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.

Hot Action (1978)

I wish I spoke French. Watching La Vitrine du Plaisir (“The Showcase of Pleasure”) in its native language is, I’m sure, a far superior experience to the Caballero release, Hot Action. 

Accounting for slight differences in opening and closing credits, and NTSC v. PAL frame rates, the Alpha France release is some six-ish minutes shorter. Scrubbing through the different versions, there doesn’t seem to be much appreciable difference in the content included. I’m going to assume the English translation sticks mostly to the French dialog, though there are a few parts that I’m pretty sure took some bizarre artistic liberties. Since the resurrection of this blog was inspired by critiquing Robert Rimmer’s Collector’s Choice picks, and since he reviewed and rated Hot Action, unless specified otherwise, that’s the version I’ll be talking about.

According to the description of the Alpha France DVD release (via Google Translate):

Both a cult film and an exceptional document. Directed in 1977 by Gerard Kikoine, this film shows us Brigitte Lahie, actress and daring, on the set of Fine Parts, one of her best films. A record number of spectators thus discovered for the first time the hitherto unknown undersides of the shooting of a blockbuster X during the release of this film on August 30, 1978 in Alpha France theaters.

The description makes it sound like a straightforward behind-the-scenes documentary, but there’s a fictional framework into which the “making of” scenes are set.

Freelance journalist Patricia Gordon (Dawn Cummings), just finishing up a series of articles on fashion, is contacted to write an “expose” on adult film-making. 

Yes, that is a glittery DICK on her shirt.

After a series of fruitless phone calls, she finally finds a filmmaker (Alban Ceray) that will let her get a behind-the-scenes look at the process. Over the course of multiple days of production, Patricia watches scenes being filmed and conducts interviews with the director, actors (Guy Royer, Brigitte Lahie, Jacques Gatteau), a stunt cock for inserts (Cyril Val), the Chief Lighting Technician (uncredited), and mysterious masked woman (Marion Shultz).

Oooookaaayy....

Based on the French version, the interviews seem unscripted, but I have no idea how faithful the English dubs are. In the English version, for instance, before her interview with Cyril Val, she’s told that he’s only ever used for cock shots because when his face is on camera, the audio gets all fucked up. (“Only his prick is a sweet talker.”) And lo and behold, during the interview, as soon as he opens his mouth, Patricia’s recording sounds like a jet engine. This does not happen in the French version. Similarly, while we first see the masked woman in a closed-set blowbang (that Patricia only gets access to when Alex, the lighting technician, sneaks her in as a photographer), she’s introduced to the viewer as the director of a “special scene” and is heard giving blunt direction during Sylvie’s (Susan Deloir, credited as Sylvie Dessatre) solo scene. Based on the lack of female narration in the audio from the French version, I’m guessing this isn’t the case in the original.

Sylvie is a smokeshow.

Speaking of voices, most of the actors providing the overdubs are fine. The choice for the masked woman wasn’t ideal, but isn’t terrible. The same can’t be said for whoever did the sex noises for Diane Dubois during her anal scene with Dominique Aveline. Jesus Christ. In the French version, she sounds like a human being having sex. In the English dub, she sounds like possessed walrus being exorcised. It is awful. Additionally, during the production scenes, there are frequently no less than five people (the director, camera operators, etc.) talking - often including Patricia’s inner monologue - with everything mixed at basically the same level. I suppose it could imply how chaotic shooting is, but it’s enough to give you an aural seizure. Again, this isn’t the case in the original.

Time and again, Patricia is struck by how normal everyone involved in the film is - except for some slight pearl clutching in regards to Sylvie’s future since Patricia doesn’t think she’s mature enough to be making decisions concerning her porn career - and ultimately is so intrigued by porn that she decides to try her hand (and mouth!) at it, even if it alienates all her journalism friends.

Ready for her debut!

Let’s check in with ol’ Robert Rimmer (filed in "Classics" in the "Update"):

“If you’d like to know what goes on filming a porno in France, this one is a behind-the-scenes look with a real sense of humor.”

