800 Fantasy Lane (1979)

"I've got one quick question for Svet.... Where the hell do you get these girls??? Svetlana's films are full to the proverbial brim with tasty morsels." That’s from the August 1984 Cinema Blue review of Surrender in Paradise. By the time Surrender was released Svetlana’s filmography as a director (or co-director) had hit double digits, but Cinema Blue could have asked the same question of Svetlana’s first film, 800 Fantasy Lane. Chris Anderson, Nancy Suiter, Desiree Cousteau, Lisa De Leeuw (in her first feature film), Aubrey Nichols, Hillary Summers, Serena, and hell, even [robot voice] UNKNOWN FEMAILE 20-A upon whom the opening credits are painted, are quite the cast of ladies.

And all things considered, 800 Fantasy Lane is quite a directorial debut. The film looks great, no doubt due to Robert McCallum’s keen eye as cinematographer. You’d be hard pressed to name too many films that made better use of “golden hour” light.

The story, such as it is, is basically abandoned just over a third of the way into the film, which is too bad, because there was plenty of room for it to develop. Gas station attendants Vic and John (Jamie Gillis and Bud Wise) are looking to vacation on the cheap when John sees a newspaper story about the real estate boom in Los Angeles. Aspiring actresses are turning to real estate, wining and dining prospective buyers. So Vic, posing as an oil baron, calls up an agency and is offered access to a cliffside retreat and a bevy of beauties. John travels along as Vic’s secretary. While the movie sticks to the story, it does a pretty good job of scene setting, highlighted by a cockblock (Vic kicking John out of a potential set up with Olivia and Samantha - Suiter and Nichols - to ostensibly ready a lease agreement) and then a reverse cockblock (John interrupting Vic’s threeway with the ladies with a phony emergency telegram from the SEC).

But then there’s a far too long S&M scene (14 minutes that could have been 6, tops, if it had to be in there at all) that saps any sort of narrative momentum. I feel about BDSM scenes the way I do about slam poetry and improv comedy: expertly done, they can be transcendent; anything less is fucking intolerable. The problem with this scene is the dynamics, both between Karen (Chris Anderson; an unnatural dominant) and Hillary Summers (whose character, as far as I can tell, was unnamed; an unnatural submissive) and the literal volume (they’re both just yelling at each other the whole time). I was reminded of Aaron Stuart’s disastrous performance in Small Town Girls. In that review, I said, “People that aren’t adept at improvisation tend to say the same few things over and over. And over. And over. (I was reminded of Veri Knotty’s unsuccessful turn as a domme in Tramp, which I watched recently in memory of Samantha Fox, RIP. Maybe the combination of improv and “menacing” is particularly difficult.)” Welp, you can add this scene to the list.

Part of what made the scene feel so disjointed was that the existence of the dungeon was never explored or explained. Like, if it turned out that the real estate office was also some sort of sex cult, sure. I guess. But before and after the scene, Karen and the ladies just seemed like very sexually eager realtors.

After that, there’s a brief concession to the plot with an actual real estate client (Alan Colberg, who appeared in a couple films and directed a couple more, including the pretty great All Night Long) telling Karen he didn’t think Vic and John were on the level and that he’d check them out. And it’s then on to a series of well-shot but narratively useless scenes including a three on one topless tennis scene (including slow motion titty bouncing that, frankly, looks way more painful than sexy, culminating in - I think - a fake lactation squirt)...

...a five on one bubble bath scene...

...and a PCP fueled-freakout hallucination sequence...

...with John sporting an enormous papier-mâché dick fountain and Vic as a ringleader with bodypainted animal ladies.

I gotta hand it to Svetlana, the film didn’t lack ambition.

