Monday, July 26, 2021

Carnosaur (USA, 1993)

"The earth was not made for us, she was made for the dinosaurs."

Dr. Jane Tiptree (Diane Ladd)

This review meanders... go down just past the Carnosaur trailer should you not enjoy verbosity.
Let's hear it for mad scientists (cum doctors): where would the world be without them? The staple of bad films everywhere, the prototype of course comes from literature, namely the good ol' doctor Frankenstein (1818), with the next mad docs of note arguably being the eponymous ones of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896).

All three mad-to-misdirected men have been portrayed on-screen many times, the earliest versions being, for Moreau, neither Charles Laughton (1 Jul 1899 – 15 Dec 1962) in The Island of Lost Souls (1932) nor Erich Kaiser-Tilz (7 Oct 1875 – 22 Nov 1928) as Prof. McClelland in the unauthorized German version Die Insel der Verschollenen a.k.a. The Island of the Lost (1921), but someone unknown in a lost British film from 1913, The Island of Terror; for Dr Jekyll, neither John "I Need A Drink" Barrymore (14 or 15 Feb 1882 – 29 May 1942) in John S. Robertson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920 / full movie) nor King Baggot (7 Nov 1879 – 11 July 1948) in the 1913 short of the same name (full short), but Hobart Bosworth (11 Aug 1867 – 30 Dec 1943) in a lost version from 1908; and for Dr Frankenstein, not Colin Clive (20 Jan 1900 – 25 June 1937) in the undisputed classic must-see Frankenstein (1931 / trailer) but, some three or five film versions earlier, Augustus Phillips in James Searle Dawley's silent short Frankenstein (1910, our Short Film of the Month for May 2021). [In a total aside: John Barrymore's fourth and final wife, Elaine Barry, starred in our Short Film of the Month for March 2016, Dwain Esper's How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (1937).] The archetypical filmic portrayal of the mad scientist is probably Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge of Hexen [1949 / full film / poster below]) in Metropolis (1927 / trailer), but the generally male stock character itself comes in many shapes and sizes in fun and not-so-fun films throughout film history.*
 
* Of the films we've reviewed here, the mad doctor/scientist films that promptly come to mind are The Brain that Wouldn't Die (USA, 1959), Maniac (USA, 1934) Re-Animator (USA, 1985) and The Monster Maker (USA, 1944), but as little as a two-minute perusal of the list of reviewed films found to the left finds: Alien Lockdown / Creature (USA, 2004), The Asphyx (Great Britain, 1973), Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla (USA, 1952), BrainWaves / Mind Games (USA, 1983), Corpses (USA, 2004), Corruption (Great Britain, 1968), The Curse of Frankenstein (Great Britain, 1957), Dante 01 (France, 2008), Devil Species (2004), Dr. Chopper (USA, 2005), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Great Britain, 1971), Dr. M (Germany, 1990), Event Horizon (USA, 1997), Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy / Sharkman (USA, 2005), the surreal gore porn Hardgore (USA, 1974)...
Trailer to Tod Browning's
 The Devil-Doll (1936):
As probably to be expected in this perfect world of omnipresent equal rights and universal equality, female mad scientists (like Afro-American ones*) are a far rarer breed. In literature, perhaps the earliest of the "lunatic ladies in the laboratory" is the titular protagonist of George Griffith's long out-of-print 1894 novel, Olga Romanoff (aka The Syren of the Skies), who has never made the jump to the silver screen. On screen, the first might be housewife-turned-mad-scientist Malita, played by an immensely enjoyable Rafaela Ottiano (4 Mar 1888 – 18 Aug 1942), in Tod Browning's The Devil-Doll (1936 / trailer above, starring John Barrymore). Thereafter, the first "real" (mad) female scientists to promptly come to our mind are Dr Myra (Katherine Victor) of the no-budget anti-classic Teenage Zombies (1959),  Dr Lil Stanhope (Renee Harmon) of Frozen Scream (1980), and Dr. Pamela Isley aka Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) of the mega-budget, ultra-campy critical flop, Batman & Robin with Nipples (1997 / trailer). A name that we now know must be added to that illustrious list of three is that of Dr. Jane Tiptree (Diane Ladd), of this Roger Corman production, Carnosaur.
* Though we do promptly think of The Blob (1988 / trailer) remake and, of course, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Black (1976 / trailer). The first Black mad doctor to appear in film, however, appeared eight years after the first Dr. Frankenstein: an unknown actor plays the unnamed mad-doctor daddy of the "race film" Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled (1918 / what's left of it), a 13-minute comedy short that is more or less a Black-cast remake of the white-cast short, The Egyptian Mummy (1914 / full film). "[Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled] was made by the 'Historical Feature Film Company [us]', which was a white-run company, but distributed by the Ebony Film Company [us]' to make it appear that it was released by a black-controlled company. [imdb]" True, but the statement glosses over the fact that Mercy was, nevertheless, "an all-Black production in terms of the director, writers, production crew and actors," as Scared Silly points out. But as Scared Silly also goes on to say, the film is problematic in many ways. (Go to Scared Silly to find out more.) In turn, if one looks at the definition of "mad scientist/doctor" loosely, the first female Black mad doctor (actually less mad than simply misguided) is probably Dr Jackson (Laura Bowman) of "the first science fiction horror film to feature an all-black cast," the contentious Son of Ingagi (1940 / full film). 
Trailer to
Carnosaur:
As directed and written by scriptwriter & director Adam Simon (co-scripter of Bones [2001] and S&D of the pretty good Brain Dead [1990 / trailer]), this dino film and its mad doctor sit amidst appropriate company when it comes to the three previously listed "mad female doctor" films. Like the previously mentioned movies, a masterpiece this movie is not — but then, who really expects a film named something like Carnosaur to actually be a "good" movie? Based, in theory, on the eponymously named book from 1984 by some guy named John Brosnan (7 Oct 1947 – 11 Apr 2005), the script for Carnosaur takes so many liberties with its source material that it could be argued that the original novel has yet to be adapted.*
* A relatively productive author with diverse pen names (Carnosaur was written, for example and as you can see below, by Harry Adam Knight), Brosnan saw three feature-film adaptations of different books of his during his lifetime: this film here, Proteus (1995 / trailer), based on Slimer, and Beyond Bedlam aka Nightscare (1994 / full movie), based on Bedlam. While some see Brosnan's novel Carnosaur as derivative of Michael Crichton's best seller Jurassic Park, Carnosaur preceded the latter author's novel by six years.
Even if the source novel of Carnosaur was not a rip-off, the film itself is of course and definitely a cheap & quick attempt by Corman's Concorde-New Horizons production house to rip off and ride on the coattails of 1993's big budget hit production, Spielberg's Jurassic Park (trailer). In an inspired casting turn, Corman even got Diane Ladd, the real-life mother of that film's lead female actor, Laura Dern, to play Carnosaur's mad scientist. As might be expected of a professional actor whose feature-film career spans back to an un-credited appearance in Something Wild (1961 / trailer) — Lane's first credited feature-film appearance is in The Wild Angels (1965 / trailer)* — she does an unexpectedly professional acting job considering that she's working with a one-note stock character ("mad scientist"). Indeed, her thespian turn and that of Harrison Page,** as the one-note stock character Sherriff Fowler, are notably miles above the quality of the absolutely terrible acting job Raphael Sbarge (of The Hidden II [1994 / trailer]) does playing the movie's male lead and hero, the security guard "Doc" Smith. Sbarge is simply unconvincing throughout the film as either hero or nice guy, but it is during his attempts at playing drunk that he achieves an almost sublime textbook example of everything you can do wrong when "acting" a drunkard. One can only wonder that unlike the somewhat nominally better female lead of the movie, Jennifer Runyon*** (playing the eco-activist Ann "Thrush"), he maintained an acting career after this film.****
* Diane Ladd and fellow co-star Bruce Dern were already 5 years married when they appeared together in this legendary Roger Corman movie starring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra. According to common Hollywood lore, their daughter Laura Dern was conceived during the shoot of this movie. (See Dick Miller, Pt II.)
** Harrison Page might be not be in all that many feature films, but he started his career with two roles of note: he made his debut playing the Afro-American draft dodger Niles in Russ Meyer's classic Vixen! (1968 / trailer) and then appeared in Meyer's camp masterpiece Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970 / trailer / see R.I.P. Charles Napier) as Emerson Page, the good-guy beau of the bodacious Petronella Danforth (Marcia McBroom) versus her hotly muscular and violent one night stand, Randy Black (James Iglehart). Iglehart may have had the muscles, but Page got the acting career.
*** Runyon, aged 33, who made her film debut in David Hess's slather To All a Good Night (1980 / trailer / see R.I.P. Harry Reems Pt. V), retired from acting after this movie. In the teens of the 21st century, she returned to make special appearances in three films: Silent Night, Bloody Night 2: Revival (2015 / trailer), Terror Tales (2016 / trailer) and Bloodsucka Jones vs. the Creeping Death (2017 / trailer).
**** The only other actor of note, whom we fail to mention in our review, is everyone's favorite Republican, the cult actor Clint Howard. He does a typical Clint Howard turn, if perhaps a bit more subdued than normal, and then dies.
As a rip-off of a blockbuster, Carnosaur comes nowhere close to being as good as the best of earlier Corman blockbuster rip-offs like John Sayles's Alligator (1980) and Joe Dante's Piranha (1978 / see R.I.P. Dick Miller Pt V). The flaw lies not just in the uneven acting, but far more in the substandard episodic script, atrocious editing and dearth of humor. Not that there is no humor present in Carnosaur, just that too much of it is budget-related (the "big showdown", with its obvious toy trucks and dinos, is pretty funny) or is lost amidst the bad acting and editing, the latter of which causes the movie to come across as if swathes of the narrative were inexplicably ripped out and left on the editing room floor. The result is that the narrative often feels like a bunch of scenes strung together but lacking the bridge between them. Not that these gaps make the movie hard to follow, they merely make the narrative extremely inconsistent and full of "Huh?" moments.
On the whole, the movie is as much a mad doctor and dinosaur-on-the-loose film as it is — fitting to the times we chose to finally watch it — a pandemic movie. If we got the plot right: Dr. Tiptree (Ladd), hired to biotech-pimp chicken, instead creates a virus that infects everyone but also specifically causes women (including, one would suppose, post-menopausal women) to self-fertilize and give — in belly-bursting homage to Alien (1979 / trailer) — birth to chicken-based carnosauria. Prior to this mass fertilization, however, one baby carnosaurus (born to a chicken) gets loose and lays waste to almost everyone introduced anywhere in the movie. The government is then called in to handle the situation, but as to be expected it basically lays everyone else to waste in their typically SNAFU fashion...
Anti-big business, anti-biotech, anti-government and oddly anti-woman (the ability to get pregnant definitely feels like a biological flaw in this film), Carnosaur is definitely third-rate Corman trash, far closer in its entire id to the ineptitude and lack of intelligence of Piranha II: The Spawning (1982 / trailer) than the film that that slice of Italo-trash followed. But much like that Z-film, there is a lot to be found in Carnosaur for fans of cinematic flotsam to enjoy: you name it, but for Diane Lane and Harrison Page and most of the practical gore effects, it is all laughably terrible. And to crown off all that badness, screenwriter/director Adam Simon has the cahonas to pay a direct homage to the ironic, hard-hitting and extremely bleak ending of the original George Romero version of The Crazies (1973 / trailer). (Kudos, dude!)
Yep, Carnosaur is pretty crappy, but in a fun way. It goes well with pizza and beer. That said, the less you expect the more you'll probably be able to enjoy it.
A success during its theatrical release, Carnosaur went on to spawn two direct-to-video sequels: Carnosaur 2 (1995 / trailer), with the great John Heard, and Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996 / trailer). Roger Corman, being the legendary penny-pincher that he is, also reused Carnosaur footage in Raptor (2001 / trailer) and The Eden Formula (2006 / trailer) — the last wreckage of a film with Dee Wallace, Tony Todd and Jeff Fahey! 
Cinema Dinosaurs (1920-2015):

