Sunday, March 28, 2021

Short "Film": The Sleep Fairy (Germany, 2019)

"Success has many fathers. But particularly in highly disruptive markets, communication plays a central role in determining whether the brand succeeds or not. So seize the opportunity, analyse the competition's TV advertising and create something unique."
 
A.k.a. Don't Worry, Sleep Happy, this short here is actually an advertisement — as in commercial — of a European mattress company. Where and when this advertisement was ever screened or broadcast, we know not, but obviously enough it can be found on YouTube
The advert is an attempt by the mattress firm to follow the concept explained above by The Restless CMO. Success when doing so can lead, in the best case, to internet success: a meme that gets spread all over the place, reaching an audience far beyond that which simple screenings on TV or in cinemas ever do — and that, free of additional charge. (Example: the Volkswagon terrorist commercial, which supposedly VW did not authorize and was never officially screened on TV or in cinemas.)
The Sleep Fairy didn't quite do that, and still remains obscure today. The Restless CMO's review of the advertisement also functions well as a possible explanation why it never 'memed': "Lukewarm. Good idea, good story, but implemented too long-windedly and conventionally. With a braver narrative structure this spot would have made the top of my list. Too bad. Frank had more in him, the old sleep fairy." 
But much of what the Restless CMO sees as flaws are what we like about this well-made commercial: the leisurely pace helps remove the "advertisement feeling" and makes the production seem more like a "real" short film, something the conventional filmic style  also underscores. The humor is always present, but never overstated. And while it might be "long" for a commercial, its length is perfect for a short film.
In any event, to quote the creative agency that made the commercial, MOTOR Kommunikation: "Let us introduce you to Frank, professional sleeping fairy. A real professional. How 'Emma' first changed his job, and then his life, is best told first-hand." 
The Sleep Fairy a.k.a Don't Worry, Sleep Happy:

Friday, March 19, 2021

Jessabelle (USA, 2014)

(Spoilers.) Entitled Jessabelle instead of Jezebel so as not to be confused with the 1938 drama starring Bette Davis (trailer), the film for which Ms. Davis won her second Best Actress Oscar. Not! (The bit about the confusion, not the Oscar.)
Naw, the flick's entitled Jessabelle probably to make people think of the better Blumhouse flick of the same year, Annabelle (2014 / trailer), or simply 'cause it's one of the myriad of ways the name (meaning "Wicked, Wealthy, Beautiful") is spelt in the USA, a land where you're free to spell names any ol' way since most people can't really spell all that well anyway. And going by what transpires in this movie, some people can't write horror movies, either. 
Trailer to
Jessabelle:
A Deep South horror flick, Jessabelle, as directed by Kevin Greutert (Visions [2016 / trailer] and Jackals [2017 / trailer]), one of the progenitors of the dead-horse-flogging Saw franchise, and written by Robert Ben Garant (Hell Baby [2013 / trailer] and The Veil [2016 / trailer]), has enough plotholes that if it were a sieve your pasta would fall through it. The nicely nasty opening scene, in which the saccharine-sweet declarations of love between pregger Jessabelle "Jessie" Laurent (Sarah Snook of Predestination [2014 / trailer] and Brother's Nest [2018 / trailer]) and her daddy-to-be fiancé Mark (Brian Hallisay of Hostel III [2011 / trailer]) come to an abrupt car-crashing end is probably the most horrifyingly effective scene in the movie, and the ending is unexpectedly downbeat and thus commendable, but the problem lies in everything in between. (And that, if you get down to it, is roughly 85 minutes of the 90-minute running time.) The scares are generic and almost always expected, and should you actually start to question the developments in the narrative or the actions of the characters, you might find yourself scratching your head so hard that you reach your brain.
The basic premise of a young woman who has lost everything and is now stuck in a wheelchair returning home to a father she hardly knows only to be confronted with ghosts of the past is, well, as much a realistically horrifying idea as it is the fodder of TV movies, which this film sometimes feels like. Here, of course, since it's a horror movie, the ghosts of the past are not of a figuratively speaking kind, but real spirits in the night (and day, actually). The concept that ghosts age, however, is pretty bat-shit out there — does that mean they grow old and die, eventually? (Where do dead ghosts go, we wonder.) But aging ghosts is a peripheral (and never mentioned) aspect of the tale told in this movie: a murdered, mixed-race baby born the same day as white-gal Jessie obviously has aged year for year within the walls of Jessie's dad's home and in the waters of the adjacent lake, matching Jessie's growth in the corporal world.
Oddly enough, however, going by how they look when they finally appear in the final scenes of the flick, the ghosts of Jessie's "mom" Kate (Joelle Carter of Cold Storage [2009 / trailer]) and Kate's former Afro-American lover Moses (Vaughn Wilson) don't age a day in the afterlife. Not only that, Moses the Ghost can obviously teleport, for he is the only ghost to appear far away from the location where he died, rather unlike the now young-adult Dead Girl with unnaturally immobile boobs (Amber Stevens West, seen below not from the film), who can take solid enough physical form to beat the shit out of Mr. Former Hometown Boyfriend Preston (Mark Weber of 13 Sins [2014 / trailer], Uncanny [2015 / trailer], Green Room [2015 / trailer] and Antibirth [2016 / trailer]) but keeps her appearances only to the backwater homestead. (Of course, could all the ghosts of the flick teleport like Moses, then Jessie would never have to had come home to start experiencing the supernatural.)
The ghosts have other powers, too. Not only can they smash whiskey bottles while unseen, they can regenerate the bottles as well, so that for whatever reason, the bottle is back at the bedside again later on. And they can close doors and latches, the latter particular handy when it comes to taking an exceedingly late revenge upon Jessie's "dad", Leon (David Andrews of Cherry 2000 [1987 / trailer] and Graveyard Shift [1990 / trailer]).
Most amazingly, with a blink of an eye they can miraculously clean a flooded and ruined bathroom and fully re-dress Jessie, who seconds before was fighting for her life nekkid in the tub. (Even odder, not only is she suddenly dressed when the ghost pulls her from the tub, but no one notices that she somehow got dressed and dry while she was having her screaming fit behind the mysteriously locked bathroom door, not even the caretaker who had helped put her get nekkid into the bathtub.) And the ghosts obviously like to clean, too, because when Jessie moves into the old room of her "mom", which has obviously been closed off since mommy's death almost two decades earlier, the room is spotless — something neither she nor Leon find in any way odd.
These and many other sloppy non-details, combined with the general predictability of the movie (but for its opening and closing scenes) make Jessabelle definitely non-essential viewing when it comes to the genre of horror films. On the plus side, the acting is mostly okay (the actor playing Jessie is actually and unnoticeably from The Land Down Under), the locations great, and the direction perfectly competent. In the end, however, both the talent and the location are basically wasted in Jessabelle, a movie so narratively stunted and lazy that one wonders how it ever got made, much less released. Really, we love how, towards the end, Jessie the Rocket Scientist suddenly realizes everything behind everything and tells it all out loud so that the slower (as in most) viewers can finally catch on to the what, why, how, when and where of the events.
One mildly interesting inference of the flick that is less poorly developed than simply dropped in the viewer's lap for a few moments during the big closing showdown is that the haunting and ghosts could all be the manifestations of Jessie's own guilt for surviving the crash that killed her beau and unborn babe as well as for being unable to help her father when he gets stuck and dies in the burning shed. But the final scenes beneath the waters of the lake and her last words to Sheriff Pruitt (character actor Chris Ellis of way too much to mention) pretty much render that interpretation a big "Nope". Them there be ghosts, and them ghost don't be nice. And this movie don't be good none, either.
Not from the movie –
Edith Piaf's 1951 version of 
Frankie Laine's #2 hit from 1951, Jezebel: 

