Unlike most of the recent Tobalina releases, Sensual Fire features no lengthy orgy scenes. It’s even edited in an order that makes sense, with events happening in coherent, chronological order, and without too many repeated ad-libbed lines! Tobalina himself makes an appearance in Sensual Fire as a priest (seriously) who suggests that Roy should visit Madame Rose again when his lust for Teena returns. The priest also figures out that Roy is obsessed with the girl because she looks like a girl he had a crush on in high school but never had sex with. Despite Madame Rose providing Roy with an exact double of Teena (the double also played by LeMay), Roy finds his desires unsatisfied and comes up with a plan to fix the problem for good. The film ends with a predictable punch line that Gillis tries like hell to sell, but which still falls flat due to its forehead-slapping obviousness.
The second January Tobalina double feature opens with the flatly reprehensible Sexual Heights. A series of title cards informs us that San Francisco is home to more divorced men than any other city on Earth, and then we visit the home of four divorced men living together. These four men are Ron (Jamie Gillis), Joe (Herschel Savage), Jim (Jesse Adams) and Art (Michael Morrison), and as the film joins them they’re settling in for an evening of standing around their bar watching porno movies obtained by Joe and calling each other the horniest guy in each man’s chosen profession, presumably so the audience will have some way of differentiating them other than their hair color and the fact that Joe wears glasses. Sure beats writing characters! While watching one of the videos, Joe is reminded of the babysitter Laurie (Tawny Pearl) who “ruined his marriage,” and then tells the story of how that happened, which is that Joe tried to rape the teenage girl and his wife walked in on the act. Obviously, the other three guys all agree that the divorce was clearly Laurie’s fault.
This story gives Ron an idea for the evening’s entertainment. The four men will dress up as a husband, wife, chauffeur and maid, and call up Laurie to come “babysit” at their house. Laurie will ingest any number of doped food and drinks and smoke some marijuana-laced cigarettes that they’ve left around the house, and they’ll “get back at her” for ruining Joe’s marriage. This being a Tobalina film, Laurie walks right into the plot and happily has sex with three of the guys (Joe, fearing being caught, hangs back), then calls over three of her friends to join them all for an orgy. Surprise! A Tobalina movie featuring an orgy, and two female characters in it are supposedly sisters. Meanwhile, across town John (John Holmes, maybe playing himself?) has completely unrelated but refreshingly consensual sex with Amy (Mai Lin) as horribly embarrassing “oriental” music plays on the soundtrack. Eventually, Joe is unmasked/unwigged at the orgy, and it turns out Laurie was in love with him the whole time! Cue racist maid joke, and credits. Sexual Heights packs a lot of incredibly offensive material into 90 minutes.
Finally, Undulations shows the audience a broadcast of a public broadcasting show called “Undulations,” hosted by May Lin (er, Mai Lin), Georgia Drugg (Suzanne French), and Maggie Miller (Kitty Shayne). The show is mostly made up of the women talking about sex, which is handy since their guests are Jamie Gillis and John Holmes. There is also some footage of a gay pride parade, but gay rights are quickly dismissed as not being as important as some other junk these women want to talk about. Which is just more sex. Undulations is a completely plotless string of sex scenes, barely connected with footage of the “show” and padded with some pointless shots of a man and a woman in their respective homes watching the show and presumably becoming aroused. The film expects us to guess this because they make faces that look vaguely surprised and just this side of “not asleep” every so often. Hilariously, Undulations ends with a freeze-frame of the woman getting up and walking out of her room stopped at what looks like a totally arbitrary point, and then the credits roll.
Compared to the other filmmakers whose work Vinegar Syndrome has released, Tobalina’s is easily the weakest from a technical standpoint. More often than not, Tobalina seemed content to hire a bunch of people to have sex in front of a camera, while he took tons of footage and later assembled films out of it hodgepodge with unrelated footage shot later. Regardless, Vinegar Syndrome gives his films the same respectful and careful restoration they give all others, and these discs are no exception. All four films have been restored from their original 35mm camera negatives and feature theatrical trailers for both films on each disc. While it is obviously a part of Vinegar Syndrome’s mission to save these films for posterity, Tobalina’s films are consistently the least cinematically interesting films in their lineup. Diehard Tobalina fans and fans of the actors included in these releases will want to add these discs to their collections, but anyone else will be fine giving them a pass.