Monday, July 19, 2021

Short Film: Duck and Cover (USA, 1952)

 
"We all know the atomic bomb is very dangerous..."
 
Originally we planned to just take a look the theme song to this short as a Music from Movies post — see Music from Movies: Zatoichi, Music from Movies: The Black Klansman, and Music from Movies: The Green Slime but somewhere along the way we decided that this classic slice of Cold War celluloid really deserved to be a Short Film of the Month.
Really: we have probably all heard of this thing, but how many (especially those born after 1970) have actually seen this classic, "1952 civil defense animated live-action social guidance film"? In 1999, Duck and Cover received the honor of being inducted into the US National Film Registry, which describes the film thus: "This landmark civil defense film was seen by millions of schoolchildren in the 1950s. As explained by Bert the Turtle, to survive an atomic attack you must 'duck and cover.'" A description that totally ignores the film's most attractive aspect today: it's pretty funny.
But before we look at the film, let's take a gander at the catchy title track, entitled Bert the Turtle (Duck and Cover) written by Leon Carr and Leo Corday, and sung by the Chicago-based singer and entertainer Dick "Two Ton" Baker (2 May 1916 – 4 May 1975); in its day, it sold three million copies (though some sales may have been due to the 45's A-side song, Fuzzy Wuzzy [contemporary cover version]). Baker, a successful local musician in Chicago who once said, "The only thing I've ever wanted to do in this world is play piano and sing on the radio. This isn't work, it's play — and I'm getting paid for it!", released other popular novelty songs over the course of his career, including everyone's favorite, I Like Stinky Cheese. Oddly enough, however, Two Ton's version of Bert the Turtle (Duck and Cover), though obviously enough released* as a tie-in to the film, is actually a cover version. The original version heard in the film is sung by a typically generic easy listening chorus, by all accounts arranged by the jazz musician Dave Lambert (19 June 1917 – 3 Oct 1966) of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. 
* It was released by Coral Records, a subsidy of Decca whose roster included such great as Patsy Cline and Liberace. Coral ceased to exist in 1973. 
Dick "Two Ton" Baker sings
Bert the Turtle (Duck and Cover):

