Change Your Image
monsters from the id
Reviews
Masseuse 3 (1998)
Rubbed The Wrong Way
Moviemakers love franchise titles. As convenient shorthand for the viewer, they guarantee a built-in audience. And while mainstream releases usually require some continuity of plot or cast (impossible to imagine `Scream 2' without the survivors from `Scream' and ditto for `Scream 3'), late-night cable audiences are not quite so demanding. There's also an unwillingness to consign a splendid title to one-time use. Who could resist the lure of `Confessions of a Lap Dancer', even if the movie itself was a real stinker?
In `Masseuse 3', we have Landon Hall, ported in from the previous title in the series, playing a Madame providing massage therapy to LA's finest. The problem is that most of the rest of this movie also seems beamed aboard. The early scenes follow a stock two-shot format: strip shows spliced together with reaction shots. The womens' performances run the gamut from banal to inspired but the reaction shots all routinely picture the mutation of Hollywood hunk to lust-crazed goober. Our hero's eyes bulge and his mouth forms a huge cartoon `O', until he looks like a giant tanned carp. There's such a disconnected feel to the format that at one point I checked the wallpaper of the two shots to see if they were the same. An Oscar to the Continuity Department for making sure that the backgrounds match.
We even have some posthumous performances since our hero, fatally shot in mid-movie, tapes his massage sessions for posterity. There's a hot tub session with an enthusiastic redhead who bumps her head against the edge of the pool but gamely humps on. The voluptuous Annette Burger also makes an appearance, providing the only genuinely erotic moments of the movie. These tapes are supposed to be a source of clues for the ensuing homicide investigation but they probably work best to fuel the carnal impulses of the investigating detective and Landon.
Landon's stable is a veritable portfolio of favorites. Taylor St. Claire, fetching in black, has an appealing private dance, although it ends abruptly and inexplicably when she goes topless. Julie Strain breezes in from her duties as reigning Heavy Metal Amazon for one of her trademark sessions. And Shanna McCullough, in a rare crossover performance, looks tanned, trim, and terrific at forty.
Think of it simply as a mediocre art gallery. Some pretty pictures but not much in the way of inspiration. But even with this disappointing installment of the franchise, we're still lining up for `Masseuse 4'. Reminds us of something Samuel Johnson once said about the triumph of hope over experience.
I'm Watching You (1997)
It Ain't Bird-Watching
In a moody and noir-like story of love and murder, we follow the sexual education of a young innocent plunged into the Bohemian world of artists' lofts. Sounds like the company line, eh? Actually what we have in "I'm Watching You" is a well-paced "erotic thriller" with a fine balance of nudity and plot, an attractive cast, and an evocative sound-track
The lively and uninhibited Jacqueline Lovell plays the painter's model, Alisha, who never misses an opportunity to shimmy out of her dress or join in an energetic romp with the handsome young artist. With Alisha as her role model and guide, and through the urging of a stranger on the phone, Laura evolves from innocent girl to wanton woman (even if she has to struggle with lines like "I guess it was the way I was raised. Pleasure is evil.it's a sin.." to emphasize her innocence) And we become watchers too, watching Laura as she indulges in a bit of exhibitionism at the window of her loft and finally progresses to masturbating while the mysterious stranger listens on the phone.
And fortunately, because this movie follows the unwritten rules of "erotic thrillers", the next stage of Laura's sexual education is a girls' night out, complete with lingerie modeling, dancing, and finally the seduction of Laura by Alisha
We also have two very torrid scenes with the manipulative wife of the artist (played by Vanessa Blair) and her infidelity with the artist's agent, with some mild S & M moments making the mercury rise in Laura's thermometer as she watches from her window.
All of which leads me to the innocent heroine, played by Lori Dawn. The IMDB lists only one other film, also made in 1997, with her in the cast. It's a Kira Reed vehicle called "Madame Savant", which unfortunately hasn't entered my late-night cable circuit. Perhaps it's a personal preference for pretty redheads, but I couldn't take my eyes off Lori throughout this movie. And of course my natural reaction is to want to see more; why else do we assemble around the flickering altar late at night? I know the adult movie business is unstable, actresses come and go (literally), appear under new names, get out of the business and marry wealthy producers, get out of the business and marry broke saxophone players, and so on. But it's a real disappointment when a face and form of such promise simply vanishes. Any recent sightings from you watchers out there?
