A Gay Man Watches Straight Smut #6: ‘The Passions of Carol’

The original poster for The Passions of
Carol, not only features some questionable 
illustrations (how are we seeing a full rear
 view of that woman’s ass in what’s otherwise 
a side-view pose?), it has absolutely 
nothing to do with the actual movie. 

I meant to post this before Christmas, but then time got away from me, and then I got sick. So, like the protagonist in 1975’s THE PASSIONS OF CAROL, I’m hoping people will see the value of keeping the spirit of Christmas alive all year long, or at least keeping the holidays hardcore until December 31.

Set in New York City when it was at its grimiest (looking even grimier in the Video-X-Pix version streaming on adult sites), our story begins in the offices of Biva Publications, which produces Biva Magazine, a skin mag for women a la Playgirl (or Minx). But editor-in-chief Carol Scrooge (Mary Stuart, the Shelley Duvall of 1970s porn, billed as Merrie Holiday) is not happy with the layout her art director Bob Hatchet (Jamie Gillis) presents her on Christmas Eve, which she’s deemed “impotent.” None the men pictured for the year-end issue are hard.

“Today’s woman will not accept a limp dick in her bedroom, will she?” she rants. “And she will not accept a limp dick on a singles’ weekend, will she? Then she certainly won’t accept a bunch of limp dicks in her favorite magazine.”

She demands Hatchet re-do the layout, insisting the cocks pictured had better be “as big and hard as the Washington Monument,” not caring that its Christmas Eve. She even says “bah humbug,” albeit in a way that makes it clear that some expressions just shouldn’t be uttered by Americans.

A pre-Predator, pre-Libertarian politician
Sonny Landham 

After sending away her miserable art director, Carol interviews a prospective model Curt Reynolds (Sonny Landham, who went on to appear in legit movies like 48 Hrs. and Predator). Curt is something of an Elvis impersonator—well, Elvis-ish (I was going to write Elvish, but then I’d have the Lord of the Rings geeks on my ass, and no one wants that). Really, though, he looks more like a young Tommy Lee Jones portraying Elvis than the King himself, which was a relief as I was afraid Jamie Gillis was going to be as cute as the men got in this movie (though learning some of Landham’s extreme political opinions makes him retroactively less attractive). Carol is impressed when Curt peels off his skintight white pants, but she’s not quite sold. She summons her secretary Gina (Daniela di Orici, a.k.a. Day Jason), who happily fluffs the prospective model, because this office doesn’t have an HR department, and #MeToo is still decades away.

Carol (Mary Stuart) is a busy woman.

“You do understand, Mr. Reynolds, that even though my assistant is touching and caressing your penis, that this is only business,” Carol reminds him, before she and Gina take turns getting him as big and hard as the Washington Monument, their oral attention sound-tracked to the theme from The Exorcist.

Carol yells at her sloppy maid.

 One would think this afternoon three-way in the office would put Carol in a better mood, but she returns to her apartment as bitchy as ever. She yells at her poofy-haired maid (Angela Dermer, a.k.a. Toni Scott, who struggles saying the simplest lines) for leaving her “cleaning apparatus strewn all about,” then denies the maid’s request to get off work early so she and her boyfriend can catch a Christmas show. With the maid sent on her way, Carol Scrooge gets ready for bed.

We know what happens next. Carol is visited during the night by the ghost of her former business partner, Lance Marley (Marc Stevens, hamming it up just the right amount, though he loses his place in his lines a few times). He tells her she will be visited by three spirits and then, after complaining that “there’s nobody who gives good blow jobs in heaven,” he pleads with Carol for one last worldly fuck. Next, we see Marley going down on Carol in startling close-up (it’s practically a jump scare) while a spritely Muzak rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” plays on the soundtrack. 

Marc Stevens gives Carol 10-and-a-half inches of Christmas spirit.

Child’s play.

The three spirits arrive shortly after Marley cums and goes. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Arturo Millhouse) takes her back to her childhood, when Carol manipulated her friends Barbie (Susan Sloan, billed as Rose Cranston) and Billy (Alan Marlow, billed as Alan Barow) into playing some very adult games (“OK, Barbie, I want you to kneel down and make Billy’s pee-pee hard”). Even though all the performers are adults, the fact that they’re dressed as and acting as children makes it a little cringe when Barbie starts blowing Billy, especially in a time when we hear the word “pedophile” in the news every fucking day. 

Then there’s the art on the playroom wall. Were
Carol’s parents ever investigated?