Friday, March 12, 2021

Harry Reems, Part VIII: Addendum I (1969-71)

Way back in March 2013, when the studly and hirsute Golden Age porn star Harry Reems (27 Aug 1947 – 19 Mar 2013) died, we began our long, fat look at his tool career and films: a full 7 lengthy blog entries! (Links to each are found bellow.) And while length is almost as much fun as girth, by the time we got to Part VII (1986-2013) we were really ready to roll over and go to sleep. Which is why we never got around to finishing the already-started Addendum Parts I – 4, which looked at the films that we somehow missed or skipped in our extended and meaty Parts I through VII. And then we went and lost the stick we had our Harry Reems file on (a lesson in backing documents up, that was).
 
But recently, while trying to distract ourselves from the Covid-related death of our paternal parent, we cleaned house in corners we have never cleaned before — and low and behold! The stick was found, probably where the cat kicked it.
And so, seven years later to the month but not the day, here is our typically meandering and unfocused Addendum Part I. Much like delayed ejaculation: better late than never...
Not that we actually plan to finish the Addendum(s): merely to finally put online what we had already finished way back then, mildly updated. (Way back when, we lost interest in the undertaking as of the films around 1985.)
We dedicate these rediscovered Addendum(s) to our departed paternal parent, who inadvertently introduced us to Harry Reems when we, as a late teen, stumbled upon his VHS copy of Deep Throat (1972, see Harry Reems Part II) hidden in the VHS box for Key Largo (1948 / trailer).* 
* He also had The Resurrection of Eve (1973 / Purple Skies and Butterflies) hidden in his To Have and Have Not (1944 / trailer) box, but the 1973 film wasn't funny enough to keep us watching until the end. 
From the soundtrack of Deep Throat
La La La:


Go here for Part I
Go here for Part II (1969–72)
Go here for Part III (1973–74)
Go here for Part IV (1975–79)
Go here for Part V (1980–84)
Go here for Part VI (1985)
Go here for Part VII (1986–2013)
 
 
 
