Change Your Image
lor_
Served as Chairman, New York Film Critics Circle: 1993/94.
Favorite interviews were with: Michael Douglas, Sophia Loren, DeForest Kelley, Joan Chen, Joe Henderson, Ismail Merchant, Klaus Kinski, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Spike Lee, Malcolm McDowell, Zoe Lund, Melvin Van Peebles, Ultra Violet, Wolfgang Petersen, Claudia Cardinale, Serge Silberman, Margarethe von Trotta, Alec Guinness, Leonard Nimoy, Susan George, Joseph Losey, Gale Anne Hurd, Dennis Hopper, Peter Greenaway, Katt Shea, Ken Russell, Maggie Greenwald, Jim Jarmusch, Peter Brook, Jurgen Prochnow, Andy Warhol, Judy Davis, Chuck Vincent, Fred Zinnemann, Wim Wenders, Max Von Sydow, Michael Moore, Terry Gilliam, Rita Jenrette, Karen Lynn Gorney, Bruce Beresford, Jack Thompson, Russ Meyer, Sam Raimi, Abel Ferrara, John Sayles, William Greaves, Nino Manfredi, Lee Van Cleef, Michael Cuscuna, Bille August, Jewel Shepard, Andy Sidaris, Michel Deville, Claude Sautet, Claude Lelouch, Alfonso Arau, Alan Parker, Reinhard Hauff, Traci Lords, Jim Jarmusch, Martha Coolidge, Candida Royalle, Giuseppe Tornatore, Edward James Olmos, Paul Hogan, John Mackenzie, Peter Hyams, Jennifer Beals,, Adrian Lyne, Samuel Fuller, Dario Argento, James Toback, Lasse Hallstrom, Fred Williamson, Gabriel Axel, Joe Bastianich, Aaron Sanchez, Danny Meyer, Steve Hanson, Matthew Kenney, Douglas Rodriguez, Simon Oren, Stanley Donen, Lindsay Anderson, Helena Bonham Carter, Edward Pressman, Harold Becker, Larry Cohen, James Ivory, Jack O'Connell, Michael Phillips, Kevin McClory, Jackie Mason, Joan O'Brien, Stanley Donen, Joseph B. Vasquez, Don Bluth, William Lustig, Al Goldstein, Simon Wincer, Valeria Cavalli, Dave Fishelson, Lizzie Borden, Roberta Findlay, Rob Cohen, Doris Wishman, Robert Tapert, Bruce Campbell, Bill Cosby, Pasquale Squitieri, Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, Tim Kincaid, Joel M. Reed, Gregory Dark, T.L. Lankford, Fred Olen Ray, Victoria Paige Meyerink, Lawrence D. Foldes, Rick Marx & Ted V. Mikels
Reviews
Danger Man: Colonel Rodriguez (1960)
Way too far-fetched (and smug)
It's sad that this 64-year-old episode's plot is so timely today: an American journalist arrested on a trumped-up charge of espionage in a country ruled by a dictator, with John Drake (not Anthony Blinken) dispatched there to rescue him. Even sadder is that the contrived screenplay is strictly preposterous.
McGoohan is so smug and self-assured that I couldn't root for him this time. Instead the title military chief of police character played by Noel Willman quite skillfully, is the standout performance -not for the first time a suave, distinctive villain is more interesting than our 1-dimensional hero.
Yes, the way McGoohan glides through danger here is silly, as if he didn't get the joke when he was rehearsing his sides. Of course, he is Danger Man personified, but even Bond or say, Willis's John McClane can work up a sweat or seem perplexed during their inevitably heroic derring-do. The reverse-engineered screenplay makes everything look easy, way too easy, as Pat not only outwits Willman at every turn but never worries that something might go wrong.
Also, England had produced the terrific (one of my favorites) "Sapphire" by Basil Dearden (and scriptwriter Janet Green) a year before that dealt seriously with race relations, yet here we have Black actress from the Caribbean, Pearl Prescod, relegated to a menial role as co-star Honor Blackman's maid, about as up to date as such casting in a Mae West movie 25 years earlier.
