Karen and the Carpenter

I suppose the title was the be-all and end-all of this pointless attempt at soft-core pornography, though the short running time of the Something Weird DVD edition implies there might have been a XXX version at one time. It is certainly not worth the efforts of latter-day porn archivists to try and track down a more complete or better print.

There is no carpenter in the film, an indication of how lame it is, titled as a play on moniker of the singer Karen Carpenter. Merely Karen, introduced with kindly Bob fixing her car and invited over for a drink as thanks. Resulting set of humping scenes is as generic as humanly possible, though androids or robots going through the motions of intercourse would probably have been equally mechanical (I suspect Cylons from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA would have been far more interesting to watch since they, like Avis Rent-a-Car, have to try harder).

Linda York and Chesley in the lead roles are unimpressive here.

Porn fans may appreciate the appearance of Alice Friedland as Ann, who visits Karen as a friend of Karen's' girl friend Chris (unidentified actress), as she gets to do AC/DC action but is not flatteringly photographed in one of her lesser assignments.

Whether having sex on a bed or on the couch, nothing much happens here, and the telltale appearance of dirty feet during the sex act in the first reel told me all I needed to know about KAREN's inherent lack of quality.

The idiotic dialog is not crummy enough to keep one awake but does occasionally reach new lows, as when Bob refers verbally to a woman's leather boots pronouncing the word "boats", or the final exchange of "I wasn't ready" and "There'll be others", certainly words to live by in a porn context.