Reissued on Vol. 41 of Something Weird's Dragon Art Theatre series, DIAL "P" FOR PLEASURE is a ho-hum fetish film for the fringe porn audience. Only surprise was odd opening credits (usually there are none at all), with one guy credited as producer/director, and another bloke as writer/director. They should have flipped for the honors.

Susan Wong (get the play/movie reference, yuk yuk?) stars as a Dragon Lady running a kinky brothel, ably assisted by Sharon Mitchell, dominatrix par excellence and Wong's jealous lover. This is before her billing was elevated to Miss Sharon Mitchell, so I guess her proper credit here should have been Mistress Sharon Mitchell.

Very sloppily made and patched together (2 directors are not necessarily better than one) the film is just a series of would-be kinky sex scenes, appreciated as with all porn if the fetishes and the performers happen to match one's own particular tastes. Perhaps a guilty conscience caused the pornmakers to throw in an actual plot for just the final reel - and it is so hurriedly developed and clunkily resolved that I half expected Charles Ludlam to show up impersonating John Cleese and arrest every one for violating logic, the way those Monty Python sketches would sometimes end.

The editing scheme here is to balance dollops of light bondage/s&m with straight sex, sort of an equal time approach for distinct audience segments. The ubiquitous porn supporting actor Dave Ruby puts up with a lot of abuse from the dominant gals, but it is interesting to note that his howls of pain are fairly laughable when Wong gives him such tender love bites, slaps, or rakes on his back with her long fingernails. This is harmless porn.

John Black, hired more for his package than acting chops, does go a bit over the line in his abuse of Rosy King, who portrays a hooker named Sharon who turns out to be an important character in the final reel. Perhaps this accounts for King being a one-shot porn thesp; she probably had that "eureka!" moment of self-realization during the shoot, wondering if this line of work (porn, not hooking) is really worth it.

Of course, pretend abuse of one's fellow human beings is why these films were made -giving introverted sadists a chance for masturbatory release instead of (hopefully) acting out their morbid fantasies. Why there was such a vast quantity of these perverse films cranked out during the '70s (as duly documented by so many indie video companies) remains a mystery, but then again, the G-rated (and animated) feature film was an endangered species throughout the '70s too.

Pirated music this time relies plenty on all-time jazz greats Jimmy Smith and Miles Davis's 1960s recordings, and it's a welcome relief from the unappetizing visuals. With long hair at this point, Mitchell is quite flatteringly styled, though her dramatic outbursts are laughably bad.

Final reel has Zebedy Colt, looking prematurely aged, stomping into the film and literally dominating the women with his stentorian dialog delivery, decrying the "youth culture of today", and not letting Wong or Mitchell get in a word edgewise. He's searching for daughter Sharon and is mightily angry when he finds her hooking on Wong's premises. Violent finale is stupid, preposterous and of course, insulting to the audience.