Dana Lynn's Hot All Over (1987)
Footage, not a movie
John Stagliano, not for better but for worse, stands as one of Adult Cinema's most influential pornographers, as his amateur approach has become standard operating procedure among all-sex directors. Here we find him minus his trademark fixation on women's rear ends (hence his famous persona as Buttman) or his interaction with the players (referred in the sexual trade as being "handsy"). Instead he's just shooting pointless and awkward sex scenes in which the cast improvises some dialogue, but mainly just has sex. The cast credits don't even correspond to the footage on screen, probably because he has the attitude that the audience will accept anything, as long as it's explicit sex. Also, he shoots lots of material, and later issues leftover, previously unseen footage as new, additional titles, slapped together, so the "cutting room floor" concept does not really apply here in a world where quality is a relative or in fact meaningless term.
The result is designed to showcase very pretty but untalented 18-year-old blonde Dana Lynn. As enunciated by co-star Billy Dee, one has to wear dark glasses around Dana because, like the mythical Medusa, to look at her is dangerous. So she's posited as a walking (if not talking) aphrodisiac.
That idiotic concept becomes the source of failed humor late in the show, when guest artist Ron Jeremy, whose presence is a minus here, gets angry at his chauffeur David Sanders for crashing his vintage car after disobeying and looking at Dana without his shades on. Jeremy's performance consists of him sleeping and snoring on a couch, waking up to talk out loud to himself, delivering story exposition. At one point he calls Sanders "Stephen" no doubt by mistake.
Two femme co-stars awkwardly deliver their sex scenes but get no screen credit, while others are prominently listed and do not show up at all. Frankie Leigh is amusing in her reactions when Sanders' ad libs are insulting to her.
Dumbest shtick is casting Don Fernando as a gynecologist who gives Dana an exam with a speculum and then humps her, inviting his student Alex Karalas to join in for a threesome. Alex looks completely bewildered here -unable to speak and not sure if he can deliver the goods sexually. This is his only screen credit, merely proving that not only women are dragged off the street (not literally but figuratively) to perform in porn films. Similarly, Maxie Moore looks bewildered, gazing around as if seeking guidance from the crew, in her sex scene with Billy Dee, and this is also her only screen credit.
The Cumm Brothers (1994)
Crude gonzo
Rodney Moore's career is emblematic of a pornographer who started as an amateur and never graduated to the pro ranks, probably because he wants to be independent at all costs. This first in a successful series is crudely made and crude in content, by design.
Of course, amateur porn has gained traction over the years, and currently most performers create their own content. They are pros, but not availing themselves of a professional crew (and all the costs that involves). So watching Rodney at work here (he alternates holding the camera with his co-star Wolf Savage) it's clear that he's interested in just the basics.
What he delivers is what I would call Max Hardcore Lite. Namely, the ugly, even yucky excesses that the notorious Max (who had the gall to use the alternate pseudonym Max Steiner, defaming one of moviedom's greatest composers) emphasized, but without the violent, woman-abusing stuff. Of course, abusing can be a relative term in this particular universe, as Rodney's bread & butter trademark is his tendency to ejaculate on women's faces to a nearly laughable extent. It's akin to the familiar BDSM humiliation gimmick of writing (with lipstick or whatever) dirty words on an actress's forehead as a form of debasement. The fact that there is an audience that gets a kick out of that is not really so strange in a world where Joe Rogan is replacing Howard Stern as the most popular and highest-paid radio host, while Donald Trump (bite my tongue) may be elected president again. Yikes!
Among the actresses here is an impressive one-shot: Reggae', whose large natural breasts are a treat. She is brought to Rodney's attention by Guy DiSilva, who is put on the spot by Rod, asking Guy: "Is she your girlfriend?", to which Guy stammers, "You might call her that".
Laney's Bed and Breakfast (2024)
Ms. Grey knows how to comfort
Laney Grey plays a therapist turned innkeeper in this insidious two-parter from the Allherluv label. Written by Missa X, the story involves Laney getting involved, really involved with her guests at her new all-girl b&b, with hot results.
I enjoyed the way Laney ingratiates herself, just trying to be helpful, but catching first Theodora Day and then Harley Haze at the right moments when they're oh so susceptible to her seductive manner. The action takes place at porno's premium location, the "Immoral Proposal" mansion, and I can easily understand how hard it would to be resist doe-eyed Ms. Grey.
Stepmom's Spank-Swap Scheme (2024)
Group sex, ladies?
There's a lengthy cast list for this "Mommy's Girl" collection on Adult Time VOD, with two of the three segments fresh ones.