The short itself was filmed somewhere in Queens in the autumn of 1951 by the Manhattan-based advertising firm Archer Productions. "The first public showing of Duck and Cover (and Our Cities Must Fight*) was at the Alert America Convoy launch in Washington, D.C. on January 7, 1952. The Alert America Convoy was the grand gesture of the new FCDA [Federal Civil Defense Administration]. The convoy comprised three caravans of 10 large trucks and trailers that toured the country for nine months in 1952. Each vehicle contained various civil defense exhibitions including dioramas, posters, three-dimensional models and movies. The theme of the convoy was to show what 'might happen' and then provide education on what every citizen could do to 'beat the bomb.' The Advertising Council, working closely with the FCDA, promoted the convoy like a Hollywood B-movie with screaming posters that read: 'Don't miss it…it's the show that could save your life!' [Conerad]" 
* Like Duck and Cover, Our Cities Must Fight was an Archer Productions production. 
Obviously intended for a young audience, this "educational" film enjoyed a long life despite already being pulled from circulation by the contracting Federal Civil Defense Administration by June, 1955, and being officially declared "obsolete" by the same administration in 1957. (For more info on all that, see Jake Hughes's essay at the National Film Registry.) But as every American knows: if a school ever bought an educational film, it was shown until it fell apart, so this short continued to be screened for years to come. Thus the film was indelibly burned into the brains of generations of kids and, once it was truly no longer shown in schools, it achieved a second life as pop reference material perfect for such fun stuff as the documentary The Atomic Café (1982), a 2013 National Film Registry induction, or Weird Al Yankovic's Christmas at Ground Zero (1986) 
Full short —
Duck & Cover:

Like most educational and/or civil defense films, the cast is a cast of nobodies. Perhaps some went on to this or that level of fame and success in business or crime, but as the names are unknown we will never know. One name is known, however: that of the narrator. Duck and Cover is one of the first known film projects of the deceased and mostly forgotten American character actor Robert Middleton (born Samuel G. Messer, 13 May 1911 – 14 June 1977), who went on to have a decent career usually playing the bad guy.
Aside from his numerous TV appearances, he can be found in such fine feature-film fare as Paul Newman's film debut The Silver Chalice (1954 / trailer), the classic noir The Big Combo (1955 / full film), The Desperate Hours (1955 / trailer), Elvis Presley's film debut Love Me Tender (1956 / trailer), The Glass Cage (1964 / full film), Nancy Sinatra's film debut For Those Who Think Young (1964 / trailer), Which Way to the Front? (1970, see Dick Miller, Part III), The Harrad Experiment (1973 / trailer), and the anti-classic The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977 / full film). 
As an added attraction —
Billy Chambers' 1962 non-hit, Fallout Shelter*:

* "Fallout Shelter, which was recorded in two or three takes along with the ironically titled A-side of the disk (That's When I Stopped Living), was sung by 24-year-old Billy Chambers and a chorus of back-up singers from Florida Southern College. Chambers, who was in a rock band called the Dynamics, was recruited for the session because [producer & writer Bobby] Braddock liked the singer's voice. This record would remain the only solo music issued by Chambers, who left show business shortly after the single's release for the more stable field of construction. Chambers passed away in 1991 at the age of 52 from cancer. [Conerad]" 
Lastly: For another take on when the bomb falls, let us suggest either our Short Film of the Month for September 2015, A Short Vision (1956), or for February 2018, Pica-Don (1978).

Monday, July 12, 2021

Exhibitionisten Attacke (Germany, 2000)

Another obscure direct-to-video slab of independently made, unmitigated trash from Germany's premiere Outsider filmmaker, Jochen Taubert (born 14 Jan 1968), whose films anyone outside of the German-speaking countries will probably never bother to see, unless of course they are bad-film masochists who happen understand some German and go the extra mile to search them out. In general, we would recommend trash-lovers to watch at least one of Taubert's films someday (perhaps not this one), for we here at a wasted life find his socially irrelevant and intellectually empty examples of ugly, no budget, feature-length idiocy extremely enjoyable when watched in a group with the right state of mind and access to a lot of beer. But then, that is more or less also how Taubert's films are intended to be viewed, according to the filmmaker himself. "Back then [when we made our first film] like now, we always film under the influence of alcohol. It is also imperative not to be sober when watching our films. [ghostshit reviews]"
Exhibitionisten Attacke ("Attack of the Exhibitionists") is possibly/probably his fourth full-length project, made a year after his similar but superior — if one can even use that word when discussing Taubert movies — Ich pisse auf deinen Kadaver ("I Piss on Your Cadaver"). The "plot" this time around involves a mad ninja doctor who turns his mostly male patients into murdering exhibitionists, although only three or so ever truly go the full monty and flash full frontals with out-of-focus, pube-crowned hooded soldiers (hairlessness wasn't really de rigueur yet in 2000), and a young woman singer (Adriane Sondermann) out to stop him. Along the way, more or less everyone introduced on screen dies a bloody or ridiculous death. There is also one singular female exhibitionist, BTW, but she is somewhat demure by usual Taubert standards. 
Exhibitionisten Attacke
minus everything that YouTube might flag:
To talk logic is illogical when it comes to Exhibitionisten Attacke, but if there is any form of logic at all to the film's narrative it is at best dream logic, the kind of narrative development one has in dreams or nightmares: the action continues scene to scene, but no scene really lines up fully logically to the preceding or subsequent one despite coming across as chronological. The dialogue is just as non-sequiturly obtuse — typical example: after the lead female escapes death for the umpteenth time and has even killed an exhibitionist or four, she shows up at band rehearsal and simply excuses her late arrival with, "Sorry, I've had a hard day." Then she sings the crappy techno song (something about saving nature) as the film's only female exhibitionist attacker — at least: she dresses and kills like the other exhibitionists but she never flashes — saunters into the same studio and everyone in the room ignores her as she pours poison into the fog machine which, because that is what one does in a recording studio, gets turned on…
The lead female is the only survivor, of course, and thus narrative continues and everyone around her keeps dropping like flies, sometimes by her own hand. Despite an occasional emotionless outburst of "You asshole!" or "You fiend!" or "Help! There's a killer after me!", the film's heroine more or less just tumbles forward unaffected and unreflective by anything that happens to her. Regardless of whether her brother dies, friends die, her hairdresser dies, she hunts or is hunted by the bad guys, goes shopping for bandages, runs over a seeing-eye dog, or gets chased through the countryside, she remains pretty much nonplussed by the death and destruction around her and just barrels onward and forwards. In that sense, she is a bit like the title character of Christian Marquand's (15 Mar 1927 – 22 Nov 2000) star-studded flop of a filmic take of Terry Southern's Candy (1968 / trailer), with Babe of Yesteryear Eva Aulin, who as Candy just continues in a nonstop and unaffected forward trajectory no matter what sexual shenanigan transpires in her presence. (Again, however: instead of the sexual situations of Candy, in Exhibitionisten Attacke it is just death and blood and terrible acting).
This consistency of inconsistency in dialogue and action and nonsensical forward trajectory of Taubert's movie is indubitably magnified by the fact that Exhibitionisten Attacke was made without a true pre-written screenplay. As Taubert reveals at ghostshit, "No, there is no script, there's a story as a guiding thread and what ends up happening is the result. For example: my friend is a policeman, so a police car shows up; my brother is in hospital, so we shoot at his bed in the hospital; and so forth…."
His brother also ends up being the first exhibitionist attacker, but that flasher isn't around all that long. In the case of Exhibitionisten Attacke, in any event, we would conjecture that true source of the film's creation is the footage of real internal operations that is intercut every time the mad doc is seen operating on one of his future exhibitionists. Taubert probably found it somewhere and knew he just had to use it, somehow, and then the bro in the hospital was just an unexpected extra.
Regardless of the true sequence of inspirational events, the film would probably be "better" without the operation footage. It undeniably serves its purpose, which is to shock and repulse and push boundaries, but it also seems oddly unneeded and, unbelievably enough, clashes with the bloody but childish glee and general immaturity of the rest of the movie. In contrast, the old-man flasher showing his grey-domed skin-turtleneck is likewise an obvious attempt to shock and push borders, but it is puerile instead of nauseating and is at least as groan-inducingly funny as it is distasteful. (The Opa was far from a GILF, in any event.) The OP stuff does little but ruin the taste of one's beer and chips.
Ditto, unexpectedly enough, with the film's only notable female nude scene, which feels oddly dirtier than normal for Taubert's films (at least going by those films that we here at a wasted life have seen). True, the inanity of the situation and how it transpires is played for laughs, but it is shot like illicit porn using a woman who obviously did not want her face shown, thus it exudes an odd almost revenge-porn aura. (We like naked women as much as the next bisexual, but revenge porn sucks.) But then, the situation itself is a hard one to make funny: even filmmakers like Almedover are incapable of successfully playing rape for laughs, so it is hardly surprising a rapey situation in Exhibitionisten Attacke doesn't really work either. What is particularly odd about the scene is that it is the only breast scene of the movie, while Taubert, a typical heterosexual breast man, generally thinks that in film, "Tits are the most important thing. And there are so many [kinds]: big, small, middle-sized, real, silicon… and all of them have nipples. [ghostshit]"
Had, however, more breast been seen in the movie, this singular scene might perhaps not come across as so forced, so un-fun, so pointless. (Indeed, Taubert forwent a major opportunity by not having the four women singing and dancing during the consciously interminably long opening credit scene do their laughably bad singing and dancing naked — indeed, it a shame that the well-orbed but thespian-challenged lead female never truly gets naked once. There are numerous scenes throughout the movie that would've lent themselves well for her to gratuitously get her dress ripped off.)
A true plus point of Exhibitionisten Attacke is that at roughly 1:40 hours in length, it mercifully and enjoyably short (unlike, for example, the painfully long Pundelmützen Rambos [2004]). Without the OP footage, the film would have been both shorter and more fun. But as the "independent and 'amatuuuure'" filmmaker Taubert himself points out, "The best thing about our films is that you can go to the toilet while the film is running and you don't miss anything." Our suggestion would be to use the OP-footage to take a pee, get a new beer, concentrate on rolling that joint or doing something similar, and to enjoy the rest of the movie for what it is: the apogee of filmmaking inability, and a visual and moving illustration of a total lack of anything remotely professional, be it the mildest capacity to tell a story, act, direct, do special effects or gore, anything. Enjoy! 
Trailer to Taubert's most recent & professional film, Romeo & Julia, Liebe ist ein Schlachtfeld [Love Is a Battlefield]:

Monday, July 5, 2021

Harry Reems, Part XI – Addendum, Part IV: 1985-86

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 8 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 Addendums Parts I – 4, which looked at the films that we somehow missed or skipped in our extended and heavy Parts I through VII. And then we went and lost the stick we had our Harry Reems file on (a lesson learnt 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, Addendum Part I appeared, much like delayed ejaculation: better late than never. Then came the relatively short but meaty Addendum Part II, followed by the somewhat longer and fatter Addendum Part III. And now, this is the end, my friend: year 1985 and then some... Way back when, we seriously lost interest in the undertaking as of the films around 1985 and after, which is why this Career Review sort of peters out at this point. 
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 that 1973 film wasn't funny enough to keep us watching until the end. 
From the soundtrack of Deep Throat
Deep Throat to You All:

 
 
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 V (1980–84)
Go here for Part VI (1985) 
Go here for Part VII (1986–2013) 
Go here for Part VIII: Addendum Pt I (1969-71) 
Go here for Part IX: Addendum Pt II (1972) 
Go here for Part X: Addendum Pt II (1973-84) 
 
 
Late after Dark
(1985, dir. Stuart Canterbury)
According to Jason S. Martinko's book The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988, "Stuart Canterbury directed this movie starring Nina Hartley and Harry Reems. It's for couples that like to get together Late after Dark." No one's bothered to write about the film online, though over at Vintage Erotica Forum a member did offer a slight plot: "It features Jerry Butler as a bar/pub owner closing up the bar and reminiscing about why his marriage is going downhill, about his love life and about some people coming to his bar."
Speaking of Jerry Butler (13 May 1959 — 27 Jan 2018), he was interviewed here at the Rialto Report. Jerry made rare and minute appearances in non-porn productions, such as Chuck Vincent's Preppies (1984 / trailer) and Deranged (1987 / see below),* Hennenlotter's Basket Case (1982), and Mardi Rustam's hilarious Evils of the Night (1985 / trailer).
* Not to be confused with the really great 1974 movie based on the legendary Ed Gein (27 Aug 1906 — 26 July 1984), Alan Ormsby's Deranged (trailer), starring the eternally underappreciated character actor Roberts Blossom. 
Full film —
Chuck Vincent's Deranged (1987):
Among Butler's porn films of note, we must mention the typically Ed Woodian Carlos Tobalina (5 Apr 1925 – 31 Mar 1989) feature fuck film, Sexual Odyssey (1987), with its typically inane Tobalina plot: "Jerry Butler was gay, but after getting in on with Rachel Ashley and Karen Summers he becomes straight!"

 
 
With Love from Susan
(1985, "dir." Hal Freeman)
D2V released the same year as Desperately Seeking Susan (1985 / trailer), the better film upon which Freeman's title refers. Like so many films of this period of porn, it's a cut-and-paste job made of scenes from other films. Here, the selling point is the then-popular porn actress Susan Hart (nee Susanna Probyn), and each scene features her with a different famous [white] stud, including (aside from Harry Reems) Peter North, Tom Byron, Marc Wallice, Paul Thomas and Jesse Eastern.
The Susan Hart giving her love in this obscure clip compilation should, of course, not to be confused with the only slightly less obscure non-porn actress Susan Hart, above, (nee Susan Neidhart) of such fabulous film classics as The Slime People (1963 / trailer) and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965 / trailer)... for more on her, take a look at R.I.P. Dick Miller, Part I.
 
