Ice Cream Man + Disconnected

ICE CREAM MAN
(R, A-Pix Entertainment, 86 mins., video release date: May 9,1995)

DISCONNECTED
(R, Generic Films, , 84 mins., video release date: July 1984)

Vinegar Syndrome's triumphant release of Liquid Sky in its first genuine digital video incarnation (Arrow Video, eat your heart out) was one of three Black Friday 2017 exclusives at their online store. I've procured copies of the other two after being wowed by Slava Tsukerman's cult film, and while the movies are nowhere near as essential as Liquid Sky, Vinegar Syndrome have issued them with similar TLC and are a boutique label to adore for their efforts.

To be true, neither Norman Apstein's ICE CREAM MAN nor Gorman Bechard's DISCONNECTED are particularly cosmic discoveries. The former not only has the misfortune of being reissued following Andy Muschietti's successful adaptation of the adolescent chapters of Stephen King's It, but is also the sole skin-proof effort from porn stalwart Norman Paul Apstein. The latter is a student film from the future director of Psychos in Love, whose acquisition by Vinegar Syndrome has allowed Disconnected the luxury of escaping the obscurity to which it has long been confined. 

Ice Cream Man presents Clint Howard in his first headline role since 1982's Evilspeak, when he was in his early 20s and already settling into his storied career as the king of the celebrity sibling B-actors. This was undoubtedly the ironic thought process when MTV bestowed upon Clint their Lifetime Achievement Award at their 1998 movie-based ceremony, but it happily backfired thanks to Clint's sincere acceptance speech. He was in the same pantheon as Godzilla, Chewbacca and Jason Voorhees, but also Jackie Chan, Richard "Shaft" Roundtree and The Three Stooges. The joke forever deflated, Clint Howard was instead allowed his rightful legacy as a genre icon.

And Ice Cream Man, which made its "world television premiere" the following year on TNT's MonsterVision with drive-in critic Joe Bob Briggs (a.k.a. John Bloom), is a better showcase for Clint's oddball charisma than the revenge fantasy of Evilspeak. Although his hairline receded faster than Phil Collins, his facial features hardened to perfection in adulthood. Squinty-eyed and scowling, Clint resembles a baby-faced Larry Drake. He also blew his vocal cords in preparation for each take, the resulting rasp a wonderfully OTT counterpart to his deranged countenance. He goes all the way so as to deliver such lines as "Not every day is a happy, happy, happy day" with the respect they deserve. When he digresses towards soft-shoe shuffling and grisly puppetry, Clint is still no less the proper combination of diabolical and entertaining.

Norman Apstein (of the Edward Penishands series, which is no joke) and screenwriters David (The Wedding Crashers) Dobkin and Sven (one-flick wonder) Davison are less assured in their method than Clint. Story creator Dobkin may have intended a sick-humored Pied Piper update for the Spielberg Generation, but at least Clint Howard can claim biological rights to his derivations from brother Ron. The child's eye perspective of the story is muddled, to say the least, with hackneyed parent drama (fundamentalism and infidelity) and conflicting characterizations of the titular menace. It may do wonders for Clint Howard's range to go from affectionately retarded loner to wisecracking novelty maniac, but it robs the film of any believable danger.

It's ludicrous from the get-go, as little Gregory Tudor finds his neighborhood ice cream vendor gunned down for reasons undefined and is placed in psychiatric care at Wishing Well, a Funland for the criminally insane where Gregory's prescribed alternating doses of brain-freezing treats and mind-altering drugs. Released under the custody of Nurse Wharton (Olivia Hussey, who is certifiably ageless), Clint Howard's Gregory resumes the practice of the late Butch Brickle while adding a secret ingredient in his hand-picked hard pack which draws the flies and cockroaches to nestle in the containers. Woe onto thee who ask for a cherry on top.

This sounds like it should be a hoot, with the toy piano jingle heralding the unpacking of icky delights for the local brats, particularly the four which form The Rocketeers. When one of them, the brainy Small Paul (Macaulay clone Mikey LeBeau), is abducted by the friendless Gregory, the remaining trio (Justin Isfeld of American Pie semi-fame as Johnny, voiceover pro Anndi McAfee as Heather, JoJo Adams plus obvious pillow padding as the husky Tuna) try to obtain proof of Gregory's malevolence as a pair of detectives (Jan-Michael Vincent, Lee Majors Jr.) follow a hunch which leads back to the supposedly harmless ex-inmate. But Apstein, who was initially chasing a PG-13 rating even with three severed heads and a joke involving a dead tramp's diaphragm, is insufficiently sordid despite his adults-only past.

The flavorful cast also includes David Warner as Heather's preacher dad, David Naughton & Sandahl Bergman as Tuna's splintered parents and a few more less accomplished but familiar names from the realms of sports, TV and Apstein's true vocation. But despite their efforts as well as those of the principal child performers, Ice Cream Man is still curiously soupy. Vinegar Syndrome's DVD includes the actual MonsterVision "Summer School" broadcast of Ice Cream Man, with Joe Bob Briggs interviewing Clint Howard during commercial breaks. TNT's work was cut out for them, given editor André Vaillancourt's frequent use of fade-to-black scene transitions which also suggests Apstein may have been shooting straight for cable.

