was throwing her body around, and Anna and Joey got a little frightened. So we packed up and left.”), which definitely came through in the film.

And these are a few of my own thoughts:

° The masquerade party was somewhat reminiscent of the party scene from Midnight Cowboy:

° That party was based on happenings at Andy Warhol's Factory. The original Factory was at 241 East 47th Street which isn't too far at all from the address that Rick tells Michelle and Martine that they'll find Paul (36 West 46th Street) after they've decided that they want to give being a trhouple a chance.

I wonder if Silvera ad libbed the address or if there was a reason it was used since the address (and block, generally) have an interesting back story:

34-36 West 46th Street. No architect was involved here. It was an engineer, Robert B. Bowler, who designed this in 1914 for general loft use. He framed the large, simple windows with skimpy masonry banding of brick and terra cotta, a sort of architectural Automat but without the nickel slots. What particularly enlivens this building is the extensive use of classical ornament in black and red floral relief, egg-and-dart molding and, miraculously still over the doorway, a classical Greek frieze of a charioteer racing toward a woman leading a procession of children. For an engineer it is a particularly unexpected design.

* She is listed with a second credit at IAFD for Dark Angel (1983), but I think it’s a misattribution based on someone else credited as “Natasha”: 

..because I sure didn’t see her anywhere in the film. It's too bad, really, because she seemed like a good actor (admittedly, it's difficult to gauge a performance in a language one doesn't speak, but still) and she's very attractive.

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Okay, so what's on deck?

Sweet Alice (1983)

Sweet Alice takes me back. The first time I saw it - well after my initial discovery of the stack of duped VHS tapes in my dad’s closet but before I started this blog - I didn’t know anything about loops. After I watched it, I had a sneaking suspicion that the Seka scenes weren’t filmed for Sweet Alice, but the idea of a film recycling a bunch of sex scenes (six of nine, here) was completely foreign to me. What a wide-eyed naif! In the time since, I’ve seen countless examples, but few (if any) were done as well as Sweet Alice.

The story built to frame the loops is that doofy yokel Billy Joe (Kevin James) has come from New Mexico to Hollywood to find his wife, Sweet Alice (Seka). He hires private investigator Jamie Savage (Honey Wilder) since there’s no way a hayseed like Billy Joe could navigate the mean streets of LA. Turns out, Sweet Alice has become a successful porno star, and the gut-wrenching revelation disavows Billy Joe of any hope of saving his marriage. (But not immediately. First, Jamie had to break it to him by showing him a tape of Sweet Alice and Turk Lyon getting busy. Then, after wandering around for awhile, Billy Joe goes to an adult theater and sees another one of her movies. And then, he needs to see - but not confront - Sweet Alice on a porn set to get closure.) Wouldn’t you know it, though, Jamie falls hard for Billy Joe, and after he accepts that his idea of Sweet Alice was wildly different from who she actually is, he falls for Jamie, too, and they leave LA for New Mexico and a new life together.

In case the plot was too tricky to follow, there’s a main theme that’s reprised (a lot) that lays the whole thing out. It’s called “The Ballad of Billy Joe”, written and sung by “Sandy Bush”, a way off-brand Joan Baez. It primarily accompanies Billy Joe wandering and looking wistful, but once soundtracks Jamie wandering around looking wistful, while the viewer is told that:

Billy Joe's on her mind

Jamie thought about him all the time

Does he want her as much as she wants him?

The integration of the loops is pretty seamless, helped by the fact that there isn’t a substantial difference in film quality (the loops are from just a few years prior to Sweet Alice rather than, like, flashing back to 1971) and cleverly having Becky Savage (who appears in the Friendly Hot Tub loop that’s included for hardcore scenes) talk to “director” Marty (Bill Margold, who described his character as “rather ‘affected’” and sported a signature Swedish Erotica neck scarf).

The two loops that stood out were the scene with Seka, Desiree Cousteau, and John Holmes (from Ski Bunnies 2) and the scene with Seka, Lysa Thatcher, and Jamie Gillis (from Hot Flash). The first because it showed how little the acting mattered when Desiree Cousteau tripped over her line (“Do you want me to rub your bactor...back doctor?”) and they just kept rolling, and because John Holmes is Bob Ross-ing it, big time. The second because in her autobiography, Serena wrote that Jamie brought Lysa into their relationship, presumably as a plaything for the two of them, but became so infatuated that he began neglecting Serena who, in turn, got incredibly jealous. From what I can tell, this loop may have been Jamie and Lysa’s first filmed sex.

