Short Takes: ‘Scorchy’ (1976) ★½

Connie Stevens was never meant to
yell “Freeze! Police!” unironically.

I don’t want to suggest that police departments only hire women with voices in the Bea Arthur or Margo Martindale range, but if you’re casting a female detective in your crime drama and you want her to be taken seriously, it helps if she doesn’t sound like a 16-year-old girl. Of course, no one was taking the AIP movie Scorchy all that seriously to begin with, least of all its writer-director, schlockteur Howard Avedis, so maybe the ludicrousness of Connie Stevens as a tough-as-nails (yet bubbly and horny!) detective doesn’t matter.

Stevens plays Jackie Parker—supposedly nicknamed Scorchy but never once addressed as such—a Seattle-based narcotics agent out to bust a drug ring involving Philip Bianco (Cesare Danova) and Carl Henrich (William Smith, wonderfully nasty as always). Bianco fronts as an art dealer, importing rare sculptures that are stuffed with heroin, then having Henrich, acting as an art restorer, remove the drugs when they reach stateside, confiscating the sculpture from its new owner if needed, as happens when said sculpture is delivered to an aging film star played by Joyce Jameson. If that sounds unnecessarily convoluted, that’s because it is, but how else are they going to work in a joke about the film star being a closet lesbian?

Anyway, an undercover Jackie befriends Bianco’s wife Claudia (Marlene Schmidt, also in Avedis’s The Teacher) and gets enlisted to fly the drugs out of state (yeah, she’s a pilot, too), but then Henrich takes off with the smuggled smack. Henrich’s double-cross kicks off an extended chase sequence that almost makes Scorchy worth watching, if only to see a nervous-looking Stevens behind the wheel of a rally car (context doesn’t matter). The other reason people might want to see this movie is for a few scenes featuring the star of Parrish and Susan Slade topless, scenes Stevens clearly was not comfortable doing. She also has a sex scene with a young, tragically coiffed Greg Evigan in his film debut (and no, he doesn’t show any skin), though it looks more like Stevens is being restrained by Evigan than fucking him. Hot.

I have a weakness for seeing stars of the 1950s and ’60s in 1970s exploitation movies, which was why I wanted to see Scorchy, despite all the warnings against it. To her credit, Stevens, who’s like a Joey Heatherton with significantly fewer scandals, isn’t bad, she’s just miscast as someone who must yell, “Freeze! Police!” and expect to be obeyed (though still more believable than Melanie Griffith in 1992’s A Stranger Among Us). I might’ve given Scorchy another half star had it been 85 or 90 minutes, but it’s a heavily padded one hour and 39 minutes, the extra time used to kill Scorchy’s potential as cheesy ’70s fun and leaving the audience with a meandering muddle instead.

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 (there’s something horribly
 wrong with that woman’s spine if we’re able
to see her full ass from 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 flattering angle of 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, I’d rather not). 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 back to work, 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 Carol back to her childhood, when she 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 among the few members of the cast who do 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 went on to hire hookers for some very smelly fetish videos made it difficult 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 she 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 fur-covered 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 (best known for Waterpower), 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 acting is inconsistent. She was reportedly pretty sweet in real life, 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, however.

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.” 

*The minor rebranding is an attempt to get the Blogger morality bots off my ass. It didn't work, the post still got flagged.

What if ‘Hellraiser’ was Gay(er) and DTF?

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Short Takes: ‘Butterflies in Heat’ (1979) ★½

In 1986 Butterflies in Heat appeared
on video store shelves as Tropic of Desire
(no, not that one), masquerading
as a sexy romance.

I’ll give this much to Butterflies in Heat, the 1979 film adaptation of Darwin Porter’s 1976 novel: it’s got a hell of an opening shot. The first thing we see onscreen is a close-up of the lead actor’s crotch, his jeans adorned with an elaborate butterfly patch placed over the spot where the head of his dick rests. OK, I’m intrigued.

That lead actor is 1970s model Matt Collins, who plays Numie Chase, a hustler who’s come down to Key West, Florida, to put as many miles as possible between him and a potential murder charge in New York City. While there he meets Lola (the incomparable Eartha Kitt), a nightclub singer who loves white wigs, referring to herself in the third person, and pretty young men like Numie. However, she has no intention of paying for it (“People pay Lola,” she informs him). Numie then spots Anne (bland Roxanne Gregory), sitting alone in a corner of the same tawdry club, his interest in her strictly recreational. Anne resists his advances, but only because she is afraid of incurring the wrath of her domineering mother, Leonora (Barbara Baxley), supposedly a very rich and very famous fashion designer though her decaying mansion suggests the money and fame are disappearing fast. Numie instead settles for fucking (off-screen) Anne’s no-so-closeted husband (Numie says he doesn’t usually service dudes, but the watch he’s offered as payment is valued at $1,000). Rounding out the cast of characters is Leonora’s plus-sized housekeeper/assistant Tangerine (Pat Carroll), who is willing to pay for Numie’s body but settles for his friendship instead, and Sheriff Webb (Bert Williams), who appears periodically to rough up Numie and arrest him on spurious charges.

Butterflies in Heat—the book and the movie—sounds like the kind shit I’d love. It’s Tennessee Williams via glory hole or, at the very least, a queer 92 in the Shade. Instead, I found both to be tedious and frustrating. I bought a copy of Porter’s novel when it was re-released in the mid-1990s with a cover more befitting a gay porn video, my hopes high that I’d found some trash I could truly treasure. I barely made it through 75 pages before giving up. Porter, it turned out, was more interested in having his female (and female-presenting) characters deliver paragraphs of fanciful dialog than in Numie unleashing the monster caged within his butterfly-festooned jeans. Its gay sensibility was aimed not at bath house sluts, as its X-rated cover art suggested, but at drag cabaret queens.

I likely would have been just as disappointed if I bought
the 1976 paperback edition of Butterflies in Heat (left),
but at least that cover doesn't arouse expectations as high—
and as hard—as the raunchy cover for the 1997 edition.

Director Cash Baxter’s movie adaptation similarly let me down despite all it had going for it. Though the film’s budget is obviously meager, the production is fittingly seedy, and the cast of mostly TV veterans doubles its value. Kitt’s Lola—a drag queen in the book but more ambiguous here—is almost single-handedly worth the price of admission. Carroll, a character actor perhaps best-known today as the voice of Ursula in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, takes what could easily be described as The Shelley Winters Role and makes the character Tangerine her own. The least interesting performances are by Collins and Gregory, but then they are saddled with Butterflies’ least interesting characters. Though screenwriters Tony (Point of Terror) Crechales and George (The Killing Kind) Edwards reign in the book’s long-winded dialog, they also water down its gay appeal and any potential the movie had of becoming a camp classic. And forget any sexy fun. The movie’s one (one!) sex scene is fairly tepid, with only Gregory showing any skin. Despite everyone lusting after Numie, Collins, who sort of resembles Nathan Fillion in his Firefly days, seldom takes off his shirt, let alone his pants.

Butterflies in Heat was released on video in 1986 under the title Tropic of Desire—“not to be confused with the same-named porno movie,” the IMDb trivia page cheekily warns. Likely anyone renting the porn movie by mistake would’ve been less disappointed. At least that Tropic of Desire delivers what it promises; not so this cock tease of a movie.