Thankfully, Clint Howard has one or two scenes above marginal interest. There's a moment where Gregory visits the grave of his fallen hero and tries to pay respects with the most appetizing ice cream cone on show throughout the entire movie. His feelings get hurt upon hearing (to himself) Butch Brickle's spirit as well as those of his cemetery neighbors: "You guys having a party?" Howard elevates the material with his hearty good humor (ahem) even as the writers fail to ply him with a decent catchphrase; I groaned twice when he opened his mouth during the abduction of Tuna.

Still, for all its low-cal silliness, Ice Cream Man landed a minor cult following, one which sadly wasn't enough to warrant a proposed sequel in a 2014 Kickstarter campaign. Disconnected was a strictly regional effort filmed in Waterbury, Connecticut (budget: $40,000; camera: Bolex 16mm) and soon relegated to the kind of VHS rental shops its main character works at. She is Alicia (Frances Raines), a lonely young woman whose life devolves into a low-budget horror film, to borrow an observation from a different character. An elderly stranger vanishes mysteriously from her apartment after he's invited in, but eventually her mind plays greater tricks on her. Alicia has dumped her boyfriend of two years, Mike (Carl Koch), under suspicion of cheating on her with her twin sister Barbara Ann (Raines), who has been long been sabotaging Alicia's love life. Since then, she's been inundated with what seem to be prank calls bombarding her with shrill white noise.

There's also a sex maniac on the loose, which might explain those creepy calls, but who actually turns up in person at Alicia's job asking for a date. He's Franklin (Mark Walker), the kind of introvert who is likely to exclaim "see ya, bye" as one word instead of three. But we see the threat he poses her when he butchers a pick-up to the tune of XTC's "Complicated Game," of all songs. The movie begins and ends with Aussie rock legends Hunters & Collectors' 1982 single "Talking to a Stranger" (also heard in Brian Trenchard-Smith's Dead End Drive-In from 1986) for bonus alt rock cred, and future Hollywood composer/album producer Jon Brion appears with power-pop outfit The Excerpts (whose "You Don't Love Me" plays throughout) after the smartest guy in the room name-drops Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. And if you own Haysi Fantayzee's eternally oddball Battle Hyms for Children Singing LP, guess which cut ends up used as a tool of seduction in Disconnected (it isn't "John Wayne Is Big Leggy").

Given that Gorman Bechard would go on to direct Color Me Obsessed, a fan's-eye view of Minneapolis cult rockers The Replacements (surely one of my all-time favorite bands), these aren't hollow hipster throwaways. In fact, they seem as off-kilter as the film's narrative, which is part slasher cash-in, part ghost story and part psychological study. There's even time out for a police procedural, with Psychos in Love lead/co-writer Carmine Capobianco addressing the camera in a precursor to the Woody Allen flourishes of that future bad taste treat. Bechard edits these strands together for all the maximum disorientation his shoestring budget can afford, which isn't very much. He gooses up the soundtrack with enough screeches and portentous sound effects as compensation.

Mark Walker, a veteran of Canadian productions who previously starred in Cronenberg's Rabid, is suitably creepy even in agonizingly long takes of dialogue. But the real draw for '80s exploitation experts is Frances Raines (Claude's niece) in her only lead role, which also happens to be a double. Best known for The Mutilator and a handful of porn purveyor Tim Kincaid's schlock (Breeders yes, Robot Holocaust no), Raines is groomed by Bechard as the '80s B-movie answer to a Hitchcock heroine rather than your standard "final girl." As Alicia, Raines handles the ambiguously disorienting material with reactive aplomb, whereas Barbara Ann allows her to dolly up her voice, curl her hair and enthusiastically deliver some of the requisite nudity.

Bechard provides a couple of twists in the mundane murder plot, from the lecherous and rude customer who ends up dating Barbara Ann to the resolution of Alicia and Franklin's sex scene. There's still only so much he can do with the means at his disposal, as when the sun is glaring right onto the camera lens for a good 45 seconds or his lifelessly static shots even during the police's showdown with Franklin. Making allowances for the shift in plot nearly an hour into this 84-minute feature debut, there are still points in the movie which drag in the familiar style of most outré, student-directed micro movies. What virtues Disconnected possesses are mostly in music and minutiae: the cutaway to a Groucho Marx doll, the posters on Alicia's living room walls (one, naturally, for Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry), a second Hunters & Collectors track played on the radio, the DJ announcing Cheapskate Records selling X's More Fun in the New World album for $5.99 before queuing "the #1 song in the country," The Excerpts' "Death in Small Doses," to soundtrack Alicia's weepy relapse back into isolated terror.

What both Ice Cream Man and Disconnected have going for them in the long run are their eccentricities, from Clint Howard's dominating performance to the bizarre if well-scored mulligan stew of horror tropes Gorman Bechard cooks up. Vinegar Syndrome have given both films renewed purpose on Blu-Ray with 2k transfers, sourced from original negatives, that bury all previous tape and disc presentations. Ice Cream Man has its share of gauzy lighting but is also presented with a clarity and attention to detail which belies whatever statements I made about it being worthy of a cable TV creation. This 1.85:1 widescreen image is consistently as cool as its confectionary namesake. Disconnected, digitally scanned from "16mm vault elements," can't help but look hazier, grainier and more dated by comparison. But rescued from full-frame purgatory as it is, there is much to admire about Frances Raines' luminous looks and dresses. Flesh tones are actually solid all around, and there are plenty of rich colors outside of Carmine Capobianco's Hawaiian shirts.