No quibbles there, I guess. Does Rimmer get anything wrong in his recap? You bet he does!

“Patricia...discovers...that ‘jackoffs and freight trains’ are guys who are kept around to provide erect pricks but no faces.”

He’s referring to Patricia being told that the stunt cock she asks about interviewing is called “jet or freight train” because of what happens to the audio track when his face appears on screen. It’s not a term for stunt cocks, generally.

Prior to this assignment, I knew basically nothing about classic French pornography. (I’ve recently taken an interest in Dorcelclub’s productions, but that’s neither here nor there.) This was probably a weird one to start with, given it’s semi-documentary nature. I’m definitely curious to see Parties Fines now, though it wouldn’t be a part of the CC Series (Rimmer did review the Caballero release of the film, Education of a Baroness, but did not deem it Collector’s Choice). The only other Gerard Kikoine film I’ve seen is Aphrodesia’s Diary, but it was so long ago I have only the vaguest recollection. (Aphrodesia’s Diary is a CC pick, though, so theoretically I’ll revisit eventually.) Now, I know that hardcore pornography was legalized in France in 1974, and that it took off like gangbusters. So much French hardcore was being produced that some critics bemoaned that it was the end of French cinema. (I know I read that somewhere in a Google Books search, but I wasn’t able to immediately find it, and I don’t need to cite shit for this blog anyway.)

Cursory internetting didn't reveal much of Alpha France's history. Context clues seem to indicate they were a production company and chain of adult theaters, but I'm not so sure. Regardless, whether they were indirectly responsible for the death of French cinema or not, Alpha France certainly seems to care about the legacy of their hardcore films. They may not be as feature rich as some Vinegar Syndrome releases, but every Alpha France film I've come across (no pun intended) in my recent research has been a really beautiful transfer. They must have a vault somewhere of pristine prints.

Were this a subtitled version of the Alpha France release, I could see myself going as high as CC50 for this film. As it is now, I'm going to rate Hot Action as (yet another) CC250.

RANDOM NOTES

° As far as I can tell checking Hot Action against Parties Fines, about half the hardcore scenes in the former were actually shot for the latter. The new scenes include Patricia’s “preconceived notions” about filming a porno - somewhat amusingly featuring Brigitte Lahaie fully blonde, whereas she’s dark haired in the rest of the film - and the masked woman parts.

That is deffo how pornos are made.

° The masked woman’s blowbang was the most visually interesting part of the film and her “airtight” scene the most surprising.

° Parties Fines was Gerard Kikoine's first film. It’s wild to think that someone thought to document the making-of for a director’s maiden voyage. Or maybe that’s commonplace? I have no idea.

° The music in the French version is much better. I didn’t mind the English song at first, but it wears out its welcome.

° Coincidentally, a link to this post about Brigitte Lahaie popped up in my Twitter feed right before I was going to watch Hot Action. Some nice background on the star.

The End!

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Okay, so on to the next:

Staying in 1978 with a film that probably doesn't need any more written about it....

Teenage Cowgirls (1973)

“Teenage Cowgirls is a really fast-moving, beautifully photographed and well-edited film that won immediate praise. It has an excellent cast, a good script, and a delightful soundtrack. A real-shoot ‘em up, porno Western, with a High Noon-style shootout, at the end. A great flick!”

The description, presumably provided by Video-X-Pix, is about 60% accurate (which is way more than you can say for the title and especially the box art*), but provides a decent jumping off point. First, a quick story recap:

Outlaw Rio (John Holmes, credited as Long John Wodd) and his partner English Gentleman Duke Grande (Charles Orlando), are on the run from a bounty hunter named Hendricks. They encounter the proprietress (Lilly Foster) of a General Store in a ghost town - whose husband is in the high country, tending cattle - and then a poor farmer (Adam Ward), his wife and her sister. Duke and the sister take up before she’s captured by Hendricks and held to lure Rio and Duke into town for the final showdown.

1. Really fast-moving

Well, the film’s only 63 minutes long and starts and ends briskly enough, but gets bogged down by a series of pretty boring, poorly shot sex scenes. A bit of a problem for a porno, to say the least.