The Corporate Queen
(1969, writ. & dir. John & Lem Amero)
Commonly given a.k.a. titles includes La reina Corporativa, Essayez-moi and Das Haus der 1000 Perversionen. The last title was also later used in Germany for a 1979 X-rated comedy originally entitled Frat House (full film, German poster below), a.k.a National Lamporn's Frat House.
In all truth, it is highly doubtful that Harry Reems really appears in The Corporate Queen: we found only one website online, the French film site Encyclo Ciné, that currently (19 March 2015 [& 27 Jan 2021]) lists Harry Reems as a featured actor. That website, however, also lists an a.k.a. title as Every Inch a Girl, which leads us to think that they are confusing this film here with the 1975 Amero Brothers' porn movie Every Inch a Lady, which does indeed feature Harry Reems (see Part IV) as well as some of the other stars listed at Encyclo Ciné (most notably Andrea True) not found in Corporate Queen.
Both movies, in any event, feature the never-well-known prowess of another mustachioed, hirsute actor named Tony Vito (possibly a.k.a. Ron Skideri and Ron Scardera), seen below with co-star Janet Banzet, and mustaches are easy to confuse. (BTW: We were unable to locate a Tony Vito or Ron Skideri anywhere, but Ron Scardera, who like Vito & Skidera worked with the Ameros, has since retired with his wife Roberta, who also worked with the Ameros, to a nice house in the Hollywood hills.)
That said, including The Corporate Queen here gives us another opportunity to present some photos of the tragic star of the movie, Janet Banzet (17 May 1934 – 29 July 1971), credited in the movie as "Marie Brent", seen below with the movie's director, John Amero. Her full story can be found at the great website whence we took two images, The Rialto Report.
Janet Banzet dancing in

A literal translation of the German title (Das Haus der 1000 Perversionen) is "The House of 1000 Perversions." The German book Das größte Filmlexikon der Welt at the website Zweitausandeins says that the film features more dialogue than perversion, and foregoes a plot description. Unlike TCM, where they offer the following plot description: "Elegant Crystal Laverne (Renay Clair), who rules over one of the largest prostitution empires in the country, dismisses her followers from the plush New York City penthouse where she holds court and relates the story of her success to her efficient, man-hating private secretary, Edna (Banzet): Suffering financially from a police crackdown, Crystal picks up Chino (Tony Vito), a handsome young man who has been sleeping near her door. He has nothing to offer her but his bounteous sex drive, and they pool their talents to open a massage service. Chino accepts clients of both sexes, and business booms. [Like many early sexploitation movies, though the The Corporate Queen was meant for a heterosexual audience, it nevertheless included some guy-on-guy action. — awl] They move to new quarters, expanding the facilities to serve men and women of every sexual inclination, including clients seeking sexual experiences with lesbians, nymphomaniacs, and foot fetishists. Crystal falls in love with Chino and showers him with gifts, but he devotes less of his time to his work. She momentarily suspects him of infidelity, but he allays her suspicions, and she takes him out for a night on the town which ends up in a private club where they watch an erotic show. Chino proposes marriage, and Crystal gladly accepts. Crystal leaves for an appointment with a real estate agent in preparation for her forthcoming marriage, and Edna climbs into her employer's bed to make love with Chino, demanding that he perform a variety of sex acts. Crystal returns unexpectedly to retrieve some papers and watches through her two-way mirror as Edna and Chino plot to murder her by causing a gas explosion. She turns the tables on her perfidious lover and secretary and laughs sadistically as the bedroom explodes."
If that plot description isn't detailed enough, we suggest the one found at the One-Sheet Index. 
Find Janet Banzet in this trailer to
the debut film of Sylvester Stallone:
Also found in the movie, the unknown Germans Ula Kopa (of School Girl Bride [1971 / trailer] and The Erotic Adventures of Siegfried [1971 / trailer]) and Alon D'Armand (of Das gelbe Haus am Pinnasberg [1970 / music] and The Terror of Doctor Mabuse [1962 / trailer]).
 
The film's NYC premier was held, as revealed above, at the since-demolished World Theatre, the same place where Deep Throat (1972 / soundtrack / see Harry Reems Part II) eventually had its NYC premier. Renay Clair(e) was there, and then disappeared off the face of the earth. The co-feature, Copenhagen Open City, is either now lost or an unknown a.k.a. title for some other movie. (Off the top of heads, how about Sexual Freedom in Denmark [1970 / see: Uschi Part III] or Alex de Renzy's Pornography in Denmark [1970], the latter of which even used a travelogue format.)
When screened the now-closed Cinema Art in Troy, NY, in January 1971, The Corporate Queen was paired with Interplay (1970), a lesser feature of the lettered man Albert T. Viola (16 June 1919 – 21 Feb 2007), a year before he made his most commercially successful movie, Preacherman (1971 / trailer). Interplay, a B&W X-rated flick that probably wouldn't qualify for an R-rating today eventually got an R-rated re-release as Part Time Girls a.k.a Part Time Virgins — under any name, in 2013 it became Case File #128 on Temple of Schlock's Endangered List.
 