Ice Cream Man has an equally above-average DTS-HD 2.0 audio mix, whereas Disconnected is pitched at monaural 1.0 with all its limitations on display, especially in regards to speech and song cues (not hearing XTC and Hunters & Collectors in glorious stereo is a crying shame). Luckily, each package has their proper bounty of bonuses. Bechard & Capobianco reunite for Disconnected's audio commentary track as well as provide individual video testimonies. Capobianco, who comes across as a cuddlier Joe Spinell, seems to retain pictographic memory of the locations as well as a jovial presence which complements Bechard, whose recollections have become fuzzier with age. The biggest surprise is the inclusion of Bechard's initial foray into documentary filmmaking, the hour-long Twenty Questions (1987), as well as footage from its premiere at the 2017 New Haven Film Festival. In it, a diverse group of Waterbury citizens attempt to answer intimate questions from 20 flash cards, surrounded by magazines and TV sets which air sensational clips from Bechard's own filmography. One visual artist is as stumped as anyone having to simply name five books: "The Great Gatsby...is that a book?"

As for Ice Cream Man, you can watch the movie as it was aired on TNT's MonsterVision (clocking in at two hours even with minor copyright-minded edits), with Clint Howard dishing out amiable anecdotes as well as fielding Joe Bob's questions about past glories in Evilspeak and The Wraith. It's interesting to note that only a couple instances of gore had to be censored, specifically the disposal of a dog. Howard also appears in a contemporary interview, as do Norman Apstein (who passably handles the audio commentary gig) and producer David Goldstein. All three are candidly critical of the movie and/or the pressures of the production, especially Goldstein. His seven-minute piece is so full of disgust that Clint Howard, who also provided set photos for a stills gallery, is allowed to be the hero for the first time since I saw him on MTV.

Micki & Maude

MICKI & MAUDE
(PG-13, Columbia Pictures, 118 mins., theatrical release date: Dec. 21, 1984)

To paraphrase Peter Gabriel from the "Willow Farm" chapter of the Book of Genesis, MICKI & MAUDE transmogrifies from Dud to Bad to Mad to Dad.

Reuniting with Blake Edwards ("10"), the dashingly middle-aged Dudley Moore plays Rob Salinger, a chronically dissatisfied telejournalist for a puff program called "America, Hey!" He is introduced covering the inedible buffet spread at the election night victory of a California governor, yet this is by no means the most debasing or ridiculous story he's been tasked with (in his portfolio are such exposes as "Are Plants Seducible?" and "Lingerie for Animals"). It's actually quite beneficial to his lawyer wife, Micki (Ann Reinking), whom Governor Lanford is set on appointing to Superior Court judge. For Rob, it's another wrench in his now seven-year itch towards starting a family, as Micki's ruthless schedule won't even allow for a dinner date with her hubby.

And then Rob inadvertently goes bad, his next assignment introducing him to an unlikely replacement in the Cambodian String Quartet, cellist Maude Guillory (Amy Irving). Drunken sparks ignite and send the two of them into a passionate love affair which causes Rob to question his loyalty to Micki, especially after Maude announces she's pregnant. He's reluctantly ready to declare his divorce, until Micki confesses a reconciliatory epiphany in the wake of her own fertility. Rob marries Maude, anyway, and thus is forced to darting back and forth between two child-bearing wives, convinced he can handle it without either of his brides getting more the wiser ("As long as I don't get bedsores and the San Diego Freeway doesn't collapse..."). The madness is what happens when Micki and Maude go into labor simultaneously, and it all culminates in a deliciously ironic realization of Rob's sincere dreams of paternity.

If this synopsis makes Micki & Maude seem astoundingly wrong-headed for a farcical comedy, then I only thought about it when others brought up the touchiness of it all. Blake Edwards, first-time screenwriter Jonathan Reynolds and the three leads walk the thinnest line between guileless adult screwball and an inadvertent celebration of bigamy. What Rob does causes him guilt, as well it should, but the human element never goes astray in either of these relationships. Rob is hardly a creep, and though, as one colleague puts it, Rob's "value judgments are right up there with Carter and Nixon," you can't help but squirm along with Dudley Moore as he tries to put on a brave face.

Thank Edwards for warming up a little more towards Moore's impulsive cad, as well as matching him this time with two delightful personalities in Ann Reinking and Amy Irving. Irving, the De Palma fave from Carrie and The Fury, must have inherited the gene which allows her to excel at verbal comedy. For all her divine sex appeal, she imbues Maude with a sharp wit and towering affability. I believed she is the kind of woman who can have fun watching bad monster movies, especially when Maude and Rob scare off a suspicious, doped-up Micki. Statuesque Tony-winner Ann Reinking (best known for 1982's film adaptation of Annie) is endearingly frosty at the onset but with moments of vulnerability that can be either uproarious or touching ("What if the baby turns out to be manic-depressive? What if she grows up to be the first successful female assassin?").