Title scene was issued a month earlier on the VOD "Stepmom's Game". In it, the "Mommy's Girl" team comes up with a concept that somehow eluded the geniuses at competitor Girlfriends Films with its "Mother/Daughter Exchange Club".
Stepmoms Reagan Foxx and Cory Chase are upset because their daughters (Jade Kimiko and Kimmy Kimm), who are dating each other, are misbehaving of late. Reagan comes up with the idea that the ladies could punish each other's offspring. It's not quite the great story idea as Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" but is clever.
As the moms start spanking, the kids enjoy it, getting turned on (this is a porn movie, remember) and soon all four are having hot sex on the couch together.
Call it chemistry, but the trio of talented actresses make "Calming Our Stepdaughter's Nerves" a real winner.
Situation is comical and almost silly: cute little freckled stepdaughter Demi Hawks is practicing a speech she has to make for school in front of her stepmoms Reagan Foxx and Kenzie Taylor, but she's extremely nervous regarding public speaking. Kenzie suggests that old-time gimmick of imagining the audience is just wearing underwear, and she and her wife disrobe to help out the illusion.
Things escalate, and soon the ladies start making love to their stepkid, in sensual and highly erotic fashion. A highlight is acrobatic sex as Demi is hoisted upside down in the air being simultaneously serviced and servicing them.
This faux incest exercise gets a light touch by director Ricky Greenwood and is a fine showcase for Hawks.
Misty Stone tends to dominate this lesbian foursome, as she runs a book club where women read from romance novels, in the scene titled "Book Club Sapphic Seduction".
It's faux incest as she coaxes her reluctant stepdaughter Destiny Mira to sit in on a book club meeting with members Jennifer White and Penny Barber, and everyone gets turned on listening to the book's purple prose recited.
It's mechanical sex by the four lying on a couch together, with Misty's tagline: "Oh my goodness!" standing out. Pros Barber and White are sexy as usual, but the combination of Misty's aggressive incest with the group sex gimmick comes off as forced and in poor taste.
Kraft Suspense Theatre: A Cause of Anger (1964)
Excellent plot twists
Brian Keith is solid as a rock starring in this suspenseful Kraft Suspense Theatre segment, which featured several unpredictable and satisfying switcheroos.
It starts a s a variation on a conventional structure: Keith is in charge of delivering mentally unstable Robert Crawford Junior to a mental clinic at the behest of the kid's father, after he see a violent outburst to start the show in which the kid destroys his living room. Accompanying them is his cool and collected nurse Nancy Malone.
The drive across a couple of state borders has plenty of incidents, as we learn more about each principal character, especially the enfant savant boy.
Malone's role is played more closely to the vest, while Crawford is quite impressive in avoiding the cliches of a boy who can (and will) explode at any moment, Keith's manner is so authorative that the viewer has confidence he will see the mission through to a successful outcome, no matter what.
The final reel is quite tense, as revelations come fast and furious, and the sense of danger is maximized, leading to a surprisingly hopeul ending.
I was surprised to find out (via IMDb) that child actor Crawford went on to become a film producer of several very fine movies starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman, as well as "The World According to Garp".
Four Star Playhouse: A Spray of Bullets (1955)
Loved that surprise ending!
Dick Powell takes on the role of a retired sheriff having to face off against a gunslinger out to make his reputation in this fine Western-themed segment of "Four Star Playhouse".
His character is named Will Sonnett, and screenwriter Richard Carr would take this character and adapt it for the warmly remembered TV series "The Guns of Will Sonnett" starring Walter Brennan a decade later.
Resembling a Gary Cooper persona, Powell's taciturn, underplayed role is resolute, but suspense and some fear sets in when it's revealed that his eyesight is failing -everything's a blur after 20 yards away. The gunman, well cast for veteran character actor Robert J. Wilke, gets wind of this and it looks like the deck is stacked against Will.
Into the equation is his girlfriend, to whom he pledges he'll find another line of work, rather than returning to the life of a peace officer wearing corrective lenses. The final showdown is suspensefully directed by Roy Kellino, and that final twist at fadeout earns Richard Carr plaudits in my book!
The A Team Returns (1988)
The "art" of fakery
This notoriously poor porn video is a prime example of what is wrong with the all-sex mentality that dominated porn, both among fans and so-called critics. Here is a movie exploiting the audience interest in watching anal sex, but the pornographers elected to use old footage and insert shots to simulate anal-sex scenes (in which the live-action players were just pretending), and the audience is outraged at the fakery. That's the result of just a literal dedication to watching "real sex acts" documented on film or video. Entertainment generally relies upon acting, pretending, as well as special effects to create, rather than just turning on a camera and processing the result.