2. Beautifully photographed and well-edited

By and large, the film looks fine and has the feel of a late ‘60s/early ‘70s Western.

3. An excellent cast

“A serviceable cast” would be charitable. Excepting Holmes, of course, none of the actors had much of a career. Amanda Blake, Brenda Day, and Sally Withers - all with only one credit - may have other unidentified films, but I wouldn't bet the farm. Also, Charles Orlando's pic at IAFD looks like a Bob Odenkirk Mr. Show character:

4. A good script

If there was more than a single page of actual written dialog, I’d be shocked. There was, however, a legitimately good exchange early on:

The film opens with Rio and an unnamed - and unseen, face-wise, anyway - woman in the act. After completion, Rio rides off and Hendricks, in pursuit, rides in:

HENDRICKS

Where’s the twelve-by-twelve bandit, ma’am?

WOMAN

Oh, I don’t know, but I can sho’ tell ya he was here.

HENDRICKS

Long as I’m here.

[Begins unbuttoning his shirt.]

Oh, shit…. Got no time, ma’am. But I’ll be back.

WOMAN

You better be a hell of a man if you intend to ride behind him.

That’s a quality double entendre!

5. A delightful soundtrack

Absolutely! There’s a bunch of Tammy Wynette ("He Knows All the Ways to Love", "If You Think I Love You Now", "The Joy of Being a Woman", "Make Me Your Kind of Woman", "The Only Thing", "We Sure Can Love Each Other"), some Hank Snow ("Come the Morning", "Go With My Heart", "I’m Movin’", "I Wish It Was Mine") and a bit of Sonny & Cher ("A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done", "United We Stand").

6. A real-shoot ‘em up, porno Western, with a High Noon-style shootout, at the end

There was one shot the entire movie - which was during the High Noon-style shootout, at least - so “shoot ‘em up” hardly qualifies. But the standoff was fun. John Holmes always clearly relished (non-sex) action in his films, and his enthusiasm made up for any physical limitations (see: any fight scene in a Johnny Wadd film). 

7. A great flick!

An okay flick!

There were two things that pleasantly surprised me:

First, when Rio and Duke held the female shopkeeper at gunpoint, I fully expected the ensuing sex scene to be framed by (threats of) violence. My expectations worsened when, after the shopkeeper fed them, Duke said to Rio, “Say, Rio, did the lady mention something about being taken advantage of?” (which...no, she didn’t?) and Rio hauled her off to a stable over his shoulder against her protests.

However, after he laid the blanket down on the straw, she became a willing participant. And not by the oft seen “struggling at first and then getting into” route, but by saying, “Well, shucks, I hadn’t had it in awhile,” (since her husband is off ranching) showing her as a woman with actual desire for sex, echoing the contemporaneous work of Nancy Friday. In fact, whether she actually has orgasms (possible, though not probable given the audio/video evidence), she purports to be coming twice during her first encounter with Rio (once each by cunnilingus and by intercourse) and once during their second (intercourse).

Second, I feared some degree of racial ugliness when the black actresses were introduced. It wouldn’t have been wholly unexpected given the film’s setting, but even when Hendricks was capturing Duke’s ladylove, he doesn’t utter even a “mild” slur.

I can’t say there were any halfway decent sex scenes. Holmes’s come closest, but for the most part, were shot horribly. The inability to get sex on film well was either because of or a reason for director Ted Denver’s short career (Teenage Cowgirls was one of only two credits).

Rimmer on Teenage Cowgirls (listed in "Classics" in the "Updated" section of his book):

“It’s surprising how few adult films use an old-time Western plot or background…. Shot almost entirely outdoors, it’s no great shakes as a cowboy picture, but it’s far more interesting than many current adult films.”

The only glaring error is that Rimmer calls Duke Grande “Duke Randy”, which is definitely wrong because after Rio calls him Duke “Grandy”, Duke replies, “How many times have I got to tell you, my name is Duke Grand-ay.”