Mutual Needs (1997)
More Like Mutual of Omaha
Whenever the Playboy logo appears on screen, the viewer is alerted that what follows will be professionally staged and directed. The cast will be attractive and will include some well-known people from the second or third tier (here it's Richard Grieco, on a break from shooting " A Night At The Roxbury"). Their acting will be above par, and the love scenes will be tastefully done, integral to the plot, and non-gratuitous. Think of it as an OSHA warning or the little note from the Surgeon General on that pack of Marlboros.
There's really not much here for fans of late-night cable weirdness. We have the story of a corporate drone who, with the help of Rent-A-Babe, re-invents himself for his tenth year reunion party, The rented babe however turns out to be a wicked and manipulative siren leading our poor sap into the ruin of Chapter 11. If you're looking for a compelling movie on the theme of a Wicked Woman leading a Good Man astray, "Out Of The Past" with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer is the perfect choice. If you're looking for gratuitous nudity and cheap thrills, Playboy has a whole series of hot-body videos. But this trite hybrid is neither convincing drama nor sufficiently prurient trash.
The only wild card in this dull hand is the presence of Rochelle Swanson as the wicked woman, Charlene. Rochelle is a lush brunette, who could easily reign as Queen of Late-Night Cable Land, were it not for a certain deadly coyness. Exhibit A is a torrid private dance for our victim. Admittedly, she looks terrific in black and the garter-belt, stockings and high heels are a nice fetish touch. But after a few charming moves, only the bra disappears and the scene segues into another routine session of bumping bodies.
In Exhibit B, our hero comes home early and finds Charlene with her partner in crime, Josie (played by Sydney Coale Phillips). The suggestion is subtle; they look fetching in their midriff-baring outfits and presumably they weren't discussing Hegelian dialectic upstairs. But we never get to see the footage from the bedroom cam and so we wonder why the notion was introduced.
The final nail in the coffin has Charlene showing up at the office, wearing only a fur coat and bringing a mid-day snack. She quickly loses the coat and for a brief moment, the scene seems full of promise. We are treated to a lingering shot of her enchanting backside as she shows off the Daily Special. But as she moves in, the camera suddenly gets coy and hastily arranges contrivances to block any explicit views. It reminds me of that running gag in the Austin Powers' movies as Mike Myers, ostensibly nude, wanders through a room filled with objects strategically placed between the camera and his private parts. In Austin Powers One and Two, the device is funny and Freudian. Here it's just clumsy.
This Puritanism seems quaintly retro in a Nineties Playboy product. In the late Sixties, Playboy pushed at the edge of explicitness in men's magazines until full frontal nudity became commonplace. Now famous figure skaters and fading starlets routinely appear nude in Playboy and the other magazines look like Ob-Gyn Journals. Thirty years later, the camera demurely blocks an explicit shot, like a blushing geisha.
Part of the explanation may be in Rochelle's other film credits. The IMDb lists a lot of items with the words "secret" and "indecent" and numbers in their titles, all part of the Shannon Tweed franchise. It's hard to imagine that, not long ago, Shannon Tweed was the benchmark for late-night cable. But then again, not long ago, 166MHz was considered to be a powerhouse processor.
Times change.
Testing the Limits (1998)
Outer Limits
It's not often that a movie shows up with so little promise. Cable cheerfully listed this insipid title with its Kiss of Death `R'. And the normally encyclopedic IMDb in its original buildout (now corrected) could only produce the year of production and the names of two of the male leads, leaving the impression that late-night cable was segmenting its audience with `Biff and Steve Work Out At the Gym'.
And tuning in listfully, ten or fifteen minutes into the movie, in the middle of an unbelievably demure romp in the woods, this could easily be mistaken for an Amish-rated version. Then an extraordinary event happens. We move to a tandem plot line and Internet Vixen, Lorissa McComas, appears in one of her patented nude photo shoots. From that moment, this movie never falters, using its twin plot lines (couple stranded in the woods meet photographer and model on location) to display erotic scenes like a hatrack hangs fedoras.
Intentional or not, the three principals are a virtual viewer's menu of women: blonde, brunette, and redhead. The pageboy blonde is elfin Brandy Davis, whose huge eyes and provocative smile are as inviting as her very natural-looking body. The brunette mane belongs, of course, to Lorissa; with a near-perfect body, she can go from innocent to wanton in the click of a camera shutter - the lens loves her and she loves to return the favor.