 
Changes
(1970, dir. Gerard Damiano)
While Reems is not found in any of the cast lists to this film that we could find, Changes supposedly got re-released at a later date as This Film Is All About…, and both rame.net and the iafd list Harry Reems as an un-credited performer in that film. If this is true, then we must assume a loop or film scene featuring his talents is featured somewhere within this "documentary" or got added for the re-release.
In any event, in the This Film Is All About… version of Changes, "we get to see 2 loops … The Plumber Cometh and The Pick-Up.* They were shot silent on full-color 16mm film, and the voices and other sounds were dubbed in later. They were both less than 12 minutes long, and Harry Reems was featured in both of them. [rame]" If Changes and TFIAS are indeed one and the same film, the inclusion of the two loops would indeed indicate a re-cut because, at least according to that great purveyor of porn lor, in Changes "Damiano [only] crosses the line into hardcore footage for less than a minute, showing fellatio between husband-wife team Patrick & Tally Wright (who both provide interesting voice-over commentary on their careers in porn) and several models' masturbating far more explicitly than usually presented in this era. [imdb]" 
* A good title seldom dies: this Plumber Cometh should not be confused with the 1985 Helga Sven movie, Pipe Dreams a.k.a. The Plumber Cometh. Likewise, The Pick-Up here is a loop, not the 1968 feature film (trailer) directed by Lee Frost (14 Aug 1935 – 25 May 2007), nor the seventies' sexploiter Pick-up (1975 / trailer).
That said, Gerard Damiano's later documentary Sex U.S.A. (1971) — supposedly released in Sweden as Inbjudan till gruppsex (poster above) — definitely includes Harry Reems (see Part II), and while we used to think that documentary was indeed an independent film project all of its own, we cannot help but notice that the cast list for Sex U.S.A as found at the imdb is far closer to the cast list given for This Film Is All About… found at aifd then to any cast list given anywhere for Changes. Ergo: we now tend to think that This Film Is All About… might not be an alternative title for Changes, but for Sex U.S.A. (Having not seen any of the films yet, we present this only as a hypothesis and nothing more.)
That (not) settled, let's nevertheless take a look at Changes, the first "documentary" Gerard Damiano (4 Aug 1928 – 25 Oct 2008) ever made. Over at Something Weird, Don the Deviate of America Moralia says: "A pre-Deep Throat Gerard Damiano informs us that the Sexual Revolution ushered in 'Changes that have come too soon for some, not soon enough for others... Changes that will liberate or destroy.' Following this ominous pronunciamento are a series of interviews conducted by Damiano himself, intercut with sex scenes on the bodacious border of hardcore. [...] A psychiatrist discusses censorship; a porno shop clerk (actually skinflick actor Larry Hunter [of The Headless Eyes (1971 / trailer) and The Amazing Transplant (1970 / trailer)]) fills us in on perversions; a theater manager talks about sex in the cinema (during which we get to see a marvelous trailer for a [Damiano] movie called Teenie Tulip [a.k.a. Hungry Mouth, poster above and below]); and ecdysiast Carol Barr [a.k.a. Candy Barr] speaks about stripping. Damiano also interviews a feminist member of N.O.W. on women's lib; the owner of a 42nd Street 'model studio' who talks about 'tipping'; the editors of a homo magazine; and gay activist Arthur Bell, here billed as Arthur Irving. Best of all, Al Goldstein and Jim Buckley of Screw magazine are interviewed about... well, just about everything under the sun. [...] Then we get to see them in action during a Screw photo shoot with Kim Pope and Alex Mann (of The Defiance of Good [1975 / trailer], I Drink Your Blood [1970 / trailer], and more). Via a hidden camera, we then visit the set of a peep show in the making, then onto the stage of a live sex show in a private club where Tally Wright [a.k.a. Lillian Rose 'Tallie' Cochrane (7 October 1944 — 21 May 2011) of Five Loose Women (1974 / trailer below), Girls for Rent (1974 / trailer), The Centerfold Girls (1974 / trailer), The Candy Tangerine Man (1975 / trailer, see Marilyn Joi Part III) and more] gets it on with a blonde dude while a black chick has fun with a huge white dildo. Speaking of dildos, we next meet 'Nancy,' a sculptress who creates her own dildos and discusses the importance of shape rather than size.* Finally, Damiano's own son, 7-year-old Gerald Jr., talks about religion with his dad. A powerful, informative, nostalgic, lewd, funny, sex-filled documentary that, as a special bonus, also includes vintage shots of the old 42nd Street in its wonderfully sex-crazed, pre-Disney heyday. Another truly remarkable collector's item for deviates everywhere."
* Nancy and her work made appearances in other movies, including Pornography in New York (1972), which we look at further below. But another movie in which she appears (possibly reusing material from the films we look at here) is the Yugoslavian art film by Dusan Makavejev (13 Oct 1932 – 25 Jan 2019), WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971 / trailer), in which we see "Nancy Godfrey in New York sculpting a plaster-cast replica of Screw editor Jim Buckley's erect penis". (Whatever happened to Jim Buckley?) Nancy has since disappeared from the art world, though there is a Nancy Godfrey working at an art school in Florida (probably unrelated: "Nancy Godfrey" is not exactly rare name).
Trailer to
Five Loose Women a.k.a. Fugitive Girls:

While more than one website mentions that the song Reflections of My Life (by The Marmalade) is used throughout the movie, probably without permission, the actual opening song commissioned for the documentary is Getting Off, written and sung by Monti Rock, and while Monti doesn't mention the song in this interview, the interview is a fun read. We mention Monti because even if you don't know him under that name, if you're old enough you might remember him as Disco Tex...
Disco Tex & His Sex O Lettes
singing Get Dancin': 