Happy little trees, indeed

The hardcore scenes shot for Sweet Alice include one between Cindy (Cindy Shephard), Sweet Alice’s friend and Ron (Jack Mason), Cindy and Sweet Alice’s sex slave, apparently, after a failed attempt at getting Jamie into a menage a trois and two between Jamie and Billy Joe. The first is after a romantic dinner and before Jamie takes Billy Joe to see Sweet Alice filming a scene, the second on a picnic after visiting the porn set, and cementing their new relationship. They’re all fine.

While I was making mental notes for this entry while watching Sweet Alice, the main thing I wanted to discuss (other than some of the buck wild wardrobe choices costumer Nancy Leonarda made for Honey Wilder) was the music. (Although first, those outfits. Yikes.)

Not "The Ballad of Billy Joe", though, the other music. There was a repeated synth and saxophone song that scored the loops, some romantic synth and strings music during the Billy Joe/Jamie scenes, and a song under the conversation between Jamie, Cindy, and Ron (and subsequently Cindy and Ron fucking) that sounds a whole lot like "Seeking" by Steve Roach and would have been right at home in an episode of Stranger Things. (Incidentally, "Seeking" was released in 1986 - three years after Sweet Alice - which begs a bunch of questions. Was there a different song in the original film with Seeking inserted on a later home video release? Was “Richard Long” credited for the musical score actually Steve Roach who didn’t release the song under his own name until years later? Does this conspiracy go all the way to the top???) The music is solid, for sure. But actually, when I was transcribing (why? Who knows?) "The Ballad of Billy Joe", I was actually struck by the judgment not just of Sweet Alice, but of “porno stars” (women, at least). To whit:

Well Billy Joe found his wife

Leading a different kind of life

Sweet Alice had become a porno star

She made love to men in twos and threes

And women down on bended knees

And she came for all the world to see

Memories of how it used to be

Seem like they all happened in a dream

And fantasies of how it used to be

Destroyed by seeing Alice on the screen

Sweet Alice paid the price

Trading love for the spice of life

Yes she became a porno star

And she found a way

Through the jungle of LA

By keeping all kinds of men hard

Sure, this is stating how Billy Joe’s memories and fantasies were “destroyed”, but there’s something cold and dismissive about Alice “pa[ying] the price” “by keeping all kinds of men hard”, especially considering it’s seems that Sweet Alice is a pretty big “porno star”: when Billy Joe first tells Jamie his wife’s name, she asks if she’s blonde, and real pretty, implying she already knew who she was. And then, when she tells him it’s possible that his wife has changed and may not want to see him, he’s like, “Naw, she’ll be real happy to get back to her friends,” conveniently overlooking the fact that she left her wedding ring on the dresser when she left and she left 53 weeks before he showed up in LA to look for her (both of which the viewer finds out later). The lyrics should have been, “Sweet Alice is a big star and Billy Joe realized he’s a goony idiot.”

I couldn’t hazard a guess at the number of times I’ve heard or read in interviews that actors have seen few to none of the films they were in, but if I were, say, Honey Wilder and watched Sweet Alice, I’d be pretty pissed at how being a “porno star” got dragged in that song. Or, who knows, maybe I’m being overly defensive and she would’ve been like, “So what, I do come for all the world to see?”

Okay, so that was a bit of a tangent. Let’s see why Robert Rimmer deemed Sweet Alice a Collector’s Choice (in "Classics" in the "Update"):

“Trying to dissuade [Billy Joe] from reforming Sweet Alice, Jamie goes to bed with him. The contrasting romantic sex (some of the most caring and believable that you’ve ever watched in an adult film), with Seka/Sweet Alice being her typical dispassionate self and Jamie/Honey being the totally loving woman (she even thales Billy Joe on a picnic), makes this a love story that most women will enjoy. Hurray for Adele Robbins, Honey Wilder, and Kevin James, who prove in this one that even with a simple little love story an adult film can be interesting.”

Women be both shoppin’ and lovin’ a love story, right?