The third item on the bill-of-fare is a lush French redhead, Gaelle Comparat. A relative newcomer to late-night cable, Gaelle still earns her Merit Badge in sexual mischief. In the first of two girl-girl scenes, she joins Brandy in the outdoor shower to play a little Lather-Me-Up, Scottie. (A corollary of the unwritten rules about girl-girl scenes seems to be that they are more legit in `wet' environments: shower, pool, hot tub, etc.) She also has a scene with her ex-boyfriend, extending an invitation to bed by plunging her hands down the front of his boxer shorts. Now this is just a movie and Gaelle is a professional actress working in this movie and she' s probably just winding her watch in there. But the invitation appears very genuine and sets the tone for an intense encounter.
The second group grope begins with Lorissa in another photo shoot, undressing and inviting Brandy into the hot tub. Brandy is open to all suggestions and joins Lorissa for a bit of exploration. As the scene heats up, they pause in mid-caress, look seductively at the Sensitive Boyfriend, and invite him to join in, plugging directly into the USB of the male libido. But even with this appeal to a strictly male fantasy, the scene appears to be aimed at that narrow sliver of the female audience. Shot mostly in close-ups, with a few medium shots to show who's where, the low-key nature of this scene creates a lot of intimacy but not much raw carnal power. It's still provocative though, even if Lorissa ends her part by simply wandering out of the shot. (Since her next date is a blue-filtered Tantric yoga session in the teepee with her new boyfriend, maybe she needed to re-align her chakras.)
The movie finally just lumbers to a close with the arrival of Lorissa's psycho ex-boyfriend, who has been lurking throughout. With a flurry of fists, White Hats win the battle, couples renew their vows, and credits roll.
Still, it has been a great ride. This movie looks terrific. Crisply focused and saturated with color, it features gorgeous women, plenty of nudity, and more combinations than a lock factory. If this is the new benchmark of late-night cable, this will be a very enjoyable season.
Veronica 2030 (1999)
This Ain't Veronica and Archie
As Freud once said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes that "R" rating is really an accurate appraisal from the MPAA. At an hour nineteen, this movie clearly weighed in light on the scales, which was not a good sign.
The story centers around Julia (skip the last name.it worked for Cher and Madonna, right?) playing a pleasure model named Veronica from the year 2030, who, after some unauthorized late-night tests, is catapulted back into the past. Options being limited for pleasure 'droids from the future, Veronica gets a job modeling for a lingerie catalogue. Not exactly a Pulitzer Prize winning plot, but enough of a premise to satisfy late night cable audiences. That is, it would be if there were any stuffing inside this doughy, inedible confection.
We do have a few glimpses of Julia, who is admittedly luscious, with her off-the-shelf breasts, her two charming little tattoos, and false eyelashes that look like twin tarantulas crawling on her eyes. But inevitably the camera gets coy at crucial moments. Exhibit A is a torrid dance scene with Julia, wearing only a net body stocking and a pair of high heels. But even if she proves that The Girl Can Dance, the scene is over in the blink of a voyeur's eye. Exhibits B and C are the few heated moments as the girls model some fetish fashions. But the leather and chains are strictly for a niche market and fail to meet even the Minimum Daily Requirements.
The pneumatic Nikki Fritz plays a ruthless businesswoman doing business from the back seat of her limo: barking out orders on her cell phone; being worshipped by muscular stallions; appearing in an Academy Award parade of designer gowns. Everything, in fact, except what she does best.which is get naked and heat up the screen. There is one feeble attempt at a love scene, where Nikki appears naked for a nanosecond before the screen fades to a prim and proper black.
In fact, as the Bruce Willis talking action-figure on my desk says, "This movie has more blackouts than London during the war". Every time the on-screen thermometer begins to rise above tepid, the scene fades to black.
The third time I fished this undernourished specimen out of the late-night cable waters, I decided to rent the unrated version. It immediately added the heft of about fifteen minutes, correcting the single most important deficiency of the "R" version.nudity. We have boy meets girl, girl meets girl, boy meets two girls and so on - with all of the scenes providing copious amounts of naked flesh and cheap thrills. Fashions shows begin in lingerie and end in nothing but skin. (And for some odd reason, there is also a lot of licking in this film; I haven't seen that much tongue since my last trip to my local deli.) There is even an interlude where Julia and Nikki get a chance to bump bodies. Watching these two works of art roll around in a four-poster bed, I am mystified that anyone could bear to edit out that scene.