Once you get over the fake-anal content (which is real close-ups of XXX anal-sex, just not involving the players shown in medium and long shots), you're left with a stupid, poorly done video anyway. Quite a deadly combination.
Premise is that Joey Silvera and Robert Bullock are lazybones, who have (simulated) anal sex with their girlfriends Fallon and Frankie Leigh. Fallon suggests that the boys get a job as sex instructors specializing in teaching folks how to properly have anal sex. What an inspired idea! This is how Joey & Robert form the A Team.
First customer is Nina Hartley (befroe breast-expanson). She's surprised that two of them show up, but of course that is to deliver double-penetration to her. The old-footage insert shots make the simulated action look real. Unfortunately her husband (crew member Drew Roberson pressed into service) catches them and shoots them to death.
Joey and Robert return as ghosts and are as lazy as before, No one can see them, and they fill up the living room with garbage as they sit around all day drinking beer, eating pizza and littering with newspapers.
Famed cameraman Barry Wood shows up as a realtor, trying to sell the home to Mike Horner and Trinity Loren. The ghosts are still there but so is the mess they've made, but Wood manages to sell the couple the place anyway, as is. Sort of ironically, Horner gets to have faked anal sex with the ghosts' former girlfriends Fallon and Frankie Leigh as the boys are powerless to intervene, sort of a ghostly cuckolding. Stupid finale has the girls planning to have Horner become a one-man A team.
It the very close-ups of sex, including anal (and lately of fake, dripping creampies) were not the be-all and end-all of both pornographers and their consumer audience, this sort of idiocy would not occur. Instead of eroticism, which Adult Cinema was working on four decades ago, this is the mess resulting from such a literal emphasis on explicitness. Other than one element within the action films of Tom Cruise, where his actual self-execution of dangerous stunts is generously rewarded, mainstream cinema has come to terms with make-believe unlike the world of Moving Pictures Porn. An illustration of this problem is shown in IMDb's demarcation between Adult content (= hardcore XXX porn) and simulated sex porn (merged with mainstream cinema). The Genre category should be Erotica, which could then encompass both types of porn, some artistic, most not, dealing with human sexuality.
Angels of Passion (1986)
Fantasy without imagination
The corny premise of Angels interfering on Earth is trotted out in this very routine porn video. My only point of real interest was the participation of Saint (Christopher Saint Booth), a talented mainstream musical composer who a decade later would compose memorable scores for dozens of classic Adam & Eve features. He also has a cameo role as a bumbling bomber who accidentally blows up Michael Morrison -who fortunately is re-routed from Limbo to Hell.
The three starring angels (Tracey Adams, Jessica Wylde and Steve Drake die sfter having sex in a motorhome crashed into by a wayward driver. Wiliam (played by Randy West) is Heaven's gatekeeper who tells them what's up: they're trainee angels, and in Limbo time is at a ration of one minute there = one day back on Earth. They take advantage of this to go home to visit several people who are scheduled to die. (This film posits a deterministic universe, in which God has designated exact times for people to die.)
The angels interfere, protecting people and having sex with them. They get back before William returns in five (Limbo) minutes and he reprimands them, but sends them back to Earth for perhaps a sequel, only commanding them not to change fate.
The mundane Earthly situations and sex scenes are quite a letdown after all this fantasy set-up -just a string of sex vignettes with plenty of intercutting. Fans will note that when this was made Jessica had bigger boobs than Tracey.
Nice n' Tight (1985)
Hot-sheets motel scenes
A minor movie from the great Bob Chinn, this Old-School feature with concisely edited sex vignettes is entertaining due to its strong casting, and plenty of bush for '80s porn aficionados.
The rundown of sex scenes includes: role-playing by Kay Parker in a return to her "Taboo" incest success, as a prostitute pretending to be the aunt to very big cock-toting Mark Jennings. She even starts the scene with fetish "sex with a sleeper" action.
Robert Bullock and Kristara Barrington play newlyweds whose sex is spread across the movie, as they concentrate on sex rather than planned gambling casino action. A couple more prostitution scenes have Colleen Brennan servicing Greg Derek, and Janey Robbins treating the team of Nick Niter and Dan T. Mann to deep throat and double penetration, obviously a show-stopper.