Non-porn Susan Hart's non-hit from 1981,
Is This a Disco or a Honky Tonk?
Director Hal "Backdoor" Freeman (1936? – 1989), intentionally or not, ended up being a domino in the legalization of pornography. When the Moral Majority* and hypocrites in power at the time in the State of California took him to court on the grounds that hiring people to fuck on film was actually "pandering", the battle reached the California Supreme Court in 1988 — "People v. Freeman" — and "[Freeman] proved to a Grand Jury that because it's being filmed and released it gives it first amendment protection hence legalizing hardcore pornography in California. [Filmow]" 
* "The Moral Majority, which began in 1979 with multi-millionaire minister Jerry Falwell and eventually infected all manner of politics, law, art and culture. The organization set goals that included all the usuals like overturning Roe vs. Wade, making sure gays remained second-class citizens, opposing equal rights measures and affirmative action, censoring or trying to ban things they didn't like, trying to force prayer into schools and saturating the media with propaganda / scare tactics in an effort to convert people over to conservative Christianity. [Bloody Pit of Horror]" Sounds like the current Republican Party to us...
Amidst all his porn productions, in 1987 "director"/producer Hal Freeman made a rare, non-porn gore project, a long-forgotten violent and misogynistic — it was the 80s, after all — horror movie entitled Blood Frenzy, featuring the original Wednesday Addams (Lisa Loring) of The Addams Family TV show (1964-66 / theme song) in a transparent bra. The same year as she made Blood Frenzy, she married working stiff Jerry Butler (see Late after Dark, above), but she and Butler divorced by 1992. 
How are killer lesbians created?
Opening scene to Blood Frenzy:

 
A Passage to Ecstasy
(1985, dir. Bob Chinn)
German title: Grenzen der Lust. One of three Bob Chinn films made/released in 1985 that included Harry Reems in the cast. Passage to Ecstasy is to be found all over the net for free, but we couldn't locate a review or detailed plot description. Indeed, the only plot description for Passage to Ecstasy we found was an extremely vague one at the NSFW forumphilia:  "Everyday life of a small European diaspora in a South Asian country (possibly Thailand). Intrigue, betrayal and of course sex."
Harry Reems has a scene with Stacey "I do it for the money" Donovan (nee Kelly Howell), who later dissed the industry for that waste of tax payer's money known as the Meese Commission, and one with Honey Wilder (nee Shirley Thompson-Starks). Honey Wilder, as Shirley Starks, went on to become a successful set decorator and production designer for mainstream film and television productions. (Early in her career as a set decorator, she did such masterpieces as Severed Ties [1992 / trailer], Dollman [1991 / trailer], and Grim Prairie Tales [1990 / trailer].)
Director Bob Chinn, born Robert Husong, a Chinese American, was the inspiration for Burt Reynolds' very Caucasian character, "Jack Horner", in Boogie Nights (1997). 
Trailer to
Boogie Nights:
 
 
Losing Control
(1985, dir. Bob Chinn)

One of three Bob Chinn films made/released in 1985 that included Harry Reems in the cast, in his book The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988 Jason S. Martinko deigns to say little more about Losing Control than to call it "a fairly obscure Bob Chin movie". Obscure, perhaps, in that no one seems to find it worth writing about, for it is easy to find online.
Of the onscreen couplings, Harry Reems coupled but once and that was with Erica Boyer (22 Dec 1956 – 31 Dec 2009). Ms. Boyer (nee Amanda Margaret Gantt), who retired from porn to Panama City, Fl., with her husband, former football player Derrick Jensen (27 Apr 1956 – 7 Apr 2017), and son, was killed by a hit-and-run driver who later proved to be an off-duty member of the Florida Highway Patrol.
The same year as the porn movie Losing Control was released and didn't make waves, the unknown Irish electropop musician named Barry Warner released his debut single Real Man, which went nowhere, just like the single's B-side, a song not inspired by Bob Chinn's movie of the same name...
Losing Control:
Oh, yeah – The Good Name Never Dies Department: since Chin's film, the title Losing Control has seen two reiterations, neither a remake. 1998 saw Playboy's Losing Control (image below), a softcore thriller directed by Julie Jordan, and 2011 saw a comedy use the title (trailer).
 
 
Fantasies Unltd.
(1985, dir. Bob Chinn)
Of the three Bob Chinn porn flicks made/released in 1985 that included Harry Reems in the cast, this one was the only one shot D2V... "Scriptwriter" Philip Dennis Connors' only non-porno scriptwriting credit we could find is as co-writer of Mardi Rustam's Evils of the Night (see Late after Dark). 
Mardi Rustam's
Evils of the Night (1985):
According to Jason S. Martinko's book The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988, "Tom (Eric Edwards) and Sue (Josephine Carrington) run a business that lets people live out their fantasies, which are put together by a high-tech computer. Tom fantasizes about Sue, but has never had sex with her. The fantasies of the clients make up most of the movie." 
Christie "Yummy" Canyon is presented on the video box as having a major presence in the film, but her singular scene, which opens the film, blinks out and away when the fantasy machine breaks down. Harry Reems' character is also a fantasy figure, a fire inspector, created to fulfill Tamara Longley's fantasy...
Over at the imdb, that literate purveyor of porn lor saw this "winner from Bob Chinn" with a "literate script [that] neatly conveys the message that all this fantasizing can't hold a candle to reality" and wrote: "Team of Eric Edwards and underrated Josephine Carrington run a computer-driven service that permits clients over the phone to live out their sexual fantasies. [...] Key through-line in the script is horny Eric's oft-expressed desire to get into his co-worker's panties [...]. The various clients who play out interesting fantasies include: Tamara Longley humping fire inspector Harry Reems in her kitchen; Goldie [aka Summer Rose] fantasizing making love to plumber Blake Palmer; Eric fancying himself a magician to hump a groupie backstage in the form of Bunny Bleu; plus a brief opening segment featuring Christy Canyon, a vignette of Peter North and his wife plus a fine turn as a fantasy nurse by Brit Stevie Taylor. The climax has Pamela Jennings guesting quite effectively as a zaftig blonde who Eric contrives to be in a would-be three-way with Josephine and himself, but a glitch ends this before he can arrive. [...] Considering the subsequent rise in popularity of computer gaming and now a rush toward 'virtual reality' as the next big thing, this quaint video has some relevance still."
Eric Edwards
explains fluffing:
Eric Edwards, a man who seldom left the thespian corners of porn, made a rare and very short, uncredited, appearance as a gypsy (as did fellow pornsters Arcadia Lake [3 Sept 1957 – 13 Sept 1991], his then-wife, and John Leslie [25 Jan 1945 – 5 Dec 2010]) in the nudity-heavy burning scene tacked onto the slasher The Prey (1983), "one of those movies that amply demonstrates why slasher films don't get that much respect [FMM&R]" and the last feature-film project of Uncle Fester, otherwise known as the actor Jackie "The Kid" Coogan (26 Oct 1914 – 1 Mar 1984).
Trailer to
The Prey (1983):