All of which reminds me of the time, a few years back, when a video rental mega-store was in a quandary about a recent release. On the one hand, they couldn't ignore a new release from a major studio; but they also couldn't risk offended the Family Values crowd by renting out an "NC-17" movie. So they compromised and put an "R" version on the shelves. "Showgirls" without the nudity? Why bother?
Same deal here.
Mistress of Seduction (1998)
Who's Your Daddy, Ma Bell?
"MOS" opens with great promise. We are at Command Central of the Mistress of Seduction phone-sex syndicate. A flock of attractive women operate a bank of phones, plugged into the needs of their heavy-breathing clientele. (is this the lost footage from the Aerosmith video?) But the promise is as empty as the imaginary passion of sex with Ma Bell. We immediately zero in on a bleached blonde at the end of the table, painting her toenails as she jockeys some poor sap's libido. Coincidentally, she happens to be the wife of the owner.
And there's Trouble In Paradise, as our heroine, Gina, played by Kirstine Carlson, yearns for a better life. So she leaves LA and her sleazy husband, taking 500 large of his money, heading for NoWhereville, which turns out to be an idyllic little California town called Cherry Hill (looking very much like AnyWhereville, an ugly suburban subdivision in the San Fernando valley).
She finds a room for rent in what must be the most innovative apartment-hunting scene in movie history and moves in with her two male room-mates, Mr. Nice and Mr. Naughty. And since she is not only an ex-employee of MOS but is also a certified MOS, shortly after moving in she bunks with both of them.
We see a lot of Gina: in and out of the shower; dressing and undressing; shuttling back and forth between Mr. Nice and Mr. Naughty. Fortunately, she is toned, tattooed, and nicely augmented since she is pretty much all we see. There are a few very brief scenes with Mr. Naughty and his anonymous girlfriend, but these are little more than an excuse to stimulate Gina's carnal appetite.
We also have a few scenes with her lawyer and confidant, Annie, who lounges quite seductively on the phone (is Annie an ex-employee of the MOS?), giving professional advice to Gina. Annie, played by Orly Tepper, appears at crucial moments in the plot but unfortunately we have only a few glimpses of this exotic and attractive brunette without her clothes on. Her nude scenes are remarkable, not just for their brevity and limited nudity, but also for sheer gymnastic awkwardness.
Notice: Spoiler Alert!
I suppose that I should give a spoiler alert by revealing that we have a happy ending to "MOS". Happy that is except for the sleazy husband who winds up shot very dead by Mr. Nice. (Even if a true spoiler is something like: Rosebud is a sled; or the murderer is really Norman wearing his Mom's dress). Turns out that: one, Mr. Naughty is actually Mr. Nice's lawyer; and two, Gina gives crucial testimony to spring Mr. Nice from the slammer. So Mr. Naughty and Annie wind up as a couple, as Lawyers In Love will, and Gina and Mr. Nice are reunited. They all pile into a rented LeBaron and drive off up some crummy back alley in wicked LA. And we wave a grateful good-bye, sending them off like some obnoxious houseguests, praying that they are not headed off to shoot "MOS2".
Virtual Encounters 2 (1998)
Put On Your Headsets And Fasten Your Seat Belt
At any given moment, there are probably at least a half a dozen versions of any adult-themed movie on the market: hard-boiled and soft-boiled; bland `R' or spicy `NC-17'; edited for European markets and edited for domestic cable. So tuning in late at night, we rely completely on the luck of the draw. But perhaps that's part of the appeal, those little surprises that (metaphorically) fall into our lap.
So I was cautiously optimistic at the start of an `R' rated version of Sybil (or Cybil) Richards' latest entry in the Virtual Encounters' franchise. The plot, of course, is the merest scrap of an idea: horny college geeks set up a virtual reality business to cater to the sexual fantasies of other horny college geeks. And the opening scenes are strictly `R', with coy camera angles offering discrete glimpses of naked bodies. (Although there is a moment of greater promise, when the camera lingers over the elfin charms of Brandy Davis as a nude model in an art class.)
So the plot lurches forward. We see a James Bond clone seduce a Bond girl in a brief and demure scene. Ho hum. We see one of our horny college geeks as a biker boy, waiting for his biker girl . More ho hum.