Despite it’s sex scene shortcomings, I’d agree with Rimmer that the novelty of it being a relatively early John Holmes picture and the commitment to the look and feel of an “old-time Western” earn it a Collector’s Choice. And maybe I’m feeling generous because it subverted some of my expectations, but I’ll give it a CC100.

RANDOM NOTES

° * In a great example of the egregious practice of box art having nothing to do with the film, here's what Video-X-Pix mocked up for Teenage Cowgirls:

That is Laura Lazare. Laura Lazare was not in Teenage Cowgirls. Her first credit was 1980, seven years after this film.

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All right, let's see what's next in store for our viewing pleasure:

1978's La Vitrine du Plaisir (Hot Action in the USA)

Small Town Girls (1979)

Aaron Stuart torpedoed Small Town Girls. Before elaborating on how, allow me to give a brief account of the film at large.

“Play Around” magazine is holding a contest to find their next centerfold. The editor (Harry Freeman) has narrowed the field to four finalists in the Sex Queen Fantasy Contest based on submissions they’ve provided detailing their secret sexual fantasies. They are:

Literally, ABCD

Ann (Sharon Kane): “[L]ove, pleasure, luxury, and uninhibited sex with a very handsome and ideal partner.”

Barbarella (Valerie Darlyn): “Group sex with lesbianism and to be dominated by uniformed people.”

Cindy (Dorothy Lemay): “To have men worship me and I love to tease them and I also like to travel a lot.”

Danielle (Serena): “[T]o be really decadent and be able to dominate people sexually without fear of rebuttal.”

Frankly, if these were the finalists, the other submissions must have been some really lemons.

The women are given $5000 and 48 hours to live out their fantasies, write and submit a story about their experiences, and whoever does it best will win the contest. In order to ensure everything’s on the level, a man is assigned to keep tabs on each woman (Jesse Adams to Ann; Michael Morrison to Barbarella; David Morris to Cindy; John Seeman to Danielle). The men are informed that they “may participate in their fantasies in any way [they] see fit.”

Look at these smooth operators.

With this set up, the film basically plays out as a series of vignettes. Before they can get on with their individual missions, Ann and Barbarella have a brief tryst in a fancy treehouse. Halfway through their explorations, there’s a cut to Cindy booking a flight to “Alcapoco” and a reservation for the best hotel for two days (see: she likes to travel!). After hanging up, she says she’s going to treat herself to an “outrageous wardrobe.” The scene cuts back to Ann and Barbarella so they can finish up there treehouse fun.

Next up is Cindy trying on a bunch of clothes, among a half dozen other women in varying states of undress. Listening to a baseball game on the radio in his car, David Morris keeps tabs from the parking lot. It’s a weird little montage, set to Alan Parker’s “Manhunt” with a looped 8-second sample of crowd noise. The intensity of the song and repetition of the crowd noise - particularly a very distinctive laugh - gives a real sense of unease, foreshadowing what’s to come. After returning to her car, a man (Aaron Stuart) lurches from the back seat, holding a knife to her face, and threatening to cut off her nose if she doesn’t follow his directions. Morris sees them drive off, heads to a payphone and calls the editor. Based on the editor’s side of the conversation “My she did get into her fantasy, didn’t she?” we’re to understand that Morris thinks the abduction was arranged by Cindy, even though that has nothing to do with what she wrote!

Here’s where I’m going on a bit of a rant as to the aforementioned film torpedoing at the hands of Aaron Stuart. Some people can play dark and menacing well (Jamie Gillis, of course, was a master). Aaron Stuart could not. It seemed like his motivation was “deranged clown.” Some people are able to ad lib and improvise well. Aaron Stuart could not. 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.) Counting cuts to Morris the scene takes up a brutal 13 and a half minutes. The last minute of the scene - when Morris finally realizes Cindy’s in jeopardy and rescues her by bludgeoning Stuart with a wrench - is over fifteen minutes after the film previously cut away.

Fucking finally!