Talk Dirty to Me One More Time
(1985, writ. & dir. Anthony Spinelli)
By now, the day of groovy porn film posters for even the cheapest of productions was long over: crappy VHS covers like the one above, with hirsute John Leslie (25 Jan 1945 – 5 Dec 2010) in full performance glory, were the new norm — fitting, perhaps, to the general genericness of the product they packaged.
Compare, for example, the VHS cover to Talk Dirty to Me One More Time with these two posters of earlier movies to feature John Leslie's reliable tool, V – The Hot One (1978) & The Other Side of Julie (1978).
The D2V Talk Dirty to Me One More Time was followed by a dozen of "sequels", but it was itself a "sequel" to Anthony Spinelli's theatrical release Talk Dirty to Me (1980), which also featured Jack (John Leslie) as the main male character (star) of both films. (Even the poster to that first movie, below, is better than the cover image of the VHS sequel.)
Prior to Talk Dirty to Me One More Time, Jack (John Leslie) also appeared in Nothing to Hide (1981), an unofficial sequel to Talk Dirty to Me as Spinelli, due to legal rights, couldn't make an official sequel. Over at Huff Post, Paul Fishbein, the founder and former owner of Adult Video News, rates "1981's Nothing to Hide is the best porn film of all time because it has good acting and a sweet romance that has never been duplicated in a sex flick."
By the time Talk Dirty to Me One More Time was made, Harry Reems may have been a name but drugs and alcohol had already made his "performance capabilities" unreliable, thus his general secondary or tertiary roles. It is perhaps also fitting, then, that in Talk Dirty to Me One More Time he plays a man who pays another man, Jack, to bonk his wife (Colleen Brennan) while he watches — or as the film scholar Linda Williams describes it in Pornography: Film And Culture (edited by Peter Lehman), "In Talk Dirty to Me One More Time, it is a voyeuristic husband's view of his wife that finally cures him of impotence." Elsewhere, a more typical porn synopsis describes the plot as follows: "Leslie is back as the smooth-talking Jack, and this time he is hired by a successful doctor (Reems) to seduce the doctor's wife (Brennen) and turn her into a wild minx in the bedroom. Nikki Charm has an incredible squirt scene here, and this film marks [Brittany] Stryker's first appearance [credited as Judy Jones]."
Director Anthony Spinelli (21 Feb 1927 – 29 May 2000) was one of the busiest directors in pornographic films both during and after the "Golden Age of Porn". Born Samuel Weinstein, under the stage name Sam Weston he began a career as a mainstream actor and producer, but unlike his older brother Jack Weston (21 Aug 1924 – 3 May 1996) — of Wait until Dark (1967 / trailer), Fuzz (1972, see Uschi Part VI), Gator (1976 / trailer) and more — he wasn't all that successful. The biggest success during this period of his career, as "Sam Weston", is undoubtedly (as producer of and bit player in) the unjustly forgotten message film One Potato, Two Potato, Polish poster above, "a very low budget production that made a bit of commotion back when it debuted in 1964. Despite its lowly pedigree (it was filmed in the Cleveland area and the actors were mostly unknowns at the time), the lead actress (Barbara Barrie) received the Best Actress award at Cannes and the film was nominated for an Oscar (Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen). Sadly, today it's a pretty obscure picture. [imdb]" 
Scene from
One Potato, Two Potato:
Eventually reduced to selling encyclopedia's to support his family, Spinelli entered porn filmmaking in 1971 with Diary of a Nymph — which was not in any way based on the "serious" study of nymphomania originally published in 1961, Dr. Nathan A Shiff's Diary Of A Nymph.

 
 
Deep Chill
(1985, dir. Conrad Fuego)

Direct-to-video "spoof" porn, a.k.a. Deep Thrill. Anyone remember that extremely dull, 1983 yuppie-centric comedy-drama directed by Lawrence Kasdan, a master of Hollywood mainstream product, about a bunch of privileged thirty-something white folks who need to get a life, entitled The Big Chill (trailer)? Basic idea: when one of their kind kills themselves, they all get together for the first time in 15 years and bore the audience while great, classic pop songs play in the background.
A pseudonymous "Conrad Fuego" made this porn take-off two years later slightly less lily white by including two minority porn names in the cast, Kristara Barrington (of Asian descent) and blue-eyed Billy Dee (of Afro-American decent). The basic plot, as revealed by Jason S. Martinko in his book The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988, remains the same: "In this porn spoof of The Big Chill, friends gather at Rick Savage's house after the funeral of their old pal Jerry Dubin [played by Marc Wallice], who was hooked on drugs and killed himself. Harry Reems suggests that since Jerry was a fun-loving Irishman, they should celebrate rather than mourn his passing. This leads to sexual encounters on every bed and couch in the house. Jerry would have loved the party." Harry Reems appearance is short and sexless — his talents were somewhat less than dependable talents by the time he was earning his drug and alcohol money with cameos like this one.
Is Deep Chill any good? Well, the anal sex scenes were deemed good enough to be later added to compilations like Rear Busters (1988) and Assfucking in the 80s (2008), but inclusion in such money-fishing projects are hardly a true measuring stick of quality. Indeed, the only review we could find, written by fu_q  on 8/17/2017 at adult dvd talk, reveals a seemingly undecided fuq-film fan: "[...] Deep Chill [is] an overall-good, 1985 release from VCX. A takeoff on the early-80s mainstream hit, The Big Chill, this film does a fairly mediocre job as a parody, as it only weakly attempts to capture the theme and emotions of the original material. Moreover, the acting is poor, and the script is paltry. As a porno, however, its sex is fairly strong — headed up by the sexy Kristara Barrington (who does anal) and bolstered by Tiffany Black (who also does anal) and the stunningly erotic Susan Hart. The production values are average(ish), and a lot of time doesn't appear to have been put into set design, etc. It's a shame, really, that more effort wasn't put into the 'feature' side of the production, as a golden opportunity for a truly great adult film was lost."
The legendary Marc Wallice, an anal fan born as Marc Stephen Goldberg, did a rare gay porn flick under the name Don Webber in 1984, Matt Sterling's "classic" A Matter of Size, "one of the gems from the pre-condom era of gay porn", in which he was on both ends of the fun. (Peter North, as Matt Ramsey, is also found in the movie, but he's all hands-only.) That Wallice plays a victim of drugs in Deep Chill is almost typecasting, for he was an infamous bad boy, if one of formidable reliability: it's claimed that he performed in over 1,700 porn films while active as a working stiff. 
 
 
Dream Lover
(1985, dir. Jim Reynolds)
Not to be confused with Alan J. Pakula's flop thriller of the same name, Dream Lover (trailer below), released the following year, starring an at the time still-closeted Kristy McNichol, of the truly enjoyable Little Darlings (1980 / trailer), the contentious White Dog (1982 / see: Dick Miller, Part VI), and the turgid Two Moon Junction (1988 / see: R.I.P. Zalmon King). 
Trailer to
Alan J. Pakula's Dream Lover:
As normal by this time in his career, Reems does only one sex scene. Nora Louise Kuzma (otherwise known as Traci Lords) also has only one scene in this film; by the time she made this D2V film, the "Princess of Porn" had already been in the business for over a year... But, at 17 years of age, she was still one year underage to legally be in films like this. At least in the United States, her presence has been excised from all legally available versions of her films from her heyday as a porn star (including the video-age classic New Wave Hookers [1984]), with the exception of Traci, I Love You (1987), which was filmed after she became of legal age (18). Her first "mainstream" film of her new non-porn life was the 1988 remake (trailer below) of the 1957 Roger Corman science fiction film Not of This Earth (see Dick Miller, Part I). The remake is not a very good film, and when she isn't pouting in it she's displaying copious flesh — more or less for the last time in her career.
Trailer to
Not of This Earth (1988): 
We don't know whether Dream Lover is available in the US without Lords' scene or whether it was reshot with a new starlet, but reviews or plot descriptions are hard to come by. Which is why we once again turn to Jason S. Martinko's book, The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988: "This is a haunted house story about newlyweds Roger (Harry Reems) and Amy (Pamela Jennings). They're thinking about buying an old mansion and Amy sees all sorts of weird paranormal sex activity while Roger is at work. The former owner even shows up having sex with a girl in a foggy room."
The singular review we could find is at imdb, where arcadiafan seems to have watched an illegal version, possibly at one of the myriad of porn sites that have a version of it online: "Amy (Jennings) and her husband (Reems) move into a house that seems to be filled with ghosts of people having sex every place. She wants to tell the real estate agent about it, but the secretary (Traci Lords) is too busy having sex with Tom Byron on her desk to pay much attention to her troubles. Traci and Tom have only one scene in the movie. She's stuck in one position, hollering a lot, and certainly could use a promotion beyond entry level. Maybe if she got on top of things she could be an office manager!"
A song that appeared in neither Jim Reynolds' nor Alan J. Pakula's Dream Lover (poster above), but which surely would have fit well in either, is of course the classic...
Bobby Darin's
Dream Lover (1958):