A lot of this character-rooted charity might also be Off Broadway playwright Reynolds' own credit, as he alternates equally tender domestic scenarios in which Rob cares for the women in his life. In the case of Maude, there's also a gorilla in his midst, Mr. Guillory (H.B. Haggerty), a trained Jesuit priest cum professional wrestler (he even shares a locker room with Andre the Giant) who wants to pursue interior decorating when he retires. Most protective dads aren't built enough to body slam a bad boyfriend, and these two are thrust into express matrimony. When Micki's parents spot Rob outside the church, he and his boss/confidante Leo (Richard Mulligan, of Edwards' scabrous S.O.B.) improvise their way out of a tight spot by claiming they're attending a gangster's ceremony. As future complications drive Rob to even wilder desperation, the slapstick is framed within a delirious context and several welcome supporting roles, especially Wallace Shawn's OB-GYN and Lu Leonard's skeptical nurse, offer a droll relief from Rob's frantic façade.

This is Dudley Moore's best romantic comedy role mostly because it is so tethered to the need for engagement, the deceptions his Rob concocts in his own head and towards his paramours forcing him to react in the moment as well as turn up the charm. Should Rob slip, he takes the premise along with him and overcasts the light-heartedness Reynolds' script and Edwards' camera endeavor to sustain. Luckily, Moore finds expert subtleties in moments that lesser mortals would convey with eyes too bugged out or pathetically misty. He plays it so naturally that he can fight over an egg roll with Maude's pet cat and elicit a hearty laugh without shifting into overdrive.

Moore previously anchored a remake of Unfaithfully Yours which was a pox on the Rex Harrison black comedy classic of 1948. With Micki & Maude, he finally gets a movie worthy of Preston Sturges. It's the details Reynolds works into his script, even in Rob's wardrobe choices, one key instance involving a green sweater Maude presents him with during her second trimester. It's the ways in which an energetic, generous Moore plays off of Irving, Reinking and Richard Mulligan, who also benefits enormously from witty dialogue whenever he tries to make Rob see some sense: "You're about to get a plate of sautéed brains thrown in your face...and you're correcting my grammar?" It's Edwards' orchestration of those moments where Rob is in the same building with his wives, often inches away from each other, using long takes to his advantage.

So brisk and well-crafted Micki & Maude is that the only real letdown is the final stretch, in which faulty fire extinguishers and burglar garb allow for easy outs when the fallout should have been more sobering, or at least as giddily insane as Victor/Victoria. The compromise Rob has to accept does pay off considering how the film begins, with Rob entertaining Lanford's children with his camera and discussing the afterlife. But the three central characters, well-defined and sympathetic as they are, share a complicity which Rob, whose strained attachment with Micki and refreshing initial honesty with Maude provide him a human cushion, is solely burdened by. Reynolds' warm approach to dialogue escapes him almost entirely, and Edwards suffers a similar flatness.

Micki & Maude's reputation might have been unjustly tarnished in the Internet age, with misguided nitpicking robbing it of its surprising affability. And if this must be, allow me to relate what happened to much of the main personnel afterwards. Blake Edwards fell upon self-imitation so hard (including such lesser lights as Sunset, Skin Deep and Switch) that when he returned to the Pink Panther franchise in the early 1990s, it was the Mirriam-Webster example of "too little, too late." Hollywood lured Jonathan Reynolds into frivolity full-time, forsaking the maturity of Micki & Maude for the tedious silliness of Leonard Part 6 and My Stepmother Is an Alien. Dudley Moore revisited his star-epitomizing role of Arthur Bach to his own diminishing returns, Ann Reinking retired and Amy Irving became arguably more known for her brief marriage to Spielberg than any performance she gave post-1984.

Keep that in mind the next revisionist reviewer appoints a one-star rating to Micki & Maude, seek the movie out for yourself and prepare for two delightful hours in the company of various talents who united at their prime to make what may have been their last real winner. Should big mosquitoes come out of your ears when it's over, then maybe I'll consider it a stinker.

Cannon Fodder: Making the Grade + Hot Chili

MAKING THE GRADE
(R, Cannon Films, 104 mins., theatrical release date: May 18, 1984)

HOT CHILI
(R, Cannon Films, 86 mins., released in August 1985)

Now here's a movie which you won't find discussed in Mark Hartley's Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. Actually, I've seen two of them, and they're both thudding attempts by Golan-Globus to cater illicitly to the pubescent teenybopper set. They're both very loosely based on their earlier The Last American Virgin, and they were just as day-late and dollar-short, too.

Why Making the Grade isn't included in Electric Boogaloo, even in a passing two-second interval, is astounding. Another relic of Cannon's disastrous association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, you'd think Hartley would've paid this one a little more mind since the topic was broached. This one also spawned the careers of Judd Nelson, just a year before his induction into the Brat Pack, and Andrew Clay Silverstein, whose character is named "Diceman" as an omen of his later notoriety.