An eloping pair, Marc Wallice and Nicole West, have to make love in a grubby storeroom, as the motel has become fully booked. Herschel Savage is a lounge entertainer (we don't get to see his act) who gets the motel maid Bunny Beu to hump him.
Paul Thomas and Steve Drake are in Vegas to check out Adult stars by attending the Consumer Electronics Show. Along with Herschel they provide endless name-dropping: Seka, Marilyn Chambers and mainstream stars Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman and Burt Reynolds. They pick up a couple of Adult actresses and get to hump them: Rikki Blake and an at-first reluctant Jessica Wylde (she only does girl/girl porn).
I Like to Be Watched (1984)
Voyeuses, not voyeurs
A must for Christy Canyon fans (and who isn't one?), this all-sex video offers non-stop sex scenes, one after the other, with non-stop dirty talk by Christy and her co-star Leslie Winston. With some random femme voice-over added, its Caballero DVD reissue two decades later pretends that it's a vehicle for Black star Je T'Aime, but she has only a relatively minor role f*cking Marc Wallice in a flashback. Similarly, the IMDb one-liner describing the story is wrong -there are no Peeping Toms here.
Christy and Leslie portray shameless voyeuses, but actually exhibitionists as the title implies. There's lots of lesbian sex, with Rikki Blake cast as Leslie's sister, and a hint of incestuous desire as Leslie and Rikki get handsy at one point in an outdoor scene by the pool.
The studs, including Peter North and Tom Byron, are the objects of desire in this story, as the women are always in charge. It's an entertaining reversal on porn's usual approach, sort of equal-time objectification. Of course, the target viewer is more than content to objectify the actresses, while the actors provide cock action -it is easy to watch this feature and imagine it could have played nicely as an all-girl "Where the Boys Aren't" style feature of the era instead.
The Naked Stranger (1988)
Hot grifters
Two years before the classic Jim Thompson movie "The Grifters" was released, Paul Thomas working for Vivid Video (sloppily misspelled "Vidio" in the copyright credit at the end of the movie) made this entertaining version of the noir tale, starring Barbara Dare as a femme fatale.
Rick Marx's efficient script is set in New York City, where Barb moves in down the hall from the married couple Tammy White and Tom Byron, and quickly bamboozles each of them separately as a prototypical homewrecker. Even when she makes mistakes, a slip of the tongue here, a too-obvious come-on there, the marks are easily duped, and between PT's direction and Rick's dialogue the viewer is completely in Barb's camp, watching her manipulate them with such determination. The victims both get hot sex out of the deal, but in just two weeks she's fleeced them and celebrates with her partners in crime, nicely played in small roles by Aja and Louis Paul.
PT has a small role himself, as Tom & Barbara's boss working in a film post-production house where Tom is an editor and Barb is a summer intern, supposedly headed back to college in the fall. Instead, she, Aja & Louis are headed west to execute their next con.
Barbara won a porn industry Best Actress award for this minor feature, but I thought Tammy's acting was superior -such phony awards of course are not based on acting but "sexual performance".
Anatomy of a Psycho (1961)
Anatomy of a failure
The perils of independent filmmaking are demonstrated in this sour, depressing movie, an example of anti-entertainment. Not a "psychotronic" film (with apologies to author Michael Weldon, who I knew quite well back when he wrote that influential tome) with some outre content, but merely a tedious crime movie, with a terrible cast, non-direction and the dubious hook decades later of having Ed Wood as one of the writers.
Were it a sexploitaton movie, within the parameters of censorship of the time, it could have been titillating. Or if it were explicitly violent in some way, that would satisfy a different audience need. But these overage juvenile delinquents on display offer zero point of identification, and the genre hooks of fantasy, horror, you name it, are missing.
So, when this was made fans could watch infinitely better crime shows on TV, ranging from police procedurals like "Naked City" to suave detectives in action, all of which featured the best talent imaginable (including numerous stars of the future like Redford, Duvall and Martin Sheen just starting out).
Campus Capers (1982)
Misbehavin' in Frisco
Though shot during the "Porno Chic" era, the star-studded "Campus Capers" is too slapdash and sloppy to generate much interest then or now. I enjoyed catching up with it merely to see early roles from many important Adult Cinema icons.
