The Double Exposure of Holly

Here is a rarity - an X-rated production whose main point of interest is a middle-aged man who only appears to take his shirt off! He is writer, producer and co-star Ronan O'Casey, perhaps best known on this side of the pond for his regular appearances on the ITV fifties family comedy THE LARKINS and its big-screen spin-off INN FOR TROUBLE. It was not usual for a mainstream performer to be as openly involved in a porn production though several were surreptitiously. It was directed, albeit without much distinction, by Bob Gill, a renowned graphic designer whom had designed the Beatles first album cover for Apple records, and was filmed at a time when there was talk of porn crossovers, but this was about as close as it came.

O'Casey plays a New York lawyer, the latest discarded lover of the married treacherous, icy beauty Holly (the stunning Catherine Burgess). He decides to get even with a spot of blackmail and engages a gangster to covertly film and record Holly and her new lover at her hotel lovenest. A subplot involves the gangster's abused girlfriend (Terri Hall) and her drug problem.

It reaches the level of a very low budget B picture, having a coherent plot with O'Casey providing a clever twist ending, and there's a haunting jazz score from Stan Free. Though ultimately, despite an appearance from the adorable Annie Sprinkle, who appears in a erotic threesome with Nancy Dare and Jamie Gillis and is the only amiable character - how could she be otherwise - it's all rather downbeat and unlikely to appeal to many bar those interested in the period