Living Venus

Cheap sexploitation, wallowing in its sleaze and punctuated by several not very relevant naked-lady sequences, this below-B epic has opportunist William Kerwin leaving his gig at a respectable wedding magazine to found a Playboy-like sex rag, aided by ace photographer Harvey Korman (!), and turning waitress Danica D'Hondt into a supermodel, who also turns improbably into a hopeless alcoholic when Kerwin rejects her. The main mystery in Gordon's and David Friedman's screenplay is what she, or his weepy prior fiancee, or anybody would see in him: He's ambitious, uncaring, shallow, and impatient, with a catchphrase of snapping his fingers and exhorting, "I guarantee it!" He also has a faithful secretary, Janette Leahy, who goes through over a bottle of scotch a day, which is supposed to be funny. Kerwin can't bring this rotter any charm, but Korman amiably plays an amiable shlub, and D'Hondt, despite her character's impossible character arc, is actually touching. Sleazy as it is, Lewis got sleazier, Still, as an indicator of what dirty old men and lewd young schoolboys thought was hot 60 years ago, it's interesting.