 
Making the Blue Film
(1971, dir. Jerald Intrator)
A.k.a. Making the Blue Movie. In his book Sexuality in World Cinema, James L. Limbacher offers a terse description of the film: "Some porno loops are strung together with some interviews with sex actors to make a sort of 'documentary' under the direction of J. Nehemara." Going by the cast supplied at the imdb, the loops probably feature Harry Reems, Tina Russell and her husband Jason Russell (3 Dec 1942 – 26 Oct 2005), and Shaun Costello. Supposedly, outtakes were used to create Sensuous Vixens (1976), a film we look at later...
"Jeraldo Stuarti" (name on the Blue Movie poster), like "J. Nehemara" (name offered by Limbacher), is actually the filmmaker Jerald Intrator (24 Sept 1920 – 28 Oct 1988), the director of the classic B&W sexploiters Orgy at Lil's Place (1963, poster above) and Satan in High Heels (1962 / full movie); Making the Blue Film is currently his last known directorial project.
In any event, though the poster is easy enough to find online, no one has bothered to write about Making the Blue Film anywhere — could it be a lost film?
If so, before it got lost it was screened, even outside of New York City: the first advert above is from the now holy Trans Lux Krim of Highland Park, MI — that would be Detroit to outsiders like us — while the second is from a double feature with Mona (1970 / full NSFW film) at since burnt-down Art Cinema of cosmopolitan Binghamton, NY.
While Deep Throat generally gets all the credit as opening the Golden Age of Porn as the first porn film with a plot to get a theatrical release, Mona the Virgin Nymph, which also has a similarly mild plot, hit select theatres two years earlier. ("One could say that Mona launched the money shot heard 'round the world.") The first theatrically released film to feature real sex is Warhol's Blue Movie (1969 / full NSFW art film) a.k.a. as Fuck (despite the fact that there's only around 10 minutes hardcore sex). 
Trailer to Jerald Intrator's first film,
Striporama (1953):

 
The Gang That Could!
(1971, dir. Still Unknown)
The same year Al Pacino made his name in Francis Ford Coppola's classic mafia film The Godfather (trailer), Robert de Niro replaced Pacino in a now forgotten mafia comedy entitled The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, a movie based on a novel of the same name and that has the added distinction of being considered by many as the "real" feature film debut of Hervé Villechaize (23 Apr 1943 – 4 Sept 1993, of Seizure [1974, with Jonathan Frid], Forbidden Zone [1980, with Susan Tyrrell] and Zalman King's Two Moon Junction [1988]), whose speaking voice was supplied by "The Man of a Thousand Voices", Paul Frees (22 June 1920 – 2 Nov 1986).
Trailer to
The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight:

Perhaps it would be a bit much to call 1971's X-rated The Gang that Could! a "mockbuster", but the title is obviously an intentional play upon the at the time well-known book and subsequent film version. To what extent the plot of The Gang that Could! in any way references the inspirational source of its title is open to conjecture, as the movie is apparently lost. Online sources are rare — it isn't even found at the iafd — and the few that exist only repeat the information found at the website of the film's original distributor, distribpix, which is unable to supply a director's name but claims that the film features the talents of Cindy West & Harry Reems... and both are actually discernable amidst the field of flesh found on the poster, most noticeably at the lower right. (Anyone know who the blonde dude is?)
Going by the Getty poster, we here at a wasted life would assume that the basic plot involves a gang that bangs and shoots and bangs and shoots and bangs and shoots and bangs and shoots and...
By the way: among the various pre-Golden Age and G.A. porn films in which white chick Cindy West (a.k.a. Susan Sands, Lori Lake, Terry Ruggiera, Cindy Travers, Helen Highwater, Tammy Twat, Tania Tittle, Linda Terry, Cherry Aims, Laura Bentley, Joy Otis, Terri Scott, Teri Reardon) is found are Lialeh (1974), the first predominantly "Black" (as in "Afro American) porn film,* and Devil's Due (1973), poster above, a rare excursion into semi-horror porn dealing with Satanists in which she had the lead female role and the classic line is uttered: "Kiss the cock of Satan!" Cindy West disappeared from porn circa 1976, never to be heard of again. (Again, good titles never die: in 2014, there was a non-porn horror Devil's Due [trailer].)
* For more info on Lialeh, we suggest looking at our review of Christmas Evil (1980), which was directed by Lewis Jackson, Lialeh's associate producer.
Opening scene of
Lialeh (1974):
 