Tropic of Desire (1979) and Fantasyworld (1979)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 29 August 2014
One of the highlights of Vinegar Syndrome’s Peekarama line of adult double features so far was their first Bob Chinn release (Sadie and The Seductress). That release served as a great introduction to the type of adult films in which Chinn specialized: story and character driven, with much higher production values than many of his contemporaries. This also served as a great introduction to the types of 70s adult films many viewers may have only been familiar with through Boogie Nights. Vinegar Syndrome has returned with another double feature of Chinn’s films, and fans of Chinn and the previous release will find a lot to like here
First up is Tropic of Desire, which is tonally somewhat similar to Sadie and was produced by Gail Palmer (whose “Candy” films were also released on a Peekarama disc). Frances (Georgina Spelvin) runs a brothel in Hawaii, catering to servicemen from all over the world. Tropic of Desire takes place during the last few days of WWII, when three Navy men on a weekend pass visit Frances’s place. Gus (Ken Scudder) is heartbroken to find his favorite girl Rita (Kitty Shayne) has left the house after her fiancée died in the War. Phil (Blair Harris) is an extremely nervous virgin whose friend Jack (Jon Martin) has decided he needs to have his first time with one of Frances’s girls (Starr Wood). Jack uses his time to reconnect with Donna (Jesie St. James), and although he warned Gus about being too attached to any of the girls, it’s clear he hasn’t taken his own advice. Meanwhile, Frances “auditions” a new girl (Dorothy LeMay) and Gus befriends an English pilot named Malcolm (James Price) who was also in love with Rita.
There’s not much of a story in Tropic of Desire, instead it presents more of a “slice of life” approach to depicting its characters in the waning days of WWII. Chinn is obviously interested in giving the viewer more than simple titillation, although he clearly understands his audience: the film opens with a lengthy sex scene featuring Rita before moving into a stretch of dramatic, emotional territory as Rita learns of her fiancée’s death. Kitty Shayne and Georgina Spelvin are particularly very good, and the simple but effective production design evokes the era without being too fussy. In one particularly interesting period detail, Gus and Malcolm watch a black & white stag reel with two of the girls that features some more, say, “adventurous” action than what takes place in the rest of the film. Tropic of Desire occupies an odd space where nostalgia for the perceived innocence of the 1940s meets the style of 70s adult cinema, and while it may not be as conventionally dramatically satisfying as Sadie, it is a better melding of that nostalgic, romantic style and hardcore.
Changing gears completely, Fantasyworld plays almost like a heterosexual, less abstract version of Wakefield Poole’s Bijou (also released this year by Vinegar Syndrome in a fantastic special edition). Co-directed by screenwriter Jeffrey Fairbanks (who also wrote Tropic of Desire), Fantasyworld follows two groups of visitors to San Francisco looking for something unusual on their night out: three Navy guys on a weekend pass (Chinn clearly reused the Navy boat set from Tropic of Desire for their intro scene) and three female phone switchboard operators from Dayton, Ohio (which seems oddly specific). Both groups end up at a hidden club called Fantasy World, where they expect live s
ex shows but get a lot more. After emcee Nigel (James Price, with a slightly more convincing British accent than the one he used in Tropic of Desire) introduces a performance by a young woman (Liz Eldridge) doing some highly inappropriate things with a snake meant to tell the story of the fall of Eve in the Garden of Eden, he starts looking for audience members to send off on their ultimate fantasy.
Well, more or less. Nancy (Jesie St. James) gets three men in black body stockings with the crotches cut out. Sloan (Jon Martin) gets a, um, “Japanese girl” (the spectacularly caucasian Starr Wood in a kimono). Chrissie (Laurien Dominique) stumbles upon a man (Paul Thomas) playing piano and singing a song about “if wishes were horses,” which she claims is “the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard!” Cal (Jesse Adams) is whisked away to a room that looks like it’s supposed to be a beach for a threesome with his wife Audrey (Valerie Darlyn) and another woman. Ellen (Sharon Kane) and Frank (Michael Morrison) sort of end up with each other by default after all their friends disappear, but they seem to be having a good enough time together. Whether all this is real or illusion or what exactly the hell is going on is never really addressed, but Nigel seems to mean well and the club only sort of looks like an endless black void, so that probably counts as a happy ending.