Forty minutes of screentime elapse between the time Cindy is abducted and when she’s rescued. Predictably, there’s a sex scene between Lemay and Morris shortly thereafter, mind-bogglingly including her talking about how “it’s fun being adventurous, but the risks are too great,”  “if you had a lover that would tie you up once in awhile, and make love to you, it wouldn’t be so bad,” and that she found some of the “moments...perversely exciting” during her abduction. It almost seems like writer/director Tom Janovich gaslit himself into believing Cindy’s fantasy was seeking sexual thrills and danger and bondage instead of being worshipped by men and traveling. Plus, the Lemay/Morris scene is introduced just three minutes after her rescue. Just a monumental editing debacle.

You can’t consume popular media - porographic or otherwise - and deny that the threat of sexual violence against women is a trope. And that romance borne of rescue from the threat is a sub-trope. If this was a plotline deemed integral to the film, what should have happened is that the first time Morris peeps through the window, after Cindy’s been tied to the weird spinning St. Andrew’s cross but before she’s raped, he should realize she didn’t actually plan what was happening, bust in, and brain the abductor with a wrench, the whole scene amounting to three or four minutes. Then, after some of the other plot lines resolved, they could have their sex scene. Who knows, maybe I’ll recut it to substantially improve the movie.

Okay, with that said, on to what the other ladies were up to.

Barbarella tells Ann that she’s always wanted to have “magic powers” so she’s going to “put an ad in the paper posing as a clairvoyer* [sic] for people with sexual problems.” Ann says she wants to make love on a yacht.

* I suppose it could be a "clairvoyeur" a portmanteau of "clairvoyant" and "voyeur", but given the rest of the script, I think that's a strech.

Barbarella sets up as a phony psychic (taking a shitload of pills for some reason).

A couple, Elaine and Roger (Kandi Barbour and Jon Martin) come to her to fix their relationship, and Barbarella “sees” that they want new sexual experiences, specifically Roger “making it” with another woman and Elaine watching. Conveniently, Barbarella’s there to help! By the time Roger finishes, the drugs Barbarella took have fully set in and she passes out. Her watcher - Michael Morrison - comes in to check on her and while he’s telling her he’s going to take her away, the scene dissolves into a psychedelic orgy playing out in Barbarella’s mind including Bonnie Holiday, Kandi Barbour, Jon Martin, Morrison dressed as a cop and Mick South dressed as a fireman.

So group sex (check) with lesbianism (check) and domination by people in uniform (check!). If it weren’t a drug-fueled hallucination, Barbarella would have nailed her fantasy.

Ann heads down to the pier and finds her captain (Jesse Adams). They have a nice romantic picnic and some nice romantic copulation.

Romance!

Kane and Adams are capable actors and have good sexual chemistry. I could definitely see this arc included in a compilation of “Scenes for Couples” or something. Ann aced her fantasy, but unlike Barbarella, did it in real life, so she’d have to be presumed in the lead.

Danielle gets gussied up, hires a limousine (driven by John Seeman), and cruises around listening to Rachmaninoff.

Prelude to a peeping.

She drinks some champagne, does some blow, and tells the chauffeur to stop the car and fetch her a man in a tuxedo (Blair Harris). In the car, she orders him to anally penetrate her with a vibrator, then sucks him off while Seeman peeps on them and jerks off. After Danielle’s through with her tuxedo pickup, he’s jettisoned onto the sidewalk. Danielle proceeds to command the driver to tend to her sexually since she knew he’d been spying. She was decadent and sexually dominant (though in the pantheon of Serena’s career, the dominance demonstrated here is basically G-rated), so we have another successful fantasy realization.

Back at the editor’s place, the women are informed that (some of) the men they’ve been involved with were actually judges, and that the stories submitted - corroborated by the judges, even though neither Cindy’s nor Barbarella’s fantasies were actually completed - were all so good that they’re all winners, and everyone’s happy.

Without a doubt, the Kane/Adams scene and the fantasy orgy were the standouts. From a creative standpoint - the lighting, editing, and song choice - the orgy gets the nod and it’s a real shame that it’s barely over six minutes (especially since it features six people). If this scene were the length of the Stuart/Leman debacle, and vice versa (or, hell, cut the latter altogether!), the film would have benefited immensely.

