"Pin Up" is so obscure that I had to add it this week to IMDb's listings, 17 years after release. Not sure why, as it was produced by the label's leading filmmaker Paul Thomas, the direction entrusted to his minor crew member Guillermo Brown.
Gist of the uncredited screenplay is a search for one's birth mother, conducted by contract star Devon, who is a cheesecake model who discovers she has a remarkable resemblance to a 1940s pin-up model seen in a photograph. An adopted child, her search for her true provenance is an interesting one, peppered with flashbacks that evoke the styles and morays of previous eras, notably the '50s and '60s.
Devon gets to play a dual role as current model Janet and her grandmother Iris. The missing mom is a busty and sexy Adajja, one of porn's forgotten beauties, while a key role is played by Nicole Sheridan as a campy figure from the past. Shot in 2001, "Pin Up" offers us a look at what Nicole looked like before she had the nose job that resulted in her familiar "pointy noise" feature, quite a contrast to this original schnozzola. Her name is oddly spelled in the credits as "Sheredan".
Voodoo, Nicole's husband, has a featured role as a stag film producer, and he too is mistreated by the titles department, credited as Vodoo.
One problem with the video, which deserves future research, is the use of subliminal messaging, a form of advertising I thought was rendered illegal years before this show was issued. (A quick Google search indicates it was never made illegal, unfortunately.) Several times during the video a legend is briefly projected on screen during a scene, stating things like "VIvid Rocks" or "Vivid Rules', a sort of hip approach to the "Drink Pepsi" type subliminal messages of old. I suppose this merely adds to the nostalgia value of the forgotten "Pin Up".