And then, like some memorable event high on the Richter scale, the wickedly pneumatic Nikki Fritz shows up as the biker girl and the moment becomes molten. The scene is long and intense, spliced into this movie like one of those set pieces from Penthouse videos with names like `Hot Wheels' or `Leather Forever'. But don't misunderstand me. This is a good thing. In fact, this is a very good thing. And unless the MPAA has pushed the envelope on `R', I can only assume that some thoughtful programmer substituted an unrated version.
And since we have been very good boys this year, there's yet another present under the tree, as the equally voluptuous Chrissey Styler joins Nikki in seducing some very lucky construction worker. Hard hats fly, clothes are torn off and soon the screen is filled with naked, sweaty flesh. One more long and ferocious set piece, apparently spliced in from the same Penthouse video,
(And, as I watch more and more late-night cable and learn the syntax, here is a revision of one of the unwritten rules: girl-girl scenes are allowed in `erotic comedies', as long as the episode is fantasy or a dream.)
After a few less memorable moments pass, Chrissey Styler is featured in her own scene, as a coed client has a VR encounter with Chrissey as a private dancer. The pretty coed even gets lured on stage, undressed by Chrissey, and the two entertain us with their dancing and exchange a few provocative glances.
Without these three interludes, `VC2', would be a mildly entertaining trifle, with scenes that wobble from modest `R' to racy `NC-17'. But the charms of Chrissey Styler and Nikki Fritz are impossible to resist; their encounters vibrate like a sexual tuning fork and the rest simply surrenders to the fast-forward button.
Lolita 2000 (1998)
Where's The Road Map?
Everything about this movie is a muddle, starting with the title, which appears in distribution as both "Lolita:2000" and "O Lita:2000". (Given that the millennium is just around the corner, 2000 seems like a quaint choice for evoking the world of the future.)
We enter the studio of a space-age DJ, spinning platters and cyber-broadcasting erotic adventures, like some pirate radio station off the coast of Baja. Our hostess is the lovely and ever-uninhibited Jacqueline Lovell, in silver shorts and halter-top, wiggling her behind as The Shape Of Things To Come.
The first episode stars Taylor St. Claire as a woman trapped in a nightmarish world of recovered memory and alien abduction. There's really not much to this episode: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end...not necessarily in that order. And we get to see a fair amount of the naked and luscious Taylor St Claire, even if her performance is in the key of Hysteria.
In the bridge between this episode and the next, the camera meanders into the broadcast studio and, like some spooky voyeur, silently watches Jacqueline and another woman fondle and undress each other. When our two space lovers finally notice the camera (and presumably us), they scramble for their clothes and the moment is gone. I do have to admit that Jacqueline's surprise is so convincing that I really wondered if the director had interrupted an unscripted moment. Like much of this movie, everything seems to happen by accident.
The second episode is the simplest and most cohesive of the three and has the best of the erotic scenes. Our fearless heroine is a swaggering space pirate, like a blonde Bruce Willis, cracking wise to her alien captors and having sex with anyone in the neighborhood: with another human prisoner (male), with her alien cell-mate (female) and even with her alien captor (also female). The sex scenes are long and well-done, even if the lighting, meant to evoke the dark, claustrophobic confines of the prison, can be a bit distracting.
I did have a difficult time in matching the players in this scene with the names in the final credits. Was our blonde space jockey named Juno? And was she played by the elusive Lisa Sutton AKA Lisa Comshaw AKA Tori or Tory Sinclair AKA Fawna? Well, you get the idea. My only real success was identifying the alien cell-mate, played by the voluptuous and oddly-named J. Nichole Italiano-Zaza, (better known as Nikki Nova.)
Last, we have the most muddled of the episodes as we follow some poor schmuck lost in the Time Machine, travelling from the present year back to the 50's, and then fast-forwarding to some future dystopian Mad Max scenario and finally back in history to the days of the cave-man. I abandoned any hope of continuity or logic and just enjoyed the ample displays of naked flesh. The scene finally comes to an end, more by running out of steam than through any plot device.
And as the movie lurches towards the exit, we are finally rewarded for our patience, watching Jacqueline Lovell slowly strip to some perky, futuristic Musak, with neither the camera nor Jacqueline shy about providing us with some clinical glimpses of her anatomy. Credits finally roll and we see out-takes of the cave-man scenes and listen to someone off-camera give directions and then finally call for a lunch break. The director was apparently reluctant to waste any footage and so we have a movie that feels as cobbled-together as Dr. Frankenstein's creation.
