Neil Wexler's "teleplay" for "On the Loose" is a wonderful launch pad for a satisfying romantic "Couples" video from the filmmaking team of Ron Sullivan/Henri Pachard and Paul Thomas, latter as producer and guest star. This is one of the better features I've seen lately dating from the VHS era, between modern porn and the Golden Era of theatrical films.
Heavy on Neil's clever dialog, it unfolds like a TV soap opera, and would probably not fit into what current audiences enjoy. The sex scenes are brief, and the first and final sex sequences do not even feature a money shot. But the familiar actors create engaging, believably "real" characters, and the women are sexier than today's over-worked starlets.
Wexler is studying interpersonal relationships in a way that has enough sophistication to serve as a mainstream film script. Four central characters, comprising two couples who are best friends, are better than your usual 1-dimensional sitcom protagonists. Shanna McCullough and Tom Byron are a couple that's just broken up, with best buddy Jon Martin attributing this to Shanna's artist milieu: he disparages her artsy friends as well as her penchant for foreign-films. Jon's lover Nina Hartley is a relieving spirit, not unlike her later polyamorous real- life persona, and Wexler's wit is evident in Jon & Nina's opening scene of bickering in which he accuses her: "You have fantasies about Margaret Thatcher, you're so horny".
Clever in-jokes, which have hardly dated at all 3 decades later, continue with her describing her new lover (a lounge singer named Johnny Rome played by Paul Thomas): "He's like a post-modern Tony Bennett; I always wanted Tony Bennett in my fantasies and now I have him, sort of".
Voice-over phone calls indicate Byron & Shanna might get back together someday - the inevitable conclusion of this or any other rom-com, and Tom find solace with his regular hooker, the divine Krista Lane who earns top billing for her supporting role. She is quite empathetic as a pro who is afraid of committing to any real relationship.
Shanna meanwhile makes love to Martin, and then beds down with Nina as well in a hot lesbian scene. The boys, Jon and Tom, pick up two lovelies at a bar and hump them. Jessica Wylde, paired with Tom, upstages Krista by revealing perfect nipple cones even more alluring than Krista's famed moneymakers, and her sensual blow job of Byron is a show-stopper.
The other girl, Nikki Knights, is more shy in her lovemaking with Martin, until Nina arrives to make it a threesome.
More fun in-joking, as when Byron quotes from "The Godfather Part II" in setting up role-playing where he treats Wylde as "The Godmother" leads to a satisfying conclusion. Only serious flaw is when Jon & Tom are chatting about Julie, the Nina Hartley character, only to have Shanna arrive and Jon call her "Julie", when he meant her character's name Kelly. Pachard uses lengthy takes for the dialog scenes, so this blatant flub was left in the final print.