Yes, this was the film that gave you Andrew "Dice" Clay. Reactions may vary, but suffice to say there are no naughty nursery rhymes anywhere in the film. Perhaps if there were, Hartley and Brett Ratner would've jumped on that opportunity. God knows my image of Ratner is hardly different to that of the Diceman.

Besides, if you're going to make a shrine to the Eighties, then what better clip to highlight than Clay's show-stopping goof on a jazzercising John Travolta? Even without Frank Stallone on the soundtrack, that moment is golden. What, were the makers of Electric Boogaloo afraid they'd play up the kitsch too much?

Initially titled "The Last American Preppie" in a bald attempt to capitalize on that Boaz Davidson job, despite neither him nor any of the cast (physical or musical) returning to the fold, Making the Grade is another bog-standard row between the stuffy rich and the snazzy poor of our educational system. You've seen this done many, many times, whether you were there in '84 or not. There comes a point where you as a filmgoer feel like one of these sub-Animal House underachievers, being held back so as to endure the same canned anarchy and tedious characterizations over and over again without ever feeling like you've learned a damn thing.

Dana Olsen, the sitcom writer who'd go on to pen The 'Burbs, assumes the poor man's Bill Murray position as Palmer Woodrow III, the living embodiment of both snob AND slob. Smarmily secure in his own arrested development and the shame it brings his wealthy family, Palmer's flunked out of six boarding schools in three years and is threatened with losing his inheritance if he doesn't graduate his senior year at Hoover Academy. Rather than cancel his semester overseas, Palmer buys himself an impostor when he meets Eddie Keaton (Judd Nelson), a youthful hustler running away from $3,700 in gambling debts.

So it's off to Preppie High for Eddie, where he confronts the atypical melee of boors and bores. There's the geeky roommate (Carey Scott) who is also Palmer's best friend, agreeing to mentor Eddie for a healthy lump sum. There's principal antagonist/king of the campus Bif (Scott McGinnis) and his would-be girlfriend/founder's daughter Tracey (Jonna Lee), who fancies Eddie for his salt-of-the-gutter charisma. There's a ragtag faculty comprised of hapless dean Mr. Harriman (Gordon Jump), corpulent lacrosse coach Wordman (Walter Olkewicz) and memory-deprived Professor Mueller (Ray Hill). And finally, there's the neurotic fat kid known only as Blimp (Daniel Schneider), socially awkward and severely overemphasized.

Dorian Walker, whose only other directing credit was the campy Teen Witch ("Top that!"), can't even be counted on to give this movie a serviceable flow. The movie seems to shuffle its scenarios, conforming to the episodic ordinariness of its genre with brazen apathy. Chestnuts like the school social, the loud party and the "romantic" sex scene just seem plopped in to satisfy the producers' demands, and screenwriter/producer Gene (Treasure of the Four Crowns) Quintano strains to adapt them to the then-current vogue. More often than not, it's just dead silly, like when Eddie shows off his Breakin' prowess (note that the only black person in the cast is Palmer's sassy maid) as the live band launches from a limp cover of "My Sharona" to a song by Reflex, the one-hit wonders behind "The Politics of Dancing," despite not having a synthesizer player! (Imagine Reeves Nevo & The Cinch from Fast Times at Ridgemont High suddenly turning into A Flock of Seagulls.)

The result is as schizophrenic as expected of a Golan-Globus exploitation, yet crushingly formulaic and half-baked. What may work in a fast-paced action movie like Ninja III: The Domination becomes stultifying in a teen movie, and this movie's constant switching of gears from raucous (the return appearance of Palmer, which may as well suggest surrender) to proselytizing (Eddie's inexplicable personality shift into a stereotypical Ivy League killjoy) registers as incompetence. The only plus here is that Nelson, Olsen and Clay do not want for one-liners: "I don't even know you and you're breakin'my heart," Eddie raps at Tracey, before admitting "I've only felt that way about Pia Zadora." But despite all of their combined sarcasms, Making the Grade uses the cheapest of primer to paint by numbers.

One of the major idiosyncrasies of Cannon Films is that they were inches ahead of the game (Breakin') and miles behind the curve, as Making the Grade demonstrates. You'd think that the previous year's Risky Business and the concurrently-released Sixteen Candles would've refined Cannon's coarse stance on teen movies. But Quintano is on the same mean streak as his predecessors in the teensploitation field. He thinks it's charming to hear Coach Wordman, who is introduced in the presence of trashy women, speak contemptibly of wallflowers as "woof-woofs" and "dogs." He falls back on Blimp being humiliated by Aryans with argyles or, at the height of condescension, stuffing his face at the commencement ceremony. Even the wanton nudity reeks of arch disdain, which in this film is the dominant style of humor.

At least The Last American Virgin had the brevity of a 90-minute runtime, whereas Making the Grade is a veritable cramming session at 100 minutes. Despite the lack of chemistry between Nelson and Olsen, the credits suggest Palmer and Eddie would return for a sequel, "Tourista." This never officially happened, nor did a planned sequel to Virgin which would've had the male leads cross paths with Cannon regular Sylvia Kristel (Lady Chatterley's Lover, Mata Hari) in an exotic locale, but I believe Golan & Globus followed-up both movies in spirit with William Sachs' phenomenally worthless Hot Chili.