Educating Mandy
(1985, dir. Royce Shepard)
A starring vehicle for the not-yet-known-to-be-underage reigning Princess of Porn, Tracy Lords — so keep in mind, should you choose to watch it on one of the myriad of porn sites that have a version of it online, you are breaking the law in more ways than one. (Probably not in Western Europe, though.)

The drawing card for us, in any event, would be the co-starring Christy Canyon, who even in her big hair days (the eighties) was a pleasant sight to see... The photo of Christy above is not from Educating Mandy. 
Christy Canyon talks about
working with Traci Lords!
The title of Educating Mandy, a 10-moneyshot fuck film with only all-natural talent is naturally a play upon the film whence it takes its basic idea of a woman gaining an "education", the 1983 comedy-drama directed by Lewis Gilbert (6 March 1920 – 23 February 2018) entitled Educating Rita (1983 / trailer). That film was Gilbert's follow-up directorial project to Moonraker (1979), the most entertainingly retarded James Bond film ever made. Educating Rita, in any event, which was nominated for three Oscars but won none, came in 84th on the British Film Institute's 1999 list of the top 100 "culturally British" films of the 20th century...
Educating Mandy, in comparison, only got nominated as "Best All-Sex Film" at the AVN, but left dry-handed. 
Let's hear it for Goodhead —
Trailer to Moonraker (1979):
The plot to Educating Mandy, as found in Jason S. Martinko's The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988: "Mandy (Traci Lords) seeks the advice of her bisexual friends (Christy Canyon and Heather Wayne) when she discovers her husband (Harry Reems) is cheating [with his secretary, played by Gina Valentino nee Rosalind Lowe]. She ends up in bed with a lawyer named Jim (Peter North), who has wanted her all his life and will be faithful."
An interesting addendum to the plot description found online: "Women may not like this film, but men will be entranced with the lush bodies of Traci and Christy." Reems does the down and dirty, successfully, with Traci Lords and Gina Valentino. 
Official video to
Traci Lords' Control:

 
Hot Nights at the Blue Note Cafe
(1985, dir. Jerome Tanner)
By 2008, director Jerome Tanner had graduated to deeply political films like Who's Nailin Paylin? (2008). 
The supposed plot of Hot Nights at the Blue Note Cafe, as taken from the back cover of the DVD: "When a young and innocent girl (Kari Foxx nee Karin Callieros) comes to the big city and takes a job as a taxi dancer to pay her tuition, she soon finds her education to be faster and racier than she bargained for. Her boss, played by the legendary Harry Reems, gives all his female employees the sizzling, throbbing bonuses a boss is expected to give. When his ex-partner, played by Jamie Gillis, gets out of prison, he derives a plan to turn the nightclub into more than just a dance hall. The sex-starved ex-con figures he can increase profits by having his sensuous taxi dance girls offer more than a simple dance for money, and our country girls learns about the sexual side of life the hard way... very hard." (Plot description aside, Reems does only one sex scene, with Kathlyn Moore, an actress possibly slightly better known as "Sheer Delight". Kari Foxx, BTW, made her porn film debut in this movie.)
The plot might sound simple on paper, but avn.com says, "The plot is nearly incomprehensible, the settings amateurish. Yet, Hot Nights at the Blue Note Cafe is a sizzling sexvid featuring some kinky couplings that'll knock your socks off. [...] But the potentially interesting storyline is forgotten. Once the director introduces the premise, it's off to the sexual races. And all his performers win, place and show everything. [...] Although the Blue Note Cafe of the title is nothing more than a house decorated inexpensively with tables and tacky lighting, most of the sexplay takes place in a nearby bedroom. [...] Often, Hot Nights at the Blue Note Cafe is quite hot and blue. If that's all you care about in a sexvid, spend an evening with it."
Only one non-white person shows up in Hot Nights at the Blue Note Cafe, and he has a non-sex part: you see him above, lower right, manhandling Nina Hartley. Jack Baker (4 June 1947 — 13 Nov 1994), born John-Anthony Bailey in Cleveland, had a minor non-porn career in films that began un-credited in 1965 in Harlow (1965 / trailer) and pretty much ended in 1982 with Tag: The Assassination Game (1982 / German trailer). He turned to porn, doing both sex and non-sex scenes up until his untimely death from bladder cancer. We don't remember his brief appearance in the Pam Grier vehicle Friday Foster (1975 / trailer), but we'll never forget his appearance in The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977, see Marilyn Joi Part IV). 
Jack Baker in
The Kentucky Fried Movie:
 

Loose Ends
(1985, dir. Bruce Seven [4.06.46 – 15.01.00])
An anally fixated film, as can be perhaps inferred by the title, directed by a man whose film titles almost all reveal an anal fixation. Loose Ends has been followed by endless sequels...
The "plot", as explained on the backcover of a DVD release: "The portrayal of anal rituals found on Loose Ends benefits tremendously from its exertingly talented cast. A frustrated Heather (Janey Robbins), never having had and orgasm, seeks out an old schoolmate Linda (Erica Boyer) for new explorations into the mysterious world of lust beyond love. After an unbelievable performance in anal erotica between the two, Linda further bursts Heather's inhibitions as she leads her into the S&M world of Mistress Ann (Karen Summer). Her domineering expertise by her two slaves (Marc Wallice & Tom Byron), and kinkiest sexplorations by an anal-minded supporting cast, reem Heather into sexual plateaus beyond all expectations."
Despite the claim of "Starring Harry Reems", he has butt one scene [HaHahHa], the second sex scene, an anal scene with Erica Boyer. Rame.net, which calls the flick "the absolute best Bruce Seven film ever", says that "the scene is very romantic and the facial is the only downside". 
 