Central premise of Paul Torrington's script is simple enough: focus is on co-ed roommates Erica Boyer and Lynx Canon, with Lynx helping Erica by advising her that to ace the term paper she's been assigned on "Sex and the Liberated Woman" by her psychology prof Dr. Hofstetter, you merely had to go to bed with him. This early dialogue comes true in the final reel when Erica shows up at the prof's office (he's played by a lecherous Herschel Savage) and has a threesome with him and fellow student Mai Lin. Right there's a mini-who's who of big porn stars.
But the story goes off on a slew of tangents, not coincidentally each to facilitate another sex scene -at a bar, or a frat house, or dorm. The parade of famous faces keeps on a-comin', with most of them uncredited but instantly recognizable.
Erica Boyer gets a gig as a dancer at a bar, and surprisingly she and an unknown Black actor do a balletic pas de deux that turns into a live sex show. Savage frequents that bar and gets under the table (literally) sex from Tara Aire.
Other big names on display include Paul Thomas in a threesome with his roommate Jon Martin and Heather Fields; also a very young looking Joey Silvera in 3-way with Tigr and the memorably named Phaery Burd.
Night Deposit (1991)
Ho-hum approach
The pornographers gave only minimal effort for this boring feature about a bank robbery, featuring a bored cast giving bored line readings.
By the end of the video, it becomes clear that everyone in the cast is crooked, with the ending even showing that an extra is a thief, too.
Lois Ayres and busty Rusty Rhodes play bank tellers, who are also in on an inept holdup executed by Tom Chapman and Peter North. A series of dumb twists involve the bank president Brigitte Aime (taking advantage of the robbery to cover her embezzlement) and even the corrupt investigator on the case Marc Wallice.
Sloppily and cheaply made, this crime story is a loser.
Grand Gesture (2024)
One new, two reissues
Adult Time goes to Bree Mills' "True Lesbian" series for this DVD of three Sapphic vignettes.
New is "I Brought this for You", a simple seduction scene starring Ana Foxxx and Serene Siren in which friends become lovers.
From the 2023 VOD "Thrill" is a vignette titled "The Spare Room", already reissued that same year on the VOD "Happy Ending". With sentimental music and terrific acting by Dee Williams and Spencer Bradley, it defies expectations (by me, at any rate). Spencer is a forlorn youngster, despondent after her boyfriend splits, and she moves in as roommate with Dee, a woman nearly twice her age. With a sentimental music score, this dead serious romance between the two of them is nearly 180 degrees from the usual content cranked out by producer Bree and writer-director Stella Smut, whose stock and trade is facetious and silly sex scenes (Smut directs all those slapstick episodes for Bree's "Oopsie!" series. It's a deeply moving miniature feature, deserving more than this throwaway release.
From the 2023 VOD "Gesture", Giselle Blanco prattles on about her desire to become prom queen, and her bespectacled date Leana Lovings reveals that she's going with her as a big favor, as she's afraid of blowback to be the femme date in this very conservative community. Leana pours on the "likeability", but it's a bit much.
Bonding (2024)
'I watch it for the interviews'
Adult Time has initiated a new format which reminds me of Playboy Magazine back in the 1960s, when the joke was that people read it because of the great interviews. Now AT is issuing a series of VODs made up of a sex scene accompanied by a lenghty interview of a porn industry personality by Holly Randall.
Aussie porn star Savannah Bond is at the microphone here, giving an informative talk about here. Would the fans prefer her to get naked and have sex instead? Obviously.
The sex scene is from Bree Mills' series "Lez Be Bad", a gonzo outing in which Adria Rae has sex with her roommate's girlfriend Jewelz Blu. There's no story to go with it, just gonzo sex emphasizing dildo action.
It remains to be seen if there's an audience for this odd mixture of hardcore porn and information. If it's a hit I wouldn't be shocked if Holly's Videos of her podcasts could get picked up for streaming via Warner Brothers' Max.
Route 66: Burning for Burning (1961)
Hermetic story line
Silliphant's quite dated story material kept me from becoming interested in this episode, set on a chicken farm in rural Pennsylvania. There's one fine scene at the end of the show, but nothing gripping before it.
All the guest talent comprises a family headed by matriarch Beulah Bondi, who delivers a solid performance. The point is that they are a rigid, religious brood, typified by Pat Hingle, stiff as a board in an unplayable role, spouting bible quotations and about as likable as a dead tree. M & M are working in a sort of chicken factory, and their contribution to the episode is rather pointless, as shown in a scene where Maharis' guaranteed weekly fight scene consists of him punching Hingle in the tummy, cueing some turgid pathos by Pat.
