Director Chuck Vincent's theatre background pays off in his classic comedy "MisBehavin"', a cleverly designed throwback to any number of 1930s film romantic comedies. It's a chance to see not a parody but rather a parallel-world of what Hollywood Golden Age filmmaking might have looked like uncensored.
Bill Slobodian's cracker-jack screenplay is depicted with a flourish by Vincent with no sex at all in the first 12 mnutes -instead it's non-stop one-liners and double entendres as the ensemble cast of over two dozen players demonstrate genuine acting skill and comic timing on a lovely location setting on the shores of a lake, while oddly enough (it works) a hard rock band plays fo create a party atmosphere.
A pair playing Angel versus Devil (either role could go today to Nathan Lane), add a fantay touch as they make a bet on getting the soul of star Rita Lawrnec, played perfectly by an ebullient Lesllie Bovee in a glamorous comedy performance. Running gags inlcude forlorn Latin Lover Carlos constantly atempting suicide; Gloria Leonard as matchmaker for Rita working on her 13th marriage (Lesllie's a dominatrix is quickie flashbacks) tricking her husbands into divorces that favor her financially.
Memorable setpieces include Jack Wrangler as pure sex symbol playing the maitre d' at a formal dress restaurant (shot in a demonstration of Porno Chic at Greenwich Village's great romantic One if By Land, Two if By Sea, now 113 years old), seducing Rita in the kitchen; a lavish disco party of group sex set at a baths, capturing the 1970s public sex spirit, with deep-throating by a large cast; and a delicious running slapstick performance by Molly Malone as a former mother-in-law of Rita's out to murder our heroine for having exacted a $5,000 a month in perpetuity alimony settlement with her son, injected for occasional black humor..
Film turns smoothly into an old-fashioned romance when Rita meets Steve (Eric Edwards) and has to choose between true love versus a fortune by marrying a comical old geezer matched for her by Gloria. We're back at the lake location for a carefree holiday atmosphere, exemplifying impressive production values one does not associate with the Adult genre.
Climax has Bovee dynamically entertaining three lovers at dinner in a drawing room comedy fashion, shuttling room to room, juggling the three guys separately, including well-cast Sonny Landham as a stud gift from Gloria, who's been humping him as her boy-toy throughout the movie. It's all resolved with an explicit tribute to old Hollywood, "Heaven Can Wait" (not Beatty's movie that opened the same year as "MisBehavin'", but Lubitsch's 1943 hit, of course).
Film holds up quite well 45 years later, playing like a real movie, but one with explicit sex fully integrated into the narrative. It presaged Chuck going full-bore into crossover cinema with "Roommates" and "In Love" just a few years later, but no one followed in his footsteps.