Both films were scanned in 2K from the original 35mm camera negatives, par for the course for Vinegar Syndrome. The films both look great, and the disc includes trailers for both features. Anyone looking for a good introduction to Bob Chinn, 70s adult cinema, and/or the Peekarama line would probably find this a great starting point.
The Ultimate Pleasure (1977) and I Am Always Ready (1978)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 22 August 2014
One of Vinegar Syndrome’s July slate of Peekarama releases was a double feature of films starring John Holmes, one showing him in comic mode and one in “Johnny Wadd” mode. In August, Vinegar Syndrome has released another double feature of films in which Holmes appears, but this time he’s not exactly in the spotlight. These two films were directed by Carlos Tobalina, seemingly a favorite of the VS crew, who have released a few of his other films on standalone discs (Jungle Blue, Marilyn and the Senator). How do they stack up to the weirdness of those standalone releases?
Well, The Ultimate Pleasure is easily the more interesting of the two films here. Cab driver Jim (Jeff Lyle, credited as “Peter Ace”) and his wife Rose (Kristine Heller, as “Priscilla St. James”) are having trouble with their relationship. Whenever Jim wants sex, Rose is too tired, or has some other excuse. After Jim picks up a fare who appears to be a bank robber, Jim calls an ambulance for the guy and ends up with a briefcase full of money. At this point, things get hazy: Jim gets fired, but whether her uses the money to go to Vegas and have sex with a bunch of women or spends it so he and Rose can enter experimental sex therapy (or both?) is a little unclear. In any case, Jim ends up in Vegas, where he has sex with a bunch of women including Annette Haven and Candida Royalle, while Rose ends up in therapy with Dr. Sharpe (Nina Fause) and Dr. Ruiz (Paul Thomas), before they leave the therapists’ office together at the end of the film with Dr. Ruiz’s bleak prognosis: “They don’t stand a fucking chance.”
The Ultimate Pleasure is packed with group sex scenes, which seem to be a particular interest of Tobalina’s. Before the opening credits even roll, there’s a scene with four women and two guys (including John Holmes) having an orgy in front of a projection screen showing films of someone walking around a city filming people on the sidewalk. Dr. Sharpe’s hypnosis therapy to help Rose enjoy sex includes putting Rose in a sexual situation with six guys at one point and another with four other women and one man. The “ultimate pleasure” referred to in the title appears to be sex with a loving partner if one goes by Dr. Sharpe and Dr. Ruiz’s dialogue, but one-on-one sex is barely represented in the film. Paul Thomas is a relentless downer as “Dr. Ruiz,” explaining how people look for pleasure in the wrong places: “Any fucking punk can buy a pack of cigarettes!” The editing of the film is seriously confusing, which was a similar issue in Jungle Blue, although whether that is intentional or just inept is up for debate.
I Am Always Ready seems to suggest the latter. Opening with a quick-cut montage of Ronie Ross getting a large inheritance and deciding to spend the money on a porn movie shoot, the film has virtually no storyline at all. It follows Ronie and her crew as they shoot scenes and audition “actors” for her movie—although unsurprisingly, she immediately casts John Holmes!—with Ronie usually getting too turned on to stay out of the action in front of the camera. Once again, Tobalina’s predilection for group sex is on display, culminating in the film’s lengthy climax, a 14-person marathon orgy that seems to last about half the film’s running time. There’s a running joke about how camera operators are perverts (which is where the film’s title comes from), but otherwise this is barely more than a series of sex scenes strung together with a dental floss-thin “story.” Further, the editing once again seems weirdly inept. During one scene, Ronie asks the cameraman “Did you get that cum shot?” before the cum shot has actually happened. “I always get the cum shot,” replies the cameraman. About 30 seconds later, there’s a cum shot.
