Long before the Coen Bros. made shaggy-dog movies respectable, the Kerwin Bros. cranked out MY THIRD WIFE, GEORGE, an idiotic porno film that is intentionally insulting. I like to think the Coens (who I met several years before BLOOD SIMPLE when they were merely wannabe scriptwriters) are more sincere.
Film literally unfolds in the form of a boring tale told by a drunk to the bartender and a creep after hours in a seedy bar. That's a strong hint as to what's going on in the scripting department. It's an MOS shoot, with the dialog track recorded in the iterative bar scene, and the "hero" (Bill Kerwin) doing dumb narration for the flashback scenes.
He's no Steve Carrell, but his character Ralph Higbee is a 40-year-old virgin (yes, Virginia, there are no original movie ideas out there, no how). He lives with his mom and gets off peeping after hours as their sexy ethnic maid (played by "Regina Koo") masturbates. (Koo reappears in the Kerwins' next stinker SWEET BIRD OF AQUARIUS.) After his mom's death, Ralph gets it on with a trio of hippie girls who naturally turn him on to marijuana & LSD in a silly sequence.
Film's overall sloppiness (3 Kerwins share the blame, director, writer and actor/narrator) becomes apparent, as Bill pronounces "kookier" as Cookie-er in his voice-over, and then proceeds to call the bustiest of the hippies "Bunny" over & over, when in fact her character is clearly credited as being named Polly, PLAYED by real-life stripper Bunny Ware.
Ralph bores his barroom comrades with an exceedingly dull tale of three wives. First up is a buxom housekeeper he hires named Josephine, later becoming wife #1. She insists on getting a pet ape, that looks like a man in a gorilla suit. Sure enough, it IS a man in a gorilla suit, so her cheating on Ralph with him turns out not to be bestiality but just a dumb ruse, leading to divorce.
Wife #2 Amanda Culpepper is never shown (a big hole in the script), but we're told turns out to be a schemer, hiring detectives (including Nudist Camp movie veteran Gene Berk) to frame Ralph in flagrante delicto raping a young virgin (sounds stupid and it is). Problem for the filmmakers: this girl, though short, has big tits and doesn't look virginal in the slightest.
Of third wife #3 Georgie, Ralph notes to the barflies: "she's different". Finally thrown out of the bar by a way-too-patient bartender, we're treated to some bad dubbing as Ralph & his bar-buddy hit the street. There ensues a "tragic" surprise climax and a most unfunny, punch line finale. Cue the applause, not in approval but in giving thanks that this farrago has finally ended.
This is poor filmmaking of the lowest order, lacking the dynamite presence of Ann Howe who breathed life (from her magnificent lungs) into the Kerwins' debut effort STRANGE RAMPAGE. In an undistinguished career they made one halfway-decent movie, GOD'S BLOODY ACRE, after teaming up with the still unheralded, but earnest, actor-producer Wayne Crawford. If his JAKE SPEED had been a big hit maybe Crawford would be cranking out crappy comedies, over-the-hill sci-fi and "message" films in his old age in place of tired, grumpy old Harrison Ford.