Still, Barbie using a doll’s arm as a dildo on Carol was a unique twist, especially funny when all you see is a tiny hand sticking out of Carol’s cooch. Pussy wave bye-bye.

Kevin André makes the Yuletide gay.

The next sequence features some of the best performances in the movie, starting with Kevin André as a drag queen Ghost of Christmas Present.

 “This reminds me of the baths,” the GCP sighs wistfully as they’re engulfed in fog (this is yet another porn movie that liberally uses a smoke machine).

“The Continental Baths?” Carol asks.

“My, my, we are tacky. I mean the original baths, at the original Caesar’s palace.”

The GCP shows Carol the scene inside Bob Hatchet’s apartment, where he and his wife (Kim Pope) are wrapping presents for their unseen daughter, Tiny Kim, whose existence is represented by a pair of crutches leaning against a chair. Besides being of the few members of the cast to not use an a.k.a. (If you’ve got a non du porn, stick with it, goddammit), they are also among the few with genuine acting talent—a good thing, too, as they’re supposed to be a committed, loving couple, a rarity in this genre.

A committed, loving couple who fuuuucks.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Pope, and while Gillis wasn’t exactly hot (few of the men in ‘70s straight porn were), he was one of porn’s best actors. I just wish I hadn’t learned about his proclivities later in life (they nasty). Knowing he was hiring hookers to make some very smelly fetish videos made it harder to accept him in the role of a loving husband and father.

Becoming editor of Vogue is not 
in Carol Scrooge's future.

Speaking of hiring hookers, when the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come (Cum?) appears, Carol is shown a future where she’s a Times Square prostitute, a development that made me want some backstory Wouldn’t she be more likely to fail upward? At the very least, land a copy editor job at Screw? Her going from editor-in-chief to ’ho just seems a little far-fetched, but I dunno, maybe got into meth or something.

Anyway, Future Whore Carol, wearing a big yellow clown wig and harsh makeup, takes a john (Ashley Moore, billed as Stuart Dickerson) up to a depressing cheap hotel room. Moore, who looks like Marlboro model from the neck up and a furry pear from the neck down, is appropriately shy (he’s never hired a hooker before, he has a wife and kids, blah blah blah), but Future Whore Carol has no patience for his bashfulness and hurries him into getting his clothes off. First order of business: washing his privates, which she does with all the eroticism of a nurse prepping a patient for surgery. This was way more verisimilitude than I expect from a porn film, as was the moment when Carol, after giving a very noisy BJ, unrolls an ill-fitting condom on her trick’s stick before mounting him. The scene is not sexy at all, but that’s the joke (I’m sure guys jerked off to it back in the day, though). Carol does all the work while her trick lies back, moaning listlessly, as if he can feel anything with a Glad Sandwich Bag wrapped around his dick. The scene ends with Carol informing her trick that he’s a rotten fuck.

A rotten fuck is all it takes for Carol Scrooge to embrace
the spirit of Christmas.

Not as Campy as Expected

The Passions of Carol  may be spoofing the Charles Dickens story, but I wouldn’t describe it as a porn parody. Writer-director-and-Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come Shaun Costello, using the pseudonym Amanda Barton, never lets the movie get that crude or that stupid. In its own porny way, it’s actually kind of respectful of Dickens. Still, I wish there was more effort made to camp it up. Imagine the fun the Amero brothers could have had with this material.  

Video-X-Pix's DVD (left) and Mélusine's Blu-ray covers 
are better than the original poster, but neither is exactly sexy.

The production values are impressive for a porn movie, with Costello using a lot of theatrical tricks to sell the spirits’ visits, hiding the cracks with the liberal use of a smoke machine. The above average acting of the cast helps, too, with André, Landham, Pope and, of course, Gillis giving the strongest performances. Stuart is OK, but her performance is inconsistent. In real life, she was reportedly pretty sweet and I can believe that, more than I could believe her as a hard-ass editor. As Carol Scrooge, she’s just not bitchy enough (the role would be a better fit for Gloria Leonard or Georgina Spelvin). Her performances as Future Whore Carol is spot on, though.

An unpaid advertisement: Though The Passions of Carol is available for streaming on
adult sites, Mésuline’s Blu-ray edition is the more watchable version,

All in all, The Passions of Carol was fun alternative to a Hallmark or Lifetime holiday movie, though I think I’d rather see the cast members of those movies naked. My Christmas would be a whole lot merrier if Chad Michael Murray or Luke Macfarlane agreed to go full-frontal, is all I’m saying. Until that Christmas wish comes true, I guess some Dickensian straight smut will suffice.

“You are a tacky bitch.”