Since three of the four main players from Virgin went on, like Judd Nelson, to way better things in 1985 (Monoson in Mask, Antin in The Goonies, Franklin in Better Off Dead opposite Dan "Blimp" Schneider), Hot Chili's only encore appearance is from perennial third-wheeler Joe Rubbo. And since the premise involves four boys' summer vacation to Mexico, it's as close to "Tourista" as Cannon would ever get.

The big problem here is that whatever marginal graces Davidson's cult favorite possessed, in performance and photography, are completely lost here. All that's left are the tackiness and tastelessness.

WASP-ish hero Ricky (Charles Schillaci in his only movie credit), buddy Jason (Allan Kayser, the bully from Night of the Creeps) and bickering nebbishes Arney (Rubbo) & Stanley (Chuck Hemingway, who appeared in My Science Project and Neon Maniacs before dying young in 1996) arrive south of the border on a work program at a resort hotel, the Tropicana Cabana. Though the manager, Esteban (Jerry Lazarus), is a soul-sapping dictator, they have high hopes to indulge their yen for sex and booze which are immediately stoked by the presence of another degraded Virgin alumnus, Louisa Moritz, here squeaking like Betty Boop as she struts about in nothing but an apron.

Hot Chili basically goes through the dopily titillating motions from this point onward. Ricky takes music lessons from a naked cellist (Bea Fiedler). Stanley carries a snooty guest's luggage all around the hotel, even ending up in a bullfighting ring, while the film is sped up a la Benny Hill and cartoon sound effects augment the chipmunk voices. Tawny blonde veteran Taaffe O'Connell brandishes a dildo in Ricky's face, claiming it's something "all boys want." And then she and the boys straight-up rehash the Carmela gangbang from Virgin, complete with Rubbo's apprehensive face and the unwanted appearance of an irate lover.

And the less said about Ricky's letters-to-mother narration, the better.

Skinny dipping, strobe lights, dressing in drag, belching, meat thermometers in delicate areas, breasts toppling out of their dresses, under-the-table foot penetration. Hot Chili is a compilation of the Lemon Popsicle series' greatest hits, and calls into question why company man Boaz Davidson didn't demand a writing credit opposite William Sachs and Menahem Golan given how many derivations are on display. All that's missing is his smug chauvinist moralizing.

Even if you despised The Last American Virgin, you'll miss the compositional skill of Adam Greenberg, the fresh-faced casting of Lawrence Monoson & Diane Franklin and the fluke assemblage of simpering CHR staples. All Hot Chili serves you are four bland actors on auto-pilot, predominantly revolting mise en scène and one patronizing, puerile gag after another. Not even as flavorful as store-brand mayonnaise let alone cayenne peppers.

This is perhaps the worst movie Sachs has ever commanded, even more dire than The Incredible Melting Man and Galaxina. Hot Chili is only recommended to completists of either Cannon Films or Joe Rubbo, and even they will wish for a Palmer Woodrow III to provide the snarky commentary Hot Chili truly craves. Mark Hartley was right to let this one rot in peace.

Cannon Fodder: Bolero (1984)

BOLERO
(NR, Cannon Films, 105 mins., theatrical release date: August 31, 1984)

[Welcome back to Cannon Fodder, a series devoted to my endurance of a handful of films produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who were Hebrew National yet far from kosher. This is honey-drenched foreplay to precede my review of Mark Hartley's well-received Cannon doco Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. Last time, I took a willing bite of The Apple, which at least was spirited in its stupidity. All I can say here is that, "This is a low, Bo..."]

In 1984, Cannon Films hooked and crooked their way to an original breakthrough in the film scene, releasing the Breakin' movies to a wide audience and thus getting a pop 'n' lock on the hip-hop/dance vehicle.

Unfortunately, between those youth-oriented highs lay the adults-only Bolero, one of Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus' all-time greatest follies.

In another attempt to profit high by aiming low, our Israeli anti-heroes turned to actor-turned-auteur John Derek and his wife Bo Derek. Not only was Cathleen Collins infamously less than half John's age, but John discovered her as a teenager whilst he was still wed to Linda Evans in the early 1970s. After they wed in mid-decade, Cathleen went by the stage name of "Bo" Derek and was debuting in Orca: The Killer Whale, followed by her iconic role as the mysterious object of desire in Blake Edwards' 10.

The Dereks remained passionate lovers until John's death in 1998, with husband working hard to preserve the sex symbol status of his wife in the pages of Playboy and on the silver screen. Unfortunately, the projects they concocted were transparently opportunistic and incredibly tasteless. 1981's Tarzan, the Ape Man was the first strike, followed mere months later by their eight-years-old, Greece-located pet project Fantasies. 

Bolero was the film which effectively told both John and Bo Derek "You're out!"

That was their fate despite a massive media-hyped controversy over Bolero's distribution and lack of an official MPAA rating. Cannon were producing under the MGM banner for a brief time (the sleeper success of Breakin' was one of the results), but Bolero was bad enough for Frank Yablans to demand a legal escape clause from the studio's contract with Cannon (apparently, it didn't extend to home video distribution). Golan & Globus decided to release it themselves, but John Derek, who was pressured by his producers to make the film more "erotic" than the Dereks already intended, didn't present this film to the MPAA for fear of getting the scarlet X. Instead, Bolero went out unrated, with many theaters having to impose the "no one under 17" rule themselves.