Though I don't think that Svetlana ever hurt for ambition. At the very least, her purported no-nonsense approach to business and film rubbed some people the wrong way. Jon Martin said she “was pretty much an evil woman” and Richard Pachecco said working with her was “the worst experience [he] ever had in the business.” Lisa de Leeuw, in conversation with Pachecco, is slightly more charitable, saying, that she wouldn’t refuse to work with Svetlana again even though the working conditions she experienced (working 20 hour days, “fed cold hot dogs and cold coffee”) hadn’t improved between her 800 Fantasy Lane and Ultra Flesh (her second Svetlana-directed feature). Add the brutal set conditions to the Lisa recalling that she had pink eye (exacerbated by Gillis hitting her eye during a facial) and having her nose broken (by an errant whip handle wielded by Gillis) during the body paint circus scene, and it’s a wonder Lisa De Leeuw didn’t quit adult films outright!

There are story and technical kernels in 800 Fantasy Lane that end up being developed in some of Svetlana’s later films. Broadly speaking, the surrealism in the hallucination scene was at the forefront of F and Ultra Flesh. All-over bodypaint showed up in F, as well. The implied secret S&M club/cult was explicit in Bad Girls. And the idea of two regular guys masquerading to get away and get laid was central to (and I’d argue better realized by Turk Lyon and Randy West in) Sexboat.

Robert Rimmer's take:

...Svetlana went fantasy mad and offers some of the funkiest sex scenes you've ever watched.... When she made this one, Svetlana ws catering to the kind of male fantasies that most women won't appreciate. Pretty far out...and wins awards in the things-you've-never-seen-before department.

Presumably his Collector's Choice rating is for the audacity of the scenes Svetlana included (especially if the version he screened included Desiree Cousteau fisting Serena). Excepting the fisting scene, nothing in 800 Fantasy Lane would seem all that "funky" in a non-kink adult film 10 or 20 years ago, but I can see how they'd be pretty eye-opening for 1979 (and even 1986, when Rimmer published his updated guide). As for what he whiffed on in his review, he says that Victor and John "own a filling station," that they're "[r]eading an advertisement of Hollywood Star Realty," and that they have a "pot-induced fantasy" whereas they're definitely only gas station employees, they're definitely reading a newspaper article, and they're definitely "dusted." Much like Lady Dynamite, 800 Fantasy Lane was awfully close to earning a CC50 (or even CC25), but for its shortcomings, it rates a CC100.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° There were some really top shelf Gillis faces.

° Nancy Suiter is in the same "face family" as Taylor Swift and Hayley Mills.

° There have long been rumors that Lisa De Leeuw, reported to have died from complications from AIDS actually retired from the industry to raise a family. I'd always took those rumors as unsubstantiated wishful thinking, but after the recent Kathy Harcourt story at The Rialto Report and hearing her late '80s conversation with Richard Pachecco, I'm going to choose to believe that she is alive and well out there.

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Next up (though probably not to be posted quite as quickly as this one):

Hey, speaking of Robert McCallum....

Lady Dynamite (1984)

On paper, Lady Dynamite has a solid premise: a woman finds out her husband has been stepping out and decides she’s going to set herself free, sexually. In fact, it’s so solid it has to have been used countless times in books, film, and television, though I’m having a hard time coming up with an example. Chloe is the closest I can think of now, but it’s not quite the same. Anyway, solid premise is my point.

The execution is pretty weak sauce, though.

After a morning tryst with her husband, Valerie (Colleen Brennan), goes to her doctor (played by director Carlos Tobalina) for a physical. There, she finds out she has “a mild strain of gonorrhea”. Since she’s been “married and faithful to the same man for ten years”, the only explanation is that Ken (Shone Taylor) has been cheating. So, she decides she’s “going free” and that “every man who wants [her] can have [her]”.

With her newfound sexual freedom, she makes it with some rich guy named Phil (Blair Harris) who jets back to San Francisco from business in New York as soon as she calls, and attends a “wild” party at her friend Vicky’s (Laura Lazare, who always looks like her breath would smell like Camel Lights and Original Trident) which is supposed to be “just for the girls” but turns coed by some guys (Nick Niter, Rocky Balboa, and two dweebs) that Vicky invites.