He adds:

“As for the rest of the actors and actresses...they are stereotyped to fit the plot.”

Okay, I can’t bag on him too hard for not pointing out 66.6% of the hardcore scenes were recycled loops since I started this post by saying that the first time I saw Sweet Alice I didn’t realize it, but as I also mentioned, I had an inkling that something was amiss. And, I hadn’t watched thousands of pornos at that point. Presumably, Rimmer was familiar with the Swedish Erotica library. He also misidentifies Turk Lyon as Jamie Gillis.

Overall, I really enjoyed Sweet Alice. Kevin James is a reliable cornball and, as my wife mentioned, is really good at looking sad. 

And the awful Southern drawl slapped onto his native, nasal ‘Sconnie accent is endlessly amusing. Honey Wilder is as earnest and committed to her role as always. I’m going to go nuts and give Sweet Alice my highest rating since the blog’s reboot and issue a CC25!

RANDOM NOTES

° I appreciated the meta touch of “Adele Robbins” as a client of Jamie’s and her connection to Sweet Alice, and...

° That “Jamie Savage” was, presumably, a Jamie Gillis/Becky Savage mash-up. Interestingly enough, according to IAFD, Gillis and Savage never performed together.

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Next up, oh random number generator?

Adventures in COUNTIF functions

The very first thing I did when starting this Robert Rimmer Re-Watch Collector’s Choice Challenge, was to set up a spreadsheet listing every film Rimmer rated as CC. Inevitably, on the first pass, I missed some so in an effort to help catch any major oversights, I also made spreadsheets for the films listed in Jim Holliday’s The Top 100 X Rated Films of All Time and Only the Best and the pre-1988* entries from The AVN Guide to the 500 Greatest Adult Films of All Time. It’s distinctly possible these lists already exist somewhere, but after some (relatively light) web searching, I decided it was easier to do it myself.

Sure enough, cross-checking these lists led me to a few Rimmer CCs that I hadn’t logged initially, but what I found more interesting were those films that were deemed all-time greats by Jim Holliday and/or AVN but not sufficient to earn a Rimmer CC stamp. Not counting softcore entries, about 550 films received Collector’s Choice designation. Of the 80 adult films released through 1987 that AVN included in their all-timer list, Rimmer reviewed 56, and of those, rated 40 as CC. Jim Holliday’s Only the Best consisted of 251 films** (assuming I didn’t miss any...I did check my list against the index twice, but you never know). 215 of the 251 were reviewed in Rimmer’s book. 144 of those were CC-rated.

There are nine non-Collector's Choice films that appear both on Holliday’s and AVN’s lists:

All the Way In (1984)

All-American Girls (1982)

Bad Girls (1981)

Ecstasy Girls (1979)

Hot Dreams (1983)

Inside Jennifer Welles (1977)

Never So Deep (1981)

Sexcapades (1983)

Society Affairs (1982)

Those are some pretty fucking good movies. Pretty good fucking movies?

(It’s worth noting that Rimmer did rate sequels All-American Girls II and Great Sexpectations as Collector’s Choice.)

A few of the non-CC films from Holliday’s list that jump out to me are Barbara Broadcast (1977), The Filthy Rich (1981), Little Girls Blue (1977), Pandora’s Mirror (1981), and Young Like It Hot (1983). Admittedly, I have a soft (hard?) spot for The Filthy Rich because it was the first X-rated film I saw.

As for the AVN list, I was surprised that 1001 Erotic Nights (1982) and The Widespread Scandals of Lydia Lace (1982) didn’t earn their CCs. I suppose the former is a little uneven, but I was gobsmacked when I read Rimmer’s review of Lydia:

“This is a quickie that Pachard must have flipped off on a rainy Manhattan weekend, and then gave it a zoomie, cryptic title which means nothing.”

Holy shit! Them’s fighting words, Bob!

Sharon Mitchell ain't havin' it, either!

I don’t anticipate being at a loss for films to watch, but if my randomizer ever brings up a film I’m not particularly feeling, I may pick out some of the critically-acclaimed films that Rimmer didn’t rate CC to further help suss out what his criteria were.

* The “Revised and Updated” edition of The X-Rated Videotape Guide was published in 1986, but spend enough time looking at release dates of old pornos and you’ll know that giving listed dates a plus/minus of 2 years is good practice.