Let’s see how Robert Rimmer defends his Collector’s Choice designation:

“The CC rating may be dubious, but you’ll keep watching because you can’t believe your eyes!”

Uh, okay.

It should also be noted that he has Small Town Girls included in the “Classics” section. As makes sense, all Classics are Collector’s Choice, but not all Collector’s Choice are Classics. You’d think something that seems to have barely attained CC, though, might be better filed elsewhere….

In his recap, he also misidentifies Sharon Kane as Blair Harris (a man), though in Rimmer’s defense, it seems like early on in Kane’s career, her credited name changed a lot; seemingly more than anyone that had as many credits as she did. (Maybe at some point I’ll try to pin down when she more or less settled on “Sharon Kane”.) He also says that “Cindy has rape and bondage fantasies” (nope) and that “Barbarella pretends she’s a fortune teller at an amusement park.” Maybe he saw a version with additional B-roll footage, but nothing indicated “amusement park” to me.

Plus, she ran an ad in a newspaper fercrissakes!

(Maybe I should call this feature “Dunking on Robert Rimmer” since that’s what I’ve been doing so far….)

Overall, there was a lot in this film I liked and one thing I obviously hated. Without the “violation of Cindy” subplot, I probably would have rated Small Town Girls a CC100, but as is, couldn’t go higher than CC250. 

RANDOM NOTES

° Like Thoroughly Amorous Amy, Small Town Girls has an original theme song. The song, “Small Town Girls”, was nominated for Best Song at the 1979 AFAA Annual Erotic Film Awards, but lost to “This Time We Might Make It” from The Ecstasy Girls. I think the song kind of sucks.

° The film also received a nomination for Best Art and Set Direction (again losing to The Ecstasy Girls), but in the 1980 awards (assuming The Rialto Report didn’t get some wires crossed).

° Small Town Girls was Tom Janovich’s only credit, which surprised me. There was obviously a decent budget and the film was capably made.

° Harry Freeman is the final cast credit and the only actor with an "as":

...which lead me to believe he was someone of note. He only has a few Nonsex acting and one directing credit (an all-male film called Cousin Buck). There was a producer named Harold (Hal) Freeman who was involved in a pretty high-profile anti-porn trial, but I'm almost positive they're different people.

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Next up, 1973's Teenage Cowgirls!

Thoroughly Amorous Amy (1978)

Deep in the bosom of city life
There lives a certain husband's wife
Who's found a better way to spend her days
Just one knock upon her door
May leave you splayed across the floor
Without so much as a single word or phrase

She's thoroughly amorous Amy!
Thoroughly amorous Amy!

She's a girl whose learned how to make life fun
She's a girl who tends to come undone

She's thoroughly amorous Amy!
Thoroughly amorous Amy!

All the people upon her block
Will be in for a pleasant shock
When mischief finds the mistress all alone
In the closet or down the hall
It really doesn't matter at all
No rules need apply where seeds are sown

She's thoroughly amorous Amy!
Thoroughly amorous Amy!

If I had to hazard a guess at the elevator pitch for this film, it would be: there's a San Francisco housewife that unwittingly attracts so much sexual attention that she's terrible at actually keeping house. The theme song, sung by Sigrid Wurschmidt, and the opening scene - the titular Amy (Tracy O'Neil) jogs through San Francisco hills, a beach, parks, a tavern, and streets collecting gentlemen (and a woman) admirers leading back to her townhouse - show the first part, and all of the shots of the interior demonstrate the second. (As an aside, I always appreciate a porno with an original theme song.)

The film features a procession of people - two of the guys Amy pied pipered during the opening credits ("guy" and Billy Dee), a cop (Mick Jones), a vacuum salesman (Rock Steadie), an Avon lady (Dia L'Eclaire), family friend Tom (Paul Thomas), Amy's husband Brent (Peter Johns), Tom's wife, Marge (Kristine Heller), and her sister, Ellen (Candida Royalle) - knocking on Amy's door and getting splayed out on her floor before being hidden away in a closet after one sex scene and before the next. There's got to be a name for this narrative trope ("successive hiding?"), and while it must have existed before the late '70s, the Jiggle Era of Three's Company seems to be the heyday. The first 45 and last 3 minutes of the film fit squarely within that plot device, complete with blaming off-screen sounds on something else (rats, in this case), and a character escaping out the back door and (re)entering through the front (Tom, here).