Inger Stevens as an unwanted daughter-in-law shunned by most of the family when she shows up after her husband's death bearing a surprise bambino (Bondi's grandson) in her arms, does get a fine confrontation scene with BB at the climax.
Briefly impressive and empathetic as Hingle's young sister, Ann Dee is an unknown and actress, who wound up her unsuccessful career making a couple of softcore porn movies a decade later (one of which I reviewed, "Diamond Stud"), just before hardcore porn took over.
Naked City: New York to L.A. (1961)
Script reject!
I smell a rat: Howard Rodman wrote this worthless screenplay and also served as Naked City's story editor. His work should have been sent to the circular file.
They don't get any duller than this. It's a story about extradition, with Burke and Ed Asner sent to Los Angeles to bring back brothers Robert Blake and Frank Sutton, captured there during the opening credits and wanted for robbery and murder in NYC.
Before the hour's over they've killed another man in cold blood. Yes, watching this all I could think of was Blake paired with Scott Wilson six years later in that Capote classic, "In Cold Blood". This time around, the pairing goes nowhere.
Martin Balsam portrays their mentor at an orphanage who feels like he failed with them, given how Bobby & Frank turned out. The show plods along listlessly with very poorly set-up bursts of sudden violence, out of nowhere, violating every "rule" of suspense.
Jack Webb's dead-pan, flat approach to the genre with "Dragnet" became campy over the years -it was so low-affect. This episode is infinitely more boring than anything Jack pulled.
Climax!: Four Hours in White (1958)
Well-acted soap opera
This performed-live "Climax!" segment from 1958 holds up well, with Dan Duryea as the surgeon on the spot facing a literally life and death decision. A very strong supporting cast makes it a winner.
Situation is drawn in bold relief: after an accident one twin is dying and needs a kidney while the second twin, played by Steve McQueen at "The Blob" starting phase of his career, has a heart problem making for an issue with him as the donor. Duryea votes for the transplant, but hospital brass opposes it.
Complicating the drama is the fact that kidney transplanting as a procedure was still in its infancy (only four years old). McQueen is quite sympathetic and forceful in his role, matched by B-movie queen Gloria Talbott as his mixed-feelings girlfriend.
Only one fault here is a gimmick of a squeaky oscilloscope superimposed on screen during the operation to heighten suspense -way too hokey.
French Open (1992)
Lesbians like to peg?
This somewhat clumsy porn feature by a director (Giovanni) whose work I've not previously seen is ostensibly a story about female tennis pros. In a lousy cameo performance, Ron Jeremy adopts a tough-guy voice and makes like a pre-TMZ creep hiring folks to go undercover to get dirt on the girls for an expose story calling them lesbians that he's publishing in the tabloid Star (a paper from same owner as National Enquirer -recently making waves testifying as prime witness in Trump's Hush Money trial).
Most of the action takes place in the shower as girls have sex, highlighted by a weird scene (I can't recall a similar one back in the 1990s) of Traci Winn and Carolyn Monroe pegging with strap-on dildos two guys David Angel and Cole Stevens in the shower, including Angel giving Cole a blow-job.
Marc Wallice plays a tennis coach, making the video a showcase for two disgraced and canceled porn actors. Star Zara Whites does a striptease for Wallice before f*cking him, in which she sings (more of a talk-sing) and gets a "Vocals by" credit on screen.
Jeremy is embarrassing, paying an undercover hooker $500 upfront (against promised $5,000 for the story) and then only having $10 left, for which she gives him a hand-job.
As with similar porn, the tennis hook for the story is just that -there's no tennis played at all.
Scandalous: Scene 3 (2024)
What's DD up to?
Episode 3 of the Digital Playground British-made series has Danny D's inspector character interrogating his country's queen Valentina Nappi about the murder, and her flashback recollection of the night's activities is filled with sex, but zero clues.
Accompanied by her bodyguard Alex Donald, she witnesses guest Honour May having sex on a pool table with Sam Bourne, and gets turned on. After she briefly sees her hostess Ella Hughes having a spat outdoors with the victim (which we've already seen before), Xander Corvus seduces her and treats her to the thrill of one of Ella's sex toys, a vibrator.
