Watching THE ADVENTURES OF BUSTY BROWN was an adventure in nostalgia for me. I grew up in love with the Hollywood B-movies of the '40s through '60s, often playing on TV in syndication packages or as Saturday afternoon matinées at the local Cedar-Lee Theater back in Cleveland Hts., but little did I suspect a parallel porn world existed.
Barry Mahon has made many subpar story films in his porn career, but somehow in this outing managed to capture a feel for the cheap look and charm of an authentic B, but porn all the way. It's poorly made to be sure, but mighty entertaining on its own terms.
Laurie Dane, obviously a stripper in real life, stars in the title role, a female private eye hired by a Chinese-American businessman to find and rescue his kidnapped daughter Lotus Lee. She's being kept captive by a British nightclub owner named Limey, who wants to force her dad to take him in as a partner in his business.
With some OK action scenes, film is mainly about sex, with several actresses all boasting terrific figures going topless at the drop of a hat. Add in simulated sex scenes and this is pretty hot stuff for 1964! (Poor me, I was getting off as a young teen watching Barbara Eden sweat in the G-rated-level Harryhausen fantasy 7 FACES OF DR. LAO at the time BUSTY BROWN was probably playing at our "forbidden" Standard Theater in downtown Cleveland.) Amongst the beauties is Sue Evans, in a brief scene, while the other girls are all impressive if anonymous. Line readings, especially by the slimy actor playing Limey, are flat as a pancake, but somehow this nonsense is diverting escapism on the level of a Monogram '50s movie (no insult intended).
Something Weird has issued the movie on video in two versions: a 35-minute featurette excerpt as a freebie on one of its special edition two-fer DVDs, and in a 49-minute version as a standalone DVD-R. I'm reviewing the latter, which is frustrating to watch since it has suffered many cuts, including missing sex & nudity footage and noticeably an entire fight sequence (shots of which are preserved in the trailer) where the nightclub's Oriental piano player uses martial arts to subdue several hapless villains.