Maybe it’s expecting too much to think that events in a porn film should happen in actual chronological order, but Vinegar Syndrome has already released numerous technically competent films that fall into the same category of “adult entertainment.” Where the confusing structure of The Ultimate Pleasure can be chalked up to the idea that it’s supposed to be a sort of fractured reflection of the way the characters react to their experimental sex therapy, similar issues in I Am Always Ready just seem like laziness or ineptitude. This also makes the opening title card from I Am Always Ready feel like Tobalina being defensive: “Adult films are legal unless proven without redeeming social values which this film does have according to stipulations by the United States Supreme Court.” The audience is left to puzzle out exactly what “redeeming social values” the film might have on its own.
As per usual, the audiovisual presentation of the films is excellent. Vinegar Syndrome restored the films in 2K from the original camera negatives, and they look fantastic. The disc also includes the trailers for both films, which is always welcome. There’s not much here for the interest of casual film fans, but if you’re a ‘70s adult-film obsessive or a fan of the kind of group sex Tobalina seems to specialize in here, this is probably a must-have. Anyone looking for a good introduction to ‘70s American porn films would be better off with one of the other Peekarama discs with more story-oriented features.
The Undergraduate (1971) and The Young Marrieds (1972)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 9 September 2014
Alpha Blue Archives has resurrected the final films of Ed Wood, and we’ve taken a look at their Necromania disc previously. As pointed out in that review, Wood’s final years as a filmmaker were spent writing and directing adult films, some previously assumed to be lost. Alpha Blue has released these four films paired with extra films from the starlets who arguably make the biggest impression in each film, cramming over three hours of content onto each disc. The latest two are The Undergraduate (written by Wood but directed by Ron Black) and The Young Marrieds (written and directed by Wood), along with films of Suzanne Fields and Alice Friedland (respectively).
The Undergraduate opens with a weird montage of static title cards printed on seemingly random images: a guy on snow skis, an ancient tile mosaic, police arresting someone, etc. A voiceover informs us that we are about to learn all about sex in a frank discussion of the many facets of sexuality. What follows is a spectacularly boring “sex education” film in which a group of students take an essay test in a college Sex Ed class. After a brief introduction to the characters, we watch as they ponder their answers and then watch them acting out the sex acts they write about. Almost every sex scene is scored with bland library music and features the character droning on about what’s happening on-screen (usually some pretty bori
ng sex). Only a scene featuring Suzanne Fields appears to have any “live” audio, with Fields giving her partner directions on how to best please her. Otherwise, get ready to thrill to footage of a model squirting spermicide into her vagina while her voiceover explains the pros and cons of different types of birth control.
The professor gives the students 30 minutes to complete their test, which seem to pass entirely in real time. At around the 42 minute mark, he has them all pass in their tests and discusses the merits of Penthouse and Screw. He then shows the class a stag film about a threesome while talking about the current state of the stag film industry. When the stag reel ends, he gives the students a brief “drugs are bad” speech, opens the floor for questions, and dismisses the class early (nobody had any questions). Sorry for the spoilers, folks, but that’s literally everything that happens in the movie. It may come as no surprise that producer John Flanders (who is actually credited as producer and director in the opening credits) only produced one other film: The Postgraduate Course on Sexual Love. It’s worth reprinting the IMDB plot description from that film in full here: “A professor in a sex-education class gives his students a lecture on sexual practices, which are then demonstrated on screen.”
Alpha Blue has transferred an old Beta copy of The Undergraduate for this disc, and it looks like it was just directly transferred without any kind of cleanup or color work. The same goes for the other three Suzanne Fields films collected on this disc: Ward Sex (a 40-minute fragment of a feature film about horny nurses who sleep with all their male patients), The Young Model (in which a lothario photographer is hypnotized by one of his models while a cheap cover of “Age of Aquarius” plays on the soundtrack), and Sex Spa (the only other film on the disc with an opening title card; a young woman goes on a special sex regimen to lose weight while a genuinely hilarious Moog cover of “Life Goes On” by the Beatles plays) are all transferred from 16mm prints. Adult film fans who have been spoiled by Vinegar Syndrome’s treatment of their films might find the presentation here a little tough to take. These releases are certainly a case of quantity over quality for the most part (the disc also includes a trailer for Ward Sex, also clearly taken from a VHS or Beta tape, that shows a lot of footage not included in the 40 minutes of the film on the disc).
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 90