** 93 of the Top 100 X Rated Films of All Time made it to Only the Best. As Holliday explained, the first book was geared towards retailers so the list wasn’t intended to reflect quality considerations. Most of the films that didn’t appear in Only the Best were rationalized in chapter footnotes.

Debbie Does Dallas (1978)

It could be argued that Debbie Does Dallas is the most well-known porno of all-time. It has a fantastic title, an okay premise, and benefited from a bunch of “no such thing as bad press” controversy surrounding it’s release, from legal action pursued by the Dallas Cowboys to the hubbub surrounding the use of the Pratt Institute and Brooklyn College for filming. Looking at total reviews from IAFD and IMDB, Debbie Does Dallas edges out consensus classics (including Deep Throat, The Opening of Misty Beethoven, and Taboo) and all-time bestsellers (Pirates, Fashionistas, Dream Quest, and Flashpoint among them). Sure, total reviews is akin to starting a trial’s opening statements with “Webster’s Dictionary defines…” but whatever. Anecdotally, a few years back when I was having a conversation with some people that I’m pretty sure aren’t super into porn - classic or otherwise - about my interest in the Golden Era, they both said, “Oh, like Debbie Does Dallas.” Truly a cultural touchstone.

Anyway, the film obviously had a lot going for it (including riding the “Porno Chic” wave established by Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door), but unfortunately, I don’t think what actually ended up on celluloid deserved it’s long-lasting renown. It’s specific shortcomings are a lack of conflict, a lack of narrative consistency, poor editing, and uninspired hardcore scenes. Before elucidating those points, a brief plot recap:

Debbie (Bambi Woods, who took the “wide-eyed” character descriptor quite literally) has the opportunity to try out for the Dallas Cowgirls cheerleading squad, but only has two weeks to raise the money that will get her to Dallas. Her cheerleader friends decide to help her, declaring they’ll all put their relationships with their boyfriends on hold and get after school jobs. They quickly realize they can use their sexuality to get their horndog bosses to pay them extra, so they can fund Debbie’s trip in no time flat.

So, on to my knocks on the film.

1. Lack of conflict

Right off the bat, Debbie states that she only has two weeks to get to Dallas, but pretty much right after her friends decide to help her, there’s no sense of time or urgency. There could have been some between sex scene shots of the girls putting money in a pickle jar while crossing days off a calendar or something. And there could have been a wrinkle where two days before the deadline, when they’d just about gotten all the money they needed, the jar went missing.

There even could have been a b-story involving the girls’ football playing boyfriends. Sure, the dudes are dismayed to learn that they’re being put on hold so their ladies can help Debbie. And sure, Tim (Herschel Savage) tells Rick (David Morris) that since Debbie’s his girlfriend, he has to let her know they won’t stand for it. But imagine, if you will, that the team has a big game coming up and that they’ve learned that if they don’t get laid the night before, they play like shit. A chance at the State Playoffs is at stake. The whole thing with the boyfriends leads me to my next point.

2. Lack of narrative consistency

Okay, so Rick is Debbie’s boyfriend and is supposed to have a conversation with her. Never happens. And, we learn later, Tim is Donna's (Merle Michaels) boyfriend. But the two guys are both involved in the film’s first hardcore scene, set in the girls’ locker room shower, and neither of participating ladies - Debbie's squadmates Pat (Kasey Rodgers) and Roberta (Christie Ford) are their girlfriends, which has no consequences later. Further, Tim persuades Donna to give him a blowjob while she’s working at the library since she’d been too busy to take care of him even though he got off twice in the shower. (Although, again, as far as the sense of time is concerned, that could have been ten days prior….)

3. Poor editing

The first time this really stands out is after the culmination of the first hardcore sequence. After Tim ejaculates on Pat’s face, the camera lingers on her nuzzling at his dick and pretty obviously trying to figure out how to scrape his jizz out of the corner of her closed eye (before just using her hand) for a ridiculous 105 seconds. It could have been cut to a third of that and achieved the same effect. Similarly, the scene in which Mr. Biddle (Jake Teague) spanks Donna is too long by (at least) half.