The Dereks and Menahem Golan took blows to each other in the press, with Bo claiming that her private collection of on-set photographs were stolen by the studio and copyrighted as publicity stills. The producers were ashamed of the project so much, they wanted ownership on Mr. & Mrs. Derek's ranch as compensation. Whatever the beef between these clashing egos, Bolero made a quick recoup of its budget after two weeks but then tapered out and stalled at roughly $9 million domestic gross. The film's petering profits as well as its deluge of negative reviews guaranteed a sweep at the coming Golden Raspberries, winning six out of nine nominations.

But time has a way of redeeming even the most abortive artifact of its time, right? 

NO!!! It doesn't!

I was reminded of that when I watched The Apple, and now it's even more applicable to Bolero. To paraphrase a Freudian adage, sometimes a fiasco is just a fiasco.

This dual desecration of Rudolph Valentino and Maurice Ravel's funeral plots replaces the silent film era's unspoken campiness with a deluge of head-slapping exchanges that don't deserve to be printed on old-timey title cards (which John Derek actually does!). And despite being named after the composition which soundtracked Bo's nudity in 10, Ravel is nowhere to be heard, the dishonor going to guest conductor Elmer Bernstein, whose son Peter scored every other piece of music outside of the love scenes. Try as he may, Elmer B. is no better suited to orchestrating endless soft-core set pieces than John Williams is, and the climax (so to speak) visually and sonically conveys "eerie" more than "extasy," which is actually spelled out in neon as a beacon amongst egregiously-used dry ice fog.

A running joke involving this grammatical error is genuinely contrived to endear the viewer to Bo Derek, who I steadfastly refuse to acknowledge even plays a character here. In a vanity project as relentless as Bolero, she isn't virginal young Lida MacGillvery, a supposed bonnie lass with a Yank accent who graduates from an English prep school so she can inherit her father's fortune and put it towards a Euro-peon vacation. There is no plot involving this hormonal vacuum of higher education having saved herself for passionate intercourse with a dark, handsome stranger straight out of a Valentino non-talkie. There are no million barrels of wine, hookahs of opium, underage nudie shots, or castrating bulls.

No, Bolero is Bo and John Derek's celluloid passport to Morocco and Spain, with the most rudimentary attempt at an Emmanuelle sex fantasy to frame it. This is Bo Derek at her most unbearable as she one-ups Olivia Newton-John, who convinced more playing a liberated high school sweetheart in Grease than Derek does here as a wide-eyed ingénue. This is two stuporous scenes of simulated sex buttressed by bad comedy and even worse melodrama. This is, like a lot of Cannon's output, too much of a smug slog to provoke the kind of titters which stick out more than the titties, two of which, need I remind you, belong to a 14-year-old!!

Don't let this "European sensibilities" bullshit justification (I've heard it used to excuse Cannon's Lemon Popsicle movies, and it's flimsier than Bo's costumes) distract from the undisputed truth that Bolero is the pinnacle of pretentious crassness. It is not entertaining, it's certainly not erotic, and it's not even worth 1000 words of cathartic dissertation.

So, Bo Derek as "Mac" has her romantic ideals dashed when the sheik of her fancy (Greg Bensen) turns out to be an Oxford-poet pretty boy who can't hold his smoke and sinks into narcolepsy. Whoop-de-har. Then she locks onto a dreamy rejoneador, Angel (Andrea Occhipinti), who shows mercy by not slaying his charges to the public's disinterest. He doesn't sell toros, but vinos. He's also an in-demand stud, with both a feisty ginger-haired suitor and his "gypsy shadow," Paloma (Olivia d'Abo...14-year-olds, Dude), clamoring for Angel's pene.

"Mac" uses her daddy's trust fund to essentially buy her way into entitled ecstasy...oh, I'm sorry, "extasy." She gets deflowered, we get demeaned. But that's not enough, so Angel has to sever a nerve ending in his nether, giving "Mac" all the motivation to goad Angel back into potency: "Don't take it out on me just because you got cute with a damn bull!"

By film's end, you'll have accrued all the earnest agony needed to wish that wily mammal has made it impossible for these two to procreate for the rest of their lives.

Not even Mark Hartley could condense this movie in such a bite-sized way as to make Bolero any more salvageable.

Never mind the pitiful attention to period details ("As Time Goes By" is played on piano in a casbah: written in 1931; associated with a beloved movie released in 1942; having fuckall to do with the 1920s), the ludicrous tonal shifts (the dejected Sheik hunts down "Mac" and has her kidnapped apropos of nothing, with an equally pathetic resolution) or the fact that Bo comes across as perpetually silly rather than sensuous, even in the over-ballyhooed sex scenes.