Interestingly, the 30 minutes that aren't hiding-related hijinks are the film's high point, sex and otherwise. The scene almost feels like a play: Tom seduces Ellen by discussing the death of his twin brother at birth (?!?), guessing that she's unable to find affection in Boise, Idaho, and admitting that he and Marge had been fantasizing and role-playing sex with her in the lead up to her visit. Other than it being her living room and a few cutaway shots, the titular Amy has nothing to do with this scene.

Tom (Paul Thomas) smooth talking sister-in-law Ellen (Candida Royalle)

In my opinion, even though it feels like it's from a different movie altogether, it's this part that actually elevates Thoroughly Amorous Amy as a whole. There's certainly a fun, light movie to be made of what the elevator pitch may have been, but what actually ended up on film isn't it. I had forgotten how underwhelmed I was with the pre-Tom/Ellen/Marge movie until I went back to the beginning to review for the...review. Robert Rimmer doesn't really explain what constitutes a "Collector's Choice" designation, admitting to the trickiness of the rating since "[o]ne man's cup of tea is another man's poison." (Though he does say that films not deemed CC have "boring...story-line quality and characterization" implying those that are CC have compelling stories and/or characters.) I would have assumed that it was the Thomas/Royalle/Heller scene that qualified, but his synopsis focuses primarily on the Amy portion and says that "the story of the insatiable Amy suddenly falls apart. The guy's wife and sister arrive and the husband...gives her amyl nitrate to sniff and screws her while his wife and Amy watch. It all ends up in group sex with Amy's husband joining the fray. But some of it is happily silly." Reductive and inaccurate*, as far as I'm concerned.

This was one of director Carlos DeSantos's earlier films, and I think it shows with the pacing and some of the less-than-ideal camera angles in the non-sex scenes. Looking over his filmography, I believe I've only seen one other film (The Seven Seductions of Mme. Lau) but only have the vaguest recollection. I do recall it being more technically sophisticated, which would make sense since it was a few years and films after Amy. Theoretically, I'll be able to find out since Mme. Lau is one of DeSantos's four CC films [along with this entry, The Liberation of Honeydoll Jones (1977), and Soft as Silk, Sweet as Honey (1984)]. I guess it's all up to the randomizer!

Being the first entry of my Collectors' Choice Review (name subject to change), I'm going to try out a quality designation (also subject to change...or be abandoned completely). Specifically, if an imagined person was going to start an Old Porn collection, how large of a collection would it need to be before the film could reasonably be included. By that criteria, I'll give Thoroughly Amorous Amy a CC250 (so if the collection was 250 films total, it wouldn't be an egregious inclusion).

* It may seem petty and nitpicky to dunk on Rimmer for mistakes he makes, but I'm going to do it anyway. While I believe he was subjectively wrong in his summation of the penultimate scene, he makes an objective mistake in the entry in his book: he counts "guy" in the first scene as two guys - one in a hammock and one on a waterbed - when it's very obviously the same actor. 

RANDOM THOUGHTS

° When I saw the opening credits, given the commonplace practice of actors' names changing from film to film, I expected Dia L'Eclaire to actually be Clair Dia. She was, in fact, not, though I'd bet dollars to donuts the former was a play on the latter.

° Tracy O'Neil has a great example of what I call "young grandma" face, which is where you can tell exactly what a young woman will look like when she's 70:

The features tend to be some combination of thin lips, prominent cheekbones, square jawline, pointy nose, and/or sharp chin.

° Paul Thomas treats us to some next level sex facery:

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Okay! Post one in the books. Now, it's time to fire up the random number app and see what's in store for post numero dos.

And the winner is:

Okey doke. See you soon!