The music was all over the map, too. The repeated Sousa-esque march made sense for the school football angle, and some of the "Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone" pastiche basslines and chicken scratch guitars were okay, but I could have done without the library music acid rock freakouts (see: "Midas Touch" by Sulphur Flowers during Mr. Greenfeld’s - R. Bolla’s - climax).

4. Uninspired hardcore scenes

Most people would probably pick the Debbie/Mr. Greenfeld scene as the film’s most memorable. I can’t that football uniformed Mr. Greenfeld chasing Cowgirls cheerleading uniform-clad Debbie around the sporting goods store with his hardon out is quite an image.

And they do make novel use of the workout equipment. It’s an okay scene, no doubt.

I think the standout, though, is the scene between Mr. Hardwick (Eric Edwards) and Roberta while Mrs. Hardwick (Robyn Byrd) watches (before getting herself in the mix at the tail-end). Whereas most of the other scenes implicitly or explicitly include the threat of wives finding out about the trysts, this one is actually instigated by the wife. After the brief view into the Hardwicks’ relationship, sex life, and Super 70s candle shop, I wish someone had made a spinoff sequel focused on them. 

(Note to self: write this treatment.)

Honorable mention goes to the record store double blowjob with Tammy (Arcadia Lake) and Lisa (Georgette Saunders) working on Tony (Tony Mansfield). The scene itself was fine, but there was about 30 seconds during which the ladies were basically eye-fucking each other and the dick in Tammy’s mouth was a secondary (at most) concern.

Hatchi matchi!

Otherwise, the scenes were pedestrian at best and completely forgettable at worst. That works out to a generous 36% hit rate, which is...not great.

Well, let’s see what Robert Rimmer had to say (listed in "Classics"):

“A laughing sexvid that fulfills at least one male fantasy - joining the girls in the high school shower. Nicely photographed with women who really seem like the teenagers that you will remember making love to in the back seat of your automobile, if you’re male. Or, if you’re female, you may identify with them. This one was a best-seller in 1980 - second only to Deep Throat.”

That’s it. In its entirety. Maybe he felt like most people were already familiar enough with Debbie Does Dallas that he didn’t need to explain it more or justify its Collector’s Choice designation. The Deep Throat entry is just about as terse, but at least there he also adds “Worth owning.”

Obviously Rimmer’s book was geared toward a specific demographic, so I won’t get into the assumptions he’s making about the reader. But he does bring up an interesting point about female viewers possibly identifying with the women in the film.

For this entry, I (re)watched Debbie Does Dallas with my wife (and sometimes collaborator). While discussing the film afterwards, she brought up a conversation she had with some female friends about the complicated sexual power women in their late teens and early twenties have. That it’s a time when she feels all eyes are on her (because they often are), and that she has the ability to bend mens’ wills to her own. And yet it’s also a time of great insecurity. Of comparing herself to her peers or the idea of societal feminine ideals and standards generally.

I suppose that Debbie Does Dallas could allow for women viewers to identify with the cheerleaders in the film. While there are elements of pressure/coercion between Debbie and Mr. Greenfeld and Tim and Donna, it never felt like either woman was unable to put a stop to what was happening. Even Donna tearfully begging Mr. Biddle not to tell her parents about fellating her boyfriend in the stacks, and begging him not to hurt her while being spanked was subverted by her cheerfully bouncing out of the library, telling Tim that they aren’t in trouble and that Mr. Biddle’s “really an all right guy.”

It's plain to see that I definitely think that Debbie Does Dallas is overrated in the pantheon of adult cinema. The safe bet would be to give it a CC25, but this is my project and my subjective criteria, so dammit, it gets a CC50.

RANDOM NOTES

° A Herschel Savage adlib made me actually laugh out loud. While Merle Michaels was blowing him in the library, she cough/choked on his dick a few times, and after the second, he said, “Oh, baby, don’t choke. Stay alive.”

I almost wonder if he was a little taken aback by her gagging. I know I was. While it’s almost impossible to watch a scene made in the last twenty years and not hear a sound like Merle made, it seemed like back then women only attempted a deep throat when they already knew they could do it.

I had to include this because I couldn't not.

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Right-o. Up next is:

Oho! Kevin James at prime doofiness! Honey Wilder at some of her earnest-est! Should be fun to revisit.