 
His Loving Daughter
(1971, dir. Still Unknown)
An obscure film that infers incestuous shenanigans, but though the film does toss in a scene or two of a geriatric Daddy (Daniel Harin) getting it on with women of all ages, he never does his daughter.
We were unable to locate either the director or original poster to this film, but the DVD covers to the re-releases are easily found (see the images above and below).
The delectable Tina Russell, so prominently displayed on the above cover, is not in the film — were she, perhaps we would try to make it past the scene between Daniel Harin (pictured below) & Dolly Sharp (a.k.a. Helen Wood) described in the plot description below.
The plot explanation as compiled between the DVD's backside and the website Video Zeta One: Daughter Claudia and her 18-year-old Tina (Gina Fox) peeks through a keyhole into Claudia's dad's office and watches Ray Edwards (Harin) get his client (Sharp) drunk and take advantage of her. This gets Tina all hot and bothered, so Tina calls her boyfriend, Chucky, for some sex. The problem is: he can't get it up! "Tina breaks the fourth wall and stares directly at the camera and says that anyone in the audience would have performed better." Later, after complaining to Claudia, Tina seduces the pool man (Paul Matthews) who "is able to provide her what Chucky could not". Claudia then gets it on with her boyfriend, Freddy (Reems, seen below), while her daddy gets it on with another client, Elizabeth (Barbara Grumet). Claudia suddenly pops in with her high-school biology teacher, Mr. Carter, who gets it on with Elizabeth, and when Claudia and Tina show up, Elizabeth teaches them all about girl-on-girl action.
"What can be said? It's so much like a cheesy early seventies porno, that it almost seems like a parody of one. I like that they kept a light-hearted vibe throughout, with the characters frequently breaking the fourth wall and cracking wise. [Video Zeta One]"
Daddy Daniel Harin had a brief career as a studly old man (usually un-credited) in the early days of hardcore sexploitation, can also be found in a few other films, including The Debauchers (1971 / scene — that's him on the poster above) and Professor of Sex Ed (1973 / NSFW) and Sexual Customs in Scandinavia (1972 / poster below).
Aside from Video Zeta, the only other person we could find who seems to have ever watched His Loving Daughter to the end — despite the ease with which it can be found online for free — is lor of NYC, who says the film is "by-the-numbers porn" and "slapdash and sloppy": "Its title intentionally misleading, His Loving Daughter does feature a father and daughter as characters but never the twain shall get it on. [...] The father is good ol' Daniel Harin, [and...] I suspect it gave the older demographic of the adult movie theater audience somebody to identify with, but it's a bit disconcerting, sort of like Walter Huston getting the girl. The daughter is an unidentified actress as Claudia, but it is actually the daughter's best friend Tina who has the hots for Claudia's daddy. Dolly Sharp also appears as a wealthy widow who gets it on with old Harin, who is her financial adviser. Continuing the 'mature' theme, Harin has another client, a busty redhead played by Barbara Grumet, who gives both young girls a 'sex education class' in lesbian lovemaking. [...]" 
Helen Wood a.k.a. Dolly Sharp dancing with
Debbie Reynolds and Marge Champion in
Give a Girl a Break (1953 / trailer):

 
Oh Brrrother
(1971, dir. Still Unknown)
Another one-day wonder about which absolutely nothing is known, including the names of all performers other than a recognizable and moustacheless Harry Reems, who is also seen on the poster.
Plot: "A young nympho visits a shrink (Harry Reems) to talk about her masturbation and illicit fantasies involving guess who? Her fantasies involve sucking, fucking, riding, lesbians, and threesomes in every single position! This is a true fantasy come true and our lovely shrink Harry will make every single second of the session count. [Hot Movies]"
Thus, Plotwise, Oh Brrrother could be an a.k.a. of any number of movies, including the just as obscure flick we mention further below, Love Shrink... Shrinks, psychoanalysis and sex have been a favorite plot device for porn, well, probably since sex films started having plots. Shrinks and sex also play heavily in Shaun Costello's 1974 sex film, Lady on the Couch, which we mention here primarily because we have an advertising image to it, found directly above.
 
 
Sensuous Vixens
(1971 or '76, dir. "Freddie Williams")
If truly from '76, then the "movie" may well be the last "feature" porn film release to star Tina Russell (23 Sept 1948 – 18 May 1981). The originally credited director is the unknown "Freddie Williams"; according to the International Adult Film Database, he also supposedly directed one other film entitled Violated (1971) which, unlike Sensuous Vixens, is not in general circulation.
In turn, according to Jason S. Martinko's book The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988, which dates Sensuous Vixens as from 1976, Violated and Sensuous Vixens are actually one and the same movie, a concept that gains weight when seeing that both supposed films feature the exact same cast. (Still, going by the plot description further below, Violated seems rather far-fetched for an a.k.a. title.) Martinko also credits Shaun Costello as the movie's director and co-scriptwriter with Barry Smith, a name also generally credited as a.k.a. Shaun Costello.
According to imdb, which also lists the film as a 1976 release, "Freddie Williams" and "Barry Smith" are indeed that Renaissance Man, Shaun Costello, who no longer makes films but occasionally blogs. Costello also appears in the movie, if we are to believe the imdb which, like Martinko, also claims that Sensuous Vixens and Violated are one and the same movie, Violated being merely the video-release title. Both the iafd and imdb claim that the movie uses a scene from Cheri (1974), while the imdb adds that "outtakes [from Making the Blue Film (1971)] were used to create Sensuous Vixens" — indeed, Sensuous Vixens does play out very much like a cut & paste job utilizing loops and scenes from other movies around new narrative footage.
The back cover of the DVD re-release gives the plot of the film as follows: "Tina Russell [below] leads us through the tumultuously sexy New York City searching for modeling opportunities. After a series of long days and no results, she takes an offer to model in some 'artistic photographs'. When she arrives, she quickly learns what art means in the shady underworld of Manhattan. Tina quickly moves from tame, softcore photography to hardcore fuck films, embracing her pornographic urges while feeding her lust for the camera. Sensuous Vixens is the classic tale of a good girl releasing the nympho beast inside while exploring her own sexual urges. Filmed on location in 1970s New York City, Sensuous Vixens is a landmark piece of work that all XXX connoisseurs must see."
According to X-Critic, "Sensuous Vixens is a pretty solid early seventies entry that delivers some nice New York City location footage and some very healthy doses of steamy sex. Tina Russell is in very fine form here, looking beautiful throughout and performing with some pretty sincere enthusiasm. Top-billed Harry Reems is only in the movie for a few minutes, but it's fun to see him pop here without his trademark Deep Throat moustache. Russell's narration is campy and the soundtrack, made up of some pretty familiar numbers, is fantastic. The film's biggest flaw is that the sex scenes were obviously shot without live sound and the same guy makes the same 'ooo' noises over top of each scene, regardless of how many guys actually appear in it. It's possible this was put together from a bunch of loops and that the narration was added as an afterthought to give it some sort of context, but either way, it's entertaining enough and Tina Russell's fanbase will enjoy seeing her featured prominently."
By the way, search as we could, the only movie entitled Violated that we could find that was released in a timeframe related to Sensuous Vixens is an Albert Zugsmith (24 Apr 1910 – 26 Oct 1993) production with a completely different cast… 
Trailer to Albert Zugsmith's
Violated (1974):
 