 
Lucky in Love
(1985, writ & dir. Stuart Canterbury)
Banal titles die hard: not to be confused with, and definitely not inspired by, the 1929 musical Lucky in Love, featuring a lot of long forgotten names, like the movie's romantic leads, Morton Downey ( 14 Nov 1901 — 25 Oct 1985) and Betty Lawford (1 Feb 1912 – 20 Nov 1960). 
Morton Downey sings Love Is a Dreamer,
main tune to Lucky in Love (1929):
The [possible] directorial debut of pornster Stuart Canterbury, contrary to what some people think/claim online, the full title of the movie was once upon a time Lucky in Love — The Seduction of a Nerd. That Seduction of a Nerd (poster below) should not be mistaken with the psychotronic flick from 1970, Seduction of a Nerd, the most recent title bestowed upon a movie a.k.a. Mother, Hot Mother, Up Your Teddy Bear and The Toy Grabbers, the only known directorial project of Don Joslyn.
Plot of the Don Joslyn's non-XXX Seduction of a Nerd: "When the indomitable CEO of the Mother Knows Best Toy Company, Mother (Julie Newmar), sees her sales slipping, she goes to extremes to find the next big toy to save her company. She finds her salvation in nerdy toy designer Clyde King (Wally Cox [6 Dec 1924 – 15 Feb 1973]). With the help of her man-child son (Victor Buono [3 Feb 1938 – 1 Jan 1982] of The Evil [1978 / trailer], Arnold [1973 / trailer]), The Mad Butcher [1971 / trailer] and so much more) Mother tries to lure Clyde to the company with a string of luscious prostitutes, all to no avail. Just as Mother is about to give up hope, she discovers that the hapless nerd is truly in love with her, because she reminds him of his mother! [Troma]"
Trailer to
The Seduction of a Nerd (1970):
By the way, although Quincy Jones generally gets all the credit for the music of that movie, he is actually co-composer with guitarist (& songwriter) Ritchie Francis of the unknown and long-gone Welsh group, The Eyes of Blue, who perform the original soundtrack. We couldn't find the music to The Seduction of a Nerd, but we did find:  
The Eyes of Blue —
Supermarket Full of Cans:
But to return to Stuart Canterbury's (possible) directorial debut, which was enough of a success to lead to a sequel a year later Lucky in Love 2 a.k.a. Happy Go Lucky (1988), which does not feature Reems in the cast but is far easier to find online than the first film. The original poster to Lucky in Love featured Reems (playing the nerd, Ronald), but he only had one sex scene with Leslie Winston. (Trivia: Like Reems, Leslie "Got Milk?" Winston went into real estate after leaving porn.)
The lead stud of the movie, like its sequel, was played by Jerry Butler, whose description of the film in his bio is a succinct: "
Shows 'nerdy' Harry Reems the ropes on how to pick up Nina Hartley and Tracey Adams"). Indeed, for its later DVD release, the selling focus is on Nina "GILF" Hartley, who has two sex scenes.
 
Released the same year as the film –
Mick Jagger's single, Lucky in Love (1985):
The only plot description we could find online focuses on her as well: "To be in love you have to be lucky. Nina Hartley is very lucky." Jason S. Martinko's normally mildly informative XXX Filmography isn't all that much more helpful, though they do tell that the film was filmed in San Francisco and Brittany Stryker does a double penetration scene — selling points indeed, for some.
 
   
Older Men with Young Girls
(1985, dir. Jack Remy)
D2V porn, a.k.a. Older Men with Young Women. Both titles say it all. If anyone's watched it, they haven't written about it online; we would think it nothing more than a compilation of scenes from other movies.
Jason S. Martinko's normally mildly informative XXX Filmography doesn't offer much information of use: "Cast: Bunny Bleu, Joanna Storm, Summer Rose, Tamara Longley, Harry Reems, Jerry Butler (non sex), Nick Random, Tyler Reynolds (as Rusty Zipper). This movie was filmed in Los Angeles, California. The screenplay was written by Valerie Kelly. Cinematography was done by Sabre McKay and film editing was done by Conrad Paul. Original music is performed by Sir Gregg. It's also known as Older Men with Young Women." Assuming it's the same Valerie Kelly, twenty years after this film she was a "wardrobe assistant" for a better movie which, despite its title, isn't porn: 
Trailer to
Boy Eats Girls (2005):
To the meager info above, we might add that Harry Reems has two sex scenes, one with Bunny Bleu and one with Joanna Storm and Summer Rose. Joanna Storm, since retired, has the distinction of having an entire LP dedicated to her: The Sporting Bachelors' 1990 release, Love Letters to Joanna (that's her on the cover).

The Sporting Bachelors'
Cry in the Night (from the album):
Amongst the "old men" is Tyler Reynolds, a.k.a. Rusty Zipper (and: Maurice Tyrone, Aries, Lance Henning, Trish Horne, Roger Wills, Terry Mound, Phil Garde, Pencil Sharp, Edmound Hornsby, Ed Pastram, Lance Stringer, Ty Horn, Edmund Hornsby, Jason Welles, W. Tyler Horn, Y. Tyler Horn, Lance Hemmy, Dirk Southgate, Tyler Horne, Theodore Horne, Jason Wells, Phil Gar and probably more names). For his 1997 spread in Playgirl shown below, he chose the name Tyler Horn.
Prior to disappearing, Tyler Reynolds actually made one or two non-porn exploiters, like the absolutely terrible comedy with the grammatically incorrect title, Hey! There's Naked Bodies on My TV! (1979). 
Clip from
Hey! There's Naked Bodies on My TV!
 

Voyeur's Delight
(1986, dir. Still Unknown)
And this D2V hand-helper is just another perfect example of why we lost interest in doing this career review: the entire video is nothing but archive footage — scenes culled "from some of the 1970s' and 1980s' hottest flicks and [...] filled with plenty of amazing all-natural eye candy", stitched together with the thinnest of plot devices: the purloined vignettes are what a "brunette beauty" voyeur sees when looking through a telescope. Harry has fun, one assumes in an apartment across the way, with Jessica Wylde, Lili Marlene and Sheri St. Clair...
Sheri St. Clair, BTW, also appeared in three of Chuck Vincent's non-X-rated movies, including his totally WTF porn-cast-heavy WIP T&A comedy Slammer Girls (1987), a fact we mention so that we can present... 
Chuck Vincent's Slammer Girls 
in 14 minutes:
Harry & Jessica & Lili & Sheri's scene is taken from the 1985 film Obsession, for which we could find no cover art or poster or any real information, other than what is found in Jason S. Martinko's book The XXX Filmography, 1968-1988, where he writes: "Harry Reems plays a guy who's hit it big and become a millionaire. He invites six of his married high school friends over for a weekend of fun and sex." 
Sounds better than Voyeur's Delight, in any event. Martinko also claims that Obsession was directed by Chad Ariana and Jonathan Ross, while Copyright Encyclopedia claim that the Electric Hollywood video release Obsession was produced by Chad Ariana and directed by Jonathan Ross. (Electric Hollywood also released Voyeur's Delight.) 
Also from 1985, but in no way related to either of these two D2V handhelpers, the New Wave dance tune Obsession, a cover version of a song from the 1983 TV stripper flick A Night in Heaven (Christopher Atkins strips). A song better than either video discussed here. 
Animotion sings
 Obsession (Dance Mix):
As good titles (?) never die, Voyeur's Delight was reused for a softcore TV flick 19 years later: "Yet another softcore film [...] where a few characters sit around talking as a way to introduce sex scenes which are clips from older softcore shows. [imdb]" The main man of that film is Steven "Man Breasts" St. Croix. 
 
 
And this is where we stopped back in 2013/14... But an addendum to the addendums came to be: older films and "maybes" that we missed the first time around but stumbled upon while updating the addendums.... Five films, found here.
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