All this achieves is giving her an alibi, namely that she was humping Xander when the murder occurred. All we get in terms of the mystery is that Danny makes a mysterious phone call afterward, making his actions seem more suspect than those of the suspects he's interviewing. The antique phone he uses makes this (along with the costuming) seem like a period piece, but the sex toy vibrator is up to date.
Mommy's Girl: Book Club Sapphic Seduction (2023)
Ladies up to no good
Misty Stone tends to dominate this lesbian foursome, as she runs a book club where women read from romance novels.
It's faux incest as she coaxes her reluctant stepdaughter Destiny Mira to sit in on a book club meeting with members Jennifer White and Penny Barber, and everyone gets turned on listening to the book's purple prose recited.
It's mechanical sex by the four lying on a couch together, with Misty's tagline: "Oh my goodness!" standing out. Misty Stone tends to dominate this lesbian foursome, as she runs a book club where women read from romance novels.
Pros Barber and White are sexy as usual, but the combination of Misty's aggressive incest with the group sex gimmick comes off as forced and in poor taste.
Mommy's Girl: Calming Our Stepdaughter's Nerves (2023)
Scintillating threesome
Call it chemistry, but the trio of talented actresses make this "Mommy's Girl" threesome a real winner.
Situation is comical and almost silly: cute little freckled stepdaughter Demi Hawks is practicing a speech she has to make for school in front of her stepmoms Reagan Foxx and Kenzie Taylor, but she's extremely nervous regarding public speaking. Kenzie suggests that old-time gimmick of imagining the audience is just wearing underwear, and she and her wife disrobe to help out the illusion.
Things escalate, and soon the ladies start making love to their stepkid, in sensual and highly erotic fashion. A highlight is acrobatic sex as Demi is hoisted upside down in the air being simultaneously serviced and servicing them.
This faux incest exercise gets a light touch by director Ricky Greenwood and is a fine showcase for Hawks.
Sordid Stories 3 (2024)
Tedious gonzo
This Deeper DVD features two two-parters, neither amounting to more than interracial gonzo content. The four beauties make it watchable, but Kayden Kross and her fellow director Jay Rogue don't even bother to have endings or twists to their banal "stories".
KK directed "Roll the Dice", a BDSM fantasy that begins loaded with style and flashy editing, but quickly settles down to boring "high-energy" sex.
Framing footage has Kenna James (with ugly red hair) literally at her kitchen sink remembering a flashback of herself as voyeuse, masturbating as she hides behind a beaded curtain to watch Skye Blue in bondage mode with stud Troy Francisco. That's Part 1, done sans dialogue.
The oddest element is that the dice of the title have Arabic numerals on their faces instead of being real dice with spots on each face. Skye writes down a list of BDSM shtick to go with each number, and she rolls a 7, listed as "Honey". That means honey on Troy's dick for her to suck. KK's editing shows all manner of BDSM stuff like a wand, riding crop, ball-gag, but the sex is vanilla.
Kenna masturbates watching in the flashback, and takes over in Part 2, with Troy emerging from behind the beaded curtain this time, and she rolls a 5, announcing "Five", the only dialogue in the entire two-parter. That number on the list is for Flogging, which Troy delivers and they have a hot acrobatic sex scene. Both girls end up with creampies. End of non-story.
More pretentious is Rogue's two-parter titled "Third Space", taking its title from a concept of Harvard professor Homi K. Bhabha (not the Homi Bhabha who was a renowned nuclear physicist, as I learned trying to find out where the title came from). It concerns "collisions between cultures", part of Homi's study of the post-Colonial world. An uncredited NonSex actor plays the professor teaching these sex-hungry kids about the "Third Space".
Not sure what it has to do with Rogue's story, which is more of a riff on those ubiquitous internet ladies who make money off of "traffic" when they post self-made porn content on-line.
Amber Moore is a wannabe in that space, copying successful student Kendra Sunderland, latter known as the "Library Girl" because of her popular posting of herself having sex with her boyfriend Hollywood Cash in the school library. Amber wants to have Kendra help her get traffic for her own content but is rebuffed.
She seeks revenge (and traffic) by imitating Kendra using Kendra's boyfriend Cash plus her own man Jay Hefner, in a library threesome. Kendra is not amused. She drops boyfriend Cash, substitutes "older guy" Jax Slayher and adds Jay to photograph (by cell phone) her own threesome in a classroom. For good measure, she gets Amber's profile taken down for violating site rules. My reaction: who cares?