User Reviews

As with Warhol films and other '60s and '70s underground efforts, it is the structural aspects of early porn that holds the most interest, especially since the "in & out" sex content is so repetitive and interchangeable, film to film.

TEENANGEL is very badly directed, but its narrative aspects hold a certain fascination. I watched both the VCX and truncated SWV versions, and there is some meat on these mangy bones.

Thanks to a lousy Dragon Art Theatre print, the SWV edition is incoherent. Full-length VCX begins with voice-over of our leads' wedding, as we watch random street shots of Frisco setting the scene.

Director "Dave Miller" takes a page out of Kubrick's book by setting each scene with an evocative high angle shot of the lengthy steps leading up to the newlyweds' apartment, a set-up repeated over & over.

They come upstairs and groom Jim Bowman (very dully played by no-talent 1-shot "Frank Ford") is anxious to deflower his bride Sharon ("Sharon Demsted", another ringer). They've been together for an entire year with no premarital sex. As he humps her, the library music segues aptly to "Hold on, I'm Comin'", and our big-dicked Jim obliges.

Top-shot of the stairs hails the arrival of cutesy papergirl, the title character Kim (Melba Bruce, the film's obvious draw), who's anxious to sign up Jim to an underground paper subscription. She messes up her ad libs horribly, but later on Jim is so tongue-tied the film comes to a complete halt while he composes himself. Such is quickie porn.

Same top-shot of stairs signals Sharon's coming home bearing groceries. She's ultra-jealous at the sight of hubby with jail-bait. They kiss and makeup, but next scene, with wife away visiting her virginal sister Tillie (a major character who never shows up in the film proper -needed a rewrite and another day added to the shooting sked), papergirl Kim is back and predictably humping Jim.

Top-shot of the stairs means Sharon's returned again, and she spies the duo in the act. As dramatic library music plays, Sharon calls for a yellow cab and splits -never to be seen in the film again.

SPOILERS ALERT:

Act II (or is it III?) fades up to Black gangster Pete being serviced lickety-split by Desiree West and Georgette Teaps as he calls his old Vietnam War buddy Jim and invites him over. Jim's wallowing in self-pity: we find out that his wife attempted suicide, was hospitalized, he lost his job, and it's been downhill ever since.

After a hot & heavy foursome with the gals, emphasizing mixed-combo action, Pete talks Jim into joining him (as getaway driver) in a bank heist, to earn $10,000. Jim reluctantly agrees, for old times' sake.

Film at this point takes a turn, familiar from low-budget indies and porn, but fascinating nonetheless. Camera pans & scans (as if Ken Burns had taken over the director's chair) over the blueprint of the bank's floor plan and a handy voice-over radio broadcast talks us through the missing final reel of the movie. The robbery was a fiasco, miscalculating the getaway, with our heroes injured and Jim ending up in the same hospital where his wife Sharon resides. We don't get to see any of this action, not even the tearful reunion, but instead "FINIS" appears on screen over a shot of nearby Alcatraz.

Yes it's garbage, but yet another testament to the power of cinema, even bad cinema. We want to get caught up (and escape) in a story, and whatever the roadblocks put up by inept directors, writers, cameramen and non-actors, the want-to-believe factor usually wins out. With filmmaking reduced to its absolute basics as in TEENANGEL, it's all just more obvious.

From the "Golden Age of Porn" (the 1970's) comes a San Francisco-based story with an all-wrong title and a hilarious coda. Jim (Frank Ford) and virgin Sharon (Sharon Demsted) are recently married. They move into a creaky walk-up apartment, and Sharon plays the dutiful housewife waiting for her mechanic husband to get home. One day, when Sharon is out buying groceries for what seems like the hundredth time, Jim sleeps with Kim (Melba Bruce), a newspaper girl who had come to collect on the month's subscription. Sharon walks in on them, calls a cab, and disappears from the movie! Jim's best friend/Vietnam War buddy Pete (Link Beemer) then invites Jim over with a proposition. We find out Sharon attempted to unalive herself, Jim was fired, and now he's hard up for money to pay the hospital bills. Pete has a foolproof bank robbery plan ready to go, as soon as they sleep with a couple of Pete's prostitutes (Desiree West and Georgette Teaps). A transistor radio fills in the rest of the story.

I don't want to give too much away, but what transpires in Pete and Jim's bank robbery had me laughing out loud. It is hilarious, and what happens to all the characters after this film is over might have made a better story if that unrealized sequel had been made. Miller's direction is odd for an adult film, his shooting is standard, the editing is not very good, but out of nowhere will appear an over-the-head shot, or interesting juxtaposition in the group scene. At first, the choice of music had me believing there was some thought put into it: when Jim and Sharon are first together on their wedding night, the orchestral score transforms into dirty-sounding music. I thought maybe the film makers were saying something about what was happening to Sharon, but I was wrong when another piece of music was introduced in a scene. Do you want to know what the silliest porn music I've ever heard is? Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" from the horror film "The Exorcist." This normally chilling piece takes all the erotica out of a scene.

Ford is terrible, really a wretched actor. Demstad's idea of a virgin is being a dope. Bruce is alright as the paper girl, but Beemer has a lot of trouble with his lines. The script is so odd. You think we might meet Sharon's sister, since she is a topic of conversation between the couple, but she never shows up. I'm not even sure who the "teen angel" of the title is. Sharon, who is much too old to play an innocent teen, disappears after walking in on Jim and Kim. Kim is a secondary character, hardly the stuff of a title role. The other two women featured don't have spoken lines and are certainly not teens. This is also known under many names- all titles that do not do the story justice. I have a feeling "Jim Is a Jerk" would not have brought any of the raincoat crowd into the theaters, but then again. "Teenangel" is an odd relic. It's pretty rough to watch and thankfully short, but it's unintentional weirdness almost makes it work.