Roberta Findlay's anything goes (including the kitchen sink) approach to comedy works best within the sort of free form narrative she employed on fornication farces like SLIP UP or SWEET, SWEET FREEDOM a/k/a HOT NURSES. On such occasions she achieves an almost anarchist brand of movie-making madness where pretty much anything can occur at any given moment as long as it gets a laugh, even if it is one of disbelief. H.C. Potter's comparatively sane film version of Nat Perrin's famously lunatic stage play HELLZAPOPPIN' seems to have been of great influence on her style.
Tied down by the demands of spoofing an already existing popular source, in this case Mel Brooks' magnificent 1968 comedy classic THE PRODUCERS, Findlay's clearly out of her league however. Though departing from a solid screenplay she co-authored with R. Allen Leider (who would subsequently pen GLITTER and the straight horror offering THE ORACLE for her), the movie wavers wildly between effective and embarrassing, directed so broadly as to have scene punchlines virtually disappear amid the loud kvetching of a cast largely left to its own devices. Fortunately, several of these performers (Bobby Astyr, Robert Kerman, Ron Jeremy, Veronica Hart & Samantha Fox) have a theater background they can fall back on, rendering their shtick more palatable than that of their noticeably floundering colleagues.
If you recall the plot of THE PRODUCERS, you'll know that it centers around a patron of the arts trying to put one over on the IRS - to whom he owes all too many years of back taxes - by knowingly investing in a certifiable stage flop ("Springtime for Hitler") set up as a complicated yet ingenuous money-laundering operation. Here it's Astyr's Mr. Cashbox who's in dire straits until his equally shifty shyster buddies Jeremy (as lawyer Fillpotts of Fillpotts & Slime) and Kerman (as legal loophole expert Rufus Quim) devise an escape route through the funding of a surefire stinker entitled "Piece and War", a sexed-up rendition of the last days of the Russian Romanov dynasty.
Meanwhile, at the Hysterium theater, self-obsessed writer/director Stan Slavsky (handsome Gregory Lions a/k/a "Roderick Pierce" who played a rare lead in the late Chris Covino's endearing BABE) means to cast a talent-barren but big-breasted ingénue to increase his play's audience appeal. Enter Suzy from Trotsville (one shot Sanja Sorello, looking like a cross between Sharon Mitchell and Liza Minnelli), helpfully informed by a full page ad in Variety that there's absolutely no stage experience required. Her (initial) resistance of the casting couch process temporarily throws a spanner into the works.
Adding insult to injury, Cashbox and his cronies decide to hedge their bets by casting the "world's worst actress" (who just happens to be Quim's sister) Tootsie Lamarr in the part of Rasputin-shagging Empress Alexandra. Quite possibly the adult industry's best actress at that time, Veronica Hart has a field day as a vulgar yet vivacious guttersnipe demanding rather than submitting to the producer's amorous advances if she's to star in their show ! Cashbox's mistress, renowned theater critic Billie Haggard (Fox), agrees to deliver a scathing review provided he keeps her sweet in the bedroom but changes her tune when she catches him in flagrante with busty fellow critic Lisa Be, whose creamy complexion has never appeared more luminous as caressingly photographed by La Findlay's expert camera. One of the film's funniest bits has Billie exacting revenge - Sam's on fire here - by rallying the appalled first act audience TWELVE ANGRY MEN style towards a 180° change of opinion.
By aiming her attention at the zany plot, going for broke, Findlay seems to have lost sight of the sex scenes, most of which end up perfunctory and bereft of eroticism since performers were instructed to project all the way to the back row, mugging shamelessly throughout coitus which will have you yearning for an interruptus ! Uncharacteristically pressed into duty as flick's prime stud, late funny guy Astyr (who passed away from lung cancer a few years back) winds up turning in the most serviceable shtups with Fox and Be.
Tied down by the demands of spoofing an already existing popular source, in this case Mel Brooks' magnificent 1968 comedy classic THE PRODUCERS, Findlay's clearly out of her league however. Though departing from a solid screenplay she co-authored with R. Allen Leider (who would subsequently pen GLITTER and the straight horror offering THE ORACLE for her), the movie wavers wildly between effective and embarrassing, directed so broadly as to have scene punchlines virtually disappear amid the loud kvetching of a cast largely left to its own devices. Fortunately, several of these performers (Bobby Astyr, Robert Kerman, Ron Jeremy, Veronica Hart & Samantha Fox) have a theater background they can fall back on, rendering their shtick more palatable than that of their noticeably floundering colleagues.
If you recall the plot of THE PRODUCERS, you'll know that it centers around a patron of the arts trying to put one over on the IRS - to whom he owes all too many years of back taxes - by knowingly investing in a certifiable stage flop ("Springtime for Hitler") set up as a complicated yet ingenuous money-laundering operation. Here it's Astyr's Mr. Cashbox who's in dire straits until his equally shifty shyster buddies Jeremy (as lawyer Fillpotts of Fillpotts & Slime) and Kerman (as legal loophole expert Rufus Quim) devise an escape route through the funding of a surefire stinker entitled "Piece and War", a sexed-up rendition of the last days of the Russian Romanov dynasty.
Meanwhile, at the Hysterium theater, self-obsessed writer/director Stan Slavsky (handsome Gregory Lions a/k/a "Roderick Pierce" who played a rare lead in the late Chris Covino's endearing BABE) means to cast a talent-barren but big-breasted ingénue to increase his play's audience appeal. Enter Suzy from Trotsville (one shot Sanja Sorello, looking like a cross between Sharon Mitchell and Liza Minnelli), helpfully informed by a full page ad in Variety that there's absolutely no stage experience required. Her (initial) resistance of the casting couch process temporarily throws a spanner into the works.
Adding insult to injury, Cashbox and his cronies decide to hedge their bets by casting the "world's worst actress" (who just happens to be Quim's sister) Tootsie Lamarr in the part of Rasputin-shagging Empress Alexandra. Quite possibly the adult industry's best actress at that time, Veronica Hart has a field day as a vulgar yet vivacious guttersnipe demanding rather than submitting to the producer's amorous advances if she's to star in their show ! Cashbox's mistress, renowned theater critic Billie Haggard (Fox), agrees to deliver a scathing review provided he keeps her sweet in the bedroom but changes her tune when she catches him in flagrante with busty fellow critic Lisa Be, whose creamy complexion has never appeared more luminous as caressingly photographed by La Findlay's expert camera. One of the film's funniest bits has Billie exacting revenge - Sam's on fire here - by rallying the appalled first act audience TWELVE ANGRY MEN style towards a 180° change of opinion.
By aiming her attention at the zany plot, going for broke, Findlay seems to have lost sight of the sex scenes, most of which end up perfunctory and bereft of eroticism since performers were instructed to project all the way to the back row, mugging shamelessly throughout coitus which will have you yearning for an interruptus ! Uncharacteristically pressed into duty as flick's prime stud, late funny guy Astyr (who passed away from lung cancer a few years back) winds up turning in the most serviceable shtups with Fox and Be.