 
Curious Women
(1971 or '73, dir. Still Unknown)
Though it's easily available on DVD, as a download or free on any number of porn movie sites, we couldn't find out much about this one-day wonder other than that it features Davey Jones, Harry Reems, Jamie Gillis, Cindy West, Barbara Benner and Darby Lloyd Rains... and a few other unknowns.
Cinema Headcheese seems to have found the movie entertaining, going by their film description: "Uncle Hans is an overalls-wearing, German-speaking, Hitler-saluting farmer who loves his nieces — one a cute blonde (Cindy West), the other a frumpy, hairy brunette (Barbara Benner). In possibly the most oddly disturbing scene on the set, the furry brunette is shown fantasizing Uncle Hans urinates in the yard. Like most red-blooded women, she diddles away on her giblets at the sight of Hans draining his pecker. Yeck! If that's not crazy enough, there's even a murder by wine bottle at an orgy. This one is just crazy, but it's a whole lot of fun. Watch out for Jamie Gillis briefly yanking it on a lazy-boy while viewing a couple screwing."
Harry Reems, without 'stache, shows up to ball one of the girls in a cheap-looking hotel room, he on the floor and Davey Jones in the bed.
Not to be confused with the earlier movie The Curious Female (1970), a sci-fi exploiter starring Angelique Pettyjohn (11 Marc 1943 – 14 Feb 1992), of Biohazard (1985). 
Trailer to
The Curious Female (1970):
 
 
Love Shrink
(1971, dir. Still Unknown)
A film that we could find nothing about, other than it did at least get released in New York in 1971, where the tiny advertisement (second from the bottom, left) of the Sept 17th issue of the Daily News indicates a screening at Cine Orleans (Off Broadway), one of the many now-lost grindhouses of the formerly great city: "Located on Broadway at W. 47th Street, the Mark Strand Theatre was opened on April 11, 1914, with the photoplay The Spoilers (full film) starring William Farnum July (4 July 1876 – 5 June 1953). […] After dropping stage shows on July 3, 1951, the Strand Theatre was renamed Warner Theatre, and opened with Strangers on a Train (1951 / trailer). [..] On July 31, 1968, the theatre was twinned, becoming the Warner Strand Theatre. A third 450-seat theatre was built on the old Strand Theatre's stagehouse, named Cine Orleans (Off Broadway), which had its own entrance on W. 47th Street. On June 3, 1971 […] it reopened as the RKO Warner Twin Theatre. […] The former balcony became the 1,200 seat Penthouse Theatre. Unfortunately, on February 8th, 1987, after a long and eventful life, one of the greatest movie palaces of New York City closed and was demolished. [Cinema Treasures]"
In 2013, the original Ronnie Cramer's Cult Film Site was selling the video, but the current site only features Cramer's own products. But way back in 2013, the site offered the following two-line plot description: "Finally — a doctor who has what it takes to cure 'physical' ailments as well as mental ones. Needless to say his couch sees plenty of action." Long ago (2013), we wrote Ronnie Cramer — the director of such masterpieces as Back Street Jane (1989 / trailer) and Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend (1992) — at rcramer@ix.netcom.com asking for more details, but nadda was the response.
According to iafd, the flick features the muff of some gal named "Betty Boston" and a brunette and a blonde, plus an additional penis of some guy. Anyone out there know anything about the movie?
 
 
Mondo Porno
(1971 or '72, dir. Still Unknown)