My advice is simply to remember that it's late at night and there's probably nothing else on. So relax, enjoy the abundant nudity, and don't search for deeper meanings. There aren't any.
I'm Watching You (1997)
It Ain't Bird-Watching
In a moody and noir-like story of love and murder, we follow the sexual education of a young innocent plunged into the Bohemian world of artists' lofts. Sounds like the company line, eh? Actually what we have in "I'm Watching You" is a well-paced "erotic thriller" with a fine balance of nudity and plot, an attractive cast, and an evocative sound-track
The lively and uninhibited Jacqueline Lovell plays the painter's model, Alisha, who never misses an opportunity to shimmy out of her dress or join in an energetic romp with the handsome young artist. With Alisha as her role model and guide, and through the urging of a stranger on the phone, Laura evolves from innocent girl to wanton woman (even if she has to struggle with lines like "I guess it was the way I was raised. Pleasure is evil.it's a sin.." to emphasize her innocence) And we become watchers too, watching Laura as she indulges in a bit of exhibitionism at the window of her loft and finally progresses to masturbating while the mysterious stranger listens on the phone.
And fortunately, because this movie follows the unwritten rules of "erotic thrillers", the next stage of Laura's sexual education is a girls' night out, complete with lingerie modeling, dancing, and finally the seduction of Laura by Alisha
We also have two very torrid scenes with the manipulative wife of the artist (played by Vanessa Blair) and her infidelity with the artist's agent, with some mild S & M moments making the mercury rise in Laura's thermometer as she watches from her window.
All of which leads me to the innocent heroine, played by Lori Dawn. The IMDB lists only one other film, also made in 1997, with her in the cast. It's a Kira Reed vehicle called "Madame Savant", which unfortunately hasn't entered my late-night cable circuit. Perhaps it's a personal preference for pretty redheads, but I couldn't take my eyes off Lori throughout this movie. And of course my natural reaction is to want to see more; why else do we assemble around the flickering altar late at night? I know the adult movie business is unstable, actresses come and go (literally), appear under new names, get out of the business and marry wealthy producers, get out of the business and marry broke saxophone players, and so on. But it's a real disappointment when a face and form of such promise simply vanishes. Any recent sightings from you watchers out there?
The Naked Detective (2007)
Land Of Missed Opportunities
As an admirer of the naked female form, I often regret missing the Golden Age of burlesque. And one of the cleverest strategies in burlesque was the general consensus that the patrons actually became bored and restless watching hour after hour of strip acts. So the theater managers included comedy interludes, complete with comics in baggy pants, randy old coots in wheelchairs, sexy young things in abbreviated nurse outfits, handsome but bumbling heroes. (Sort of the same theory in building roller coasters or directing a horror film. Too much excitement finally just numbs the senses.)
The director of `The Naked Detective', consciously or not, copies the magic formula of burlesque. The only problem is that he seems to have gotten the proportions wrong. The nude scenes are impossibly brief and the comic interludes seemed to last forever. At first I thought it was just the old Theory of Relativity at work
a minute sitting in the dentist's chair seems like an hour, but an hour kissing your girlfriend seems like only a minute. Then I used the timer on my VCR, and clocked the naked detective at just under three minutes per scene and the clothed detective at fifteen to twenty minutes of interminably unfunny scenes.
I'm sure the director and cast liked the idea of making a movie with the heft and authority of a mainstream movie, telling anyone who will listen that there is actually more nudity in Kubrick's `Eyes Wide Shut'. Instead, we have a movie that aims for success with two different audiences and fails both. It's too sexy for the prime-time audience and not sexy enough for us late-night viewers. What is particularly sad is that we have two of the most luscious brunettes in the industry, Taylor St. Claire and Julia Parton, who keep their clothes on through too much of this movie. One of the earliest scenes, with Julia Parton wearing only a pair of red high heels and her killer grin, was over so quickly that I wondered if the movie had been edited for cable.
And of course, because `The Naked Detective' is a comedy, I knew that I would never see a scene with both Taylor and Julia, re-enacting the lost rites of the island of Lesbos. (Where is that rule written? That only `erotic thrillers' are allowed to have a girl-girl scene?) That point was emphasized even further when they were cast as the sexy young wife and sexy young daughter-in-law, adversaries for the deceased old coot's inheritance. What a wonderful opportunity lost.
Which really sums up the whole movie
lost opportunities and missed moments. Best viewed with extensive use of the fast forward button.