Sometime (Hours? Days? Weeks? There's no sense of time in this film.) after the party, back at home, Ken tells her he’s a changed man and is done running around. Valerie only wants to know if he’ll “fuck [her] like [he does] the other women” because “some guys fuck the whores and the other women in their lives better than they fuck their wives”. Frankly, regardless of how good husbands give it to other women, having sex with Ken is a bad idea considering after Dr. Tobalina tells Valerie to send Ken in for his own treatment, she’s like, “Nah, he can keep the clap,” so she’s basically setting herself up for gonorrhea, round two. Unless she had a change of heart or the doctor blatantly ignored doctor/patient confidentiality and called Ken himself. Which is possible if not probable considering he seemed pretty Dr. Nick-ish, as evidenced by giving Valerie her penicillin shot before telling her what it was or what it was for.

Anyway, Ken - with or without gonorrhea - has sex with Valerie presumably in his non-marital style and then tells her he’s pleased that they’re back together and everything’s great. But Valerie gives him a literal “Sorry, Charlie.” And roll credits.

When I posted that Lady Dynamite was my next review, Jimmy from Golden Sin Palace commented “Carlos next... poor you. At least this one isn't too bad for him.” He laid out his opinion of Tobalina pretty succinctly in his review of Carnal Olympics: “...[M]ost of his films are boring and look more like something created in an assembly line than a film…”.

Reviewing Tobalina's oeuvre, I realized the majority that I’ve seen had an undeniable technical competence, but a detached, emotionless, antiseptic quality. That’s the way I feel about a lot of Brian De Palma films. De Palma, of course, is greatly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock famously made cameos in most of his films. Tobalina made cameos in nearly half of his films. Squint a little and it’s just like the daisy chain at Vicky’s party!

Let’s see what Robert Rimmer had to say:

The reasons for the CC rating are Colleen Brennan and the caring sexmaking, for the most part, in which she gets involved. Colleen is a very attractive redhead, and Troy/Carlos proves that he can make loving sexvids, too, when he has the right actress.

Colleen Brennan does look great, it’s true. Not so sure about the “caring sexmaking” and “loving sexvids”. Sure, none of the scenes had any rough stuff. And theoretically, the Brennan/Harris scene is “caring” in that Phil has unrequited feelings for Valerie, and though they won’t be together, he’s content to at least get to see her regularly. But categorizing Lady Dynamite as a “loving sexvid” is a stretch.

As for outright errors, Rimmer writes, “Colleen, who in this film has been married 14 years…” when she says no fewer than five times that she’s been married for ten years. Not too egregious, at least.

Carlos Tobalina certainly had the opportunity to put together a compelling story of a wronged woman reclaiming her sexuality, but Lady Dynamite wasn’t that. Had it been better constructed with a few more sex scenes exploring Valerie's expanding world (cutting the few in the film by - at least - a few minutes apiece), it could have been a CC50 or better. Instead, it's a CC100.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
° Nick Niter had some damn fancy footwork.


See this in all it's glory here.

° The soundtrack slapped. The main theme (admittedly, a little overused by the end of the film) had more than a little “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” to it and after Nick Niter et. al. show up to the party there’s this sorta Egyptian Lover/Devo hybrid electro call and response track that goes “Where’s the beef?”/”The beef is here!” (or vice versa, though question first makes more sense). Good work, Shamus!

° Speaking of “Where’s the beef?” IAFD and IMDB have Lady Dynamite listed as a 1983 film, but the credits have a 1984 copyright....

....which makes sense because the Wendy’s campaign was released in ‘84 and it’s highly unlikely that it was a saying before the Wendy’s commercials. Still makes you wonder if Shamus was inspired by Coyote McCloud’s song or the other way around?



° Perhaps the real stars of the film were the interiors of Phil’s boat:

And Vicky’s living room:

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Next in line:

Oh man, this'll be an interesting one to discuss! Hopefully it won't take me six weeks to get around to.

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?