Not to be confused with the close-up and splooge-filled D2V Mondo Porno from 2002 "directed" by Anthony R. Lovett (13 May 1961 – 26 Jan 2014). And also not to be confused with the 1972 West Coast "documentary" Porno Mondo, which "looks behind the scenes of pornographic film production in Los Angeles", although it often is (which is why we'll look at that film here, too, a few paragraphs down).
No, Mondo Porno is an East Coast production, as is obvious by its featured wieners and hotdog buns... but if there is an original poster of it still in existence, it has yet to find its way online. As for Beyond the Commission Report's Report on Obscenity and Pornography, the poster of which is presented above, online there is general disagreement about whether that movie is a re-release of Mondo Porno or Porno Mondo... anyone out there know for sure?
In any event, "Beyond the Commission's Report on Obscenity and Pornography premiered in New York in August 1971. Advertisements stated: 'This film covers the full spectrum of sexual experiences. After viewing it you will be given an IBM card to register your reactions … All data will be processed by a computer and the findings will be made available to the commission …' (Screw magazine, no. 127, August 9, 1971). Even a classic exploitation roadshow man would have been proud of the IBM card gimmick, offering the audience the chance to make their views known to the commission (though it had stopped sitting almost a year earlier). [Bright Lights]"
In turn, Mondo Porno was released either in 1971 [iafd] or 1972 [imdb]. Both sites list Dolly Sharp and Harry Reems as appearing in this white-coater of sorts. At imdb, lor of NYC, one the few who has seen this flick, writes that Mondo Porno is "clearly inspired by the 1971 Presidential Commission's Report on Obscenity" (italics ours) and that it "adequately covers various sexual topics": "An annoying on-camera filmmaker keeps emphasizing 'You be the judge', and then shows us vignettes covering material surveyed in the report. Harry Reems demos the usual in & out with a lovely girl in the opening scene, minus a money shot. Dolly Sharp and a cute brunette (Suzy Mann) give a lesbian routine featuring vibrator and dildo. [...] What is unusual about this film is that it also includes a homosexual threesome, in which the fellatio is explicit while the anal sex is only suggested, perhaps in deference to the target audience. Instead of loud music, this particular sequence features insightful interviews voiced over by the three guys, one of whom expresses a liberated attitude and approach to living that still sounds fresh nearly 40 years later."
Over at Something Weird, they have the right film, Mondo Porno, in the product description but use the trailer to the West Coast Porno Mondo — go figure. There, homophobic Mike Accomando (the gay scene caused him "to pull a hamstring sprinting for the fast-forward button") of Dreadful Pleasures writes "Mondo Porno presents us with a hodge-podge of segments hosted by a filmmaker who urges us to 'judge for yourself what should be labeled obscene.' [...] With the sincerity of a game show host, our guide introduces us to a series of 'case studies.' The first is a standard mating ritual where Harry Reems introduces himself to his girlfriend's clitoris. [...] Dolly Sharp and some chick in a headband do the Macarena on each other. [...] Three sissy-looking dudes ('Evan, Vinnie and Henry') mince around and snap naked photos of each other's boymeat [...]."
But let's now to turn our attention the film Something Weird's trailer is of: Porno Mondo: An In Depth Study of Porno Films (1971). As the trailer voiceover says, "Direct from the Jenkins Film Festival in Hollywood comes the most sensational motion picture of the decade, winner of the coveted Kraft Award: Porno Mondo. An in-depth study of pornography in the making, this picture is not for the squeamish. It tells all the truths about adult motion pictures..." Well, about the West Coast scene at least.
Directed by an unknown "Federico Schwartz", with cinematography by "George Gentilia Jr.", Porno Mondo is a 100% heterosexual (and triple-X) documentary on the making porn films on the West Coast. As to be expected, it has a lot of hairy close-ups, bad hair and bad wigs and features, among others, the great Rene Bond (11 Oct 1950 – 2 June 1996), above, the spunky San Diegan girl-next-door adult actress who appeared in an untold number of exploitation and sexploitation and hardcore films and loops — including a number of Ed Wood / Stephen Apostolof films, such Fugitive Girls (1974 / trailer above at Changes), and a variety of Harry Novak productions.
Rene Bond's last known appearance
was not on film:
   
BTW: The Mood Mosaic is a multiple volume music compellation series from Italy that focuses on obscure lounge and chill-like music. It began in 1997 and is still releasing compellations today. Somewhere along the way (2007?), they released the compellation Mondo Porno — and on it, not from the film, is a great song entitled Mondo Porno by the one-song wonders The Blow Jobbers. And so, for your aural pleasure: 
The Blow Jobbers —
Mondo Porno:
 
 
Klute
(1971, dir. Alan J. Pakula)
A serious film by a serious filmmaker, Klute brought its star, Jane Fonda, her first Oscar. Plot? Well, with Fonda's former radicalism in mind, let's look at what TV Guide, the bastion of Middle American taste, says: "Along with Barbarella (1968 / trailer) and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969 / trailer), one of the best things the highly variable Jane Fonda has ever done. When a research scientist turns up missing, his best friend, John Klute (Donald Sutherland, of Hollow Point [1995] and so much more), a small-town police detective, goes to New York City in search of Bree Daniels (Fonda), a prostitute to whom the missing man had written letters. Bree, who is trying to switch professions, tells Klute that she has been getting threatening phone calls from a violent former client who she also thinks has been following her. In the process of his investigation, Klute falls for Bree, though she has difficulty returning his affection. After another prostitute who had contact with the sadistic caller is murdered, Bree finds herself alone in a dark warehouse in the exciting finale. [...] Sutherland is either an excellent sounding board for [Fonda's] nuanced portrait or he's a big zero, probably both. Fonda, however, transcends her limitations, making the most of her often forced quality as an actress. Bree emerges as likably strong yet dangerously weak, refreshingly intelligent yet searching and confused."
Trailer to
Klute:

And where does Harry appear? Well, he worked as an uncredited extra, and it is almost a joke to list it here because, as Newsweek put it, "The eagle-eyed viewer could spot him — or, more precisely, his knees." He plays a patron at the disco, as did, supposedly, some unknown NYC actor by the name of Sylvester Stallone.
Someone noteworthy who had more time than both of the two studs combined (but not by much) is Shirley Stoler (30 Mar 1929 – 17 Feb 1999), in her second feature-film appearance after her co-lead performance in the low-budget masterpiece that is The Honeymoon Killers (1970).
 
Trailer to
The Honeymoon Killers (1970):
 
 
 
Addendum II to come one day...