What really awards Bolero the all-time booby prize is the writing and direction of John Derek. He was a lecherous photographer masquerading as a legit fillmmaker. There is no evidence in Bolero, in his handling of dialogue, performances and scenery, that John D. could achieve at all the pure whimsy which would've helped make this film even the teensiest bit easier to take. He has no flair for editing, as Bolero boasts many of the single worst transitions, montages and abuses of slow-mo in any major motion picture. He makes his wife come across as glassy-eyed imbecile rather than a living centerfold. He likes to throw in fully naked 14-year-olds for spice (the more age-appropriate Ana Obregon, for the most part, keeps her clothes ON as brunette BFF Catalina, who puts the sniggering make on "Mac's" Scottish attorney). And he makes one want to walk inside the movie not to covet his lusty S.O., but to instead put the valiant George Kennedy, as long-suffering chauffeur Cotton, out of his misery, Old Yeller-style.

Good for George that he gets to woo Angel's maid, though. Maybe we can put him down after his conquest, like Jason Voorhees would. At least he can die with joy and some sliver of dignity. 

Bolero, meanwhile, deserves every disgrace, the epitome of exhibitionism at its most exhausting. I wouldn't even recommend it to the video voyeurs who would be most satisfied from easy access to the money shots.

I don't even want to devote another precious sentence except "Good riddance."

Hardbodies

HARDBODIES
(R, Columbia Pictures, 87 mins., theatrical release date: May 4, 1984)

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My name is John Bishop, and I like Hardbodies.

The early 1980s sex comedy is one of the least reputable genres in existence, second only to slasher movies in its ridiculous prolificacy at the time. Both were very cheap to make, required no star power, relied on the basest of audience-baiting elements, and were released in such assembly-line succession that it was almost unbelievable that there were any other types of movies in theatres at all. Once the Canadian production Porky's passed the $100,000,000 mark in America alone, all bets were off as to the next big trend in cash-in cinema. And while not all youth-oriented fare was necessarily disposable, what with movies like WarGames, Risky Business and Sixteen Candles on the horizon, the screens were dominated by the hedonistic antics of moronic teen boys to the point where even National Lampoon's Animal House was like some wistful summer fling in the mind.

Nostalgia plays a large part in the story lines and audience identification of films like Porky's, The Last American Virgin, Losin' It, and others. Video rentals, cable airings and burgeoning superstars allowed for cult audiences to grow around these titles. And I am not immune myself, because having grown up consuming VHS tapes and the USA Network fervently, Mark Griffith's 1984 romp Hardbodies was inescapable. It was the definitive Beach Party incarnation of this comedic subgenre, even more so than the official Frankie & Annette reunion film Back to the Beach from a few years later. And aside from its sandy, surf-and-turf scenery, there was another reason Hardbodies stood out from the pack...

BOOBIES!

Glory be, there was more exposed areola in this one film alone than any handful of these movies combined. This is also the skinniest sex comedy of its era, as virtually every female cast member is rendered topless to the degree where you imagine Southern California as one of the premier nudist colonies in your head. And the weirdest thing about Hardbodies is...it's shameless in ways that go beyond critical condemnation. There is a curious, consistent innocence to the proceedings and, most refreshingly, a clear absence of malice and lack of pretension that even the film's marketing campaign played to the hilt.

Back when Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert devoted an entire episode to the teenage sex comedy in 1983, the duo were equally appalled by the misogyny inherent in most of these films. They wondered why boys and girls weren't allowed to develop convincing friendships, metaphorically likened these conquests to dartboard games and chided the familiar trope of the boys having to pay hookers for sexual knowledge instead of indulging their curiosity with their significant others. More so than they did with their rather hysterical "Women in Danger" expose, the veteran critics did make some valid, grounded points. Immaturity became equated with flagrant imbecility all too often, and none of these movies gave their female characters any real identity other than love/lust object.

When it came time to talk about Hardbodies, though, here was a movie which they lumped right in with its mindless forebears despite some clear strides made in the handling of these stories. Keep in mind a product designed originally for Playboy Televsion was never truly going to rise above the typical male glut of soft-core sexcapades. But here was a movie which did not exactly devote itself to the
degradation of female sexuality, and sure enough has plenty of humorous exchanges between the equally promiscuous genders. One of my all-time favorite lines from the entire sex comedy bandwagon occurs when Carlton Ashby (Sorrells Pickard), a middle-aged cowpoke with a fortune in the fertilizer industry, stimulates aerobics instructor Michelle (Kristi Somers) to the point of arousal:

Michelle: "Robert E. Lee."
Ashby: "Ma'am?"
Michelle: "Well, you remind me of Robert E. Lee. I like to nickname my men before I f--- them."
Ashby: "Just like that? Whatever became of romance?"
Michelle: "Why, Ashby, darling...You want romance? Go read a novel. You want me? I'm upstairs."

Rarely does a movie like this get recognized as genuinely witty, but Hardbodies makes more of an effort than most of its ilk. Michelle is a smart, spunky, sexy character who remains Ashby's steady despite bearing more stamina than the burnt-out Southerner, a colloquial chap who gripes that his liver is "staging a major coup d'etat" in the midst of a dawning hangover. Ashby himself proves quite a catch with his uncomplicated, good-humored demeanor. They make swell company for 90 minutes is what I'm trying to say, which is the deal-maker for me as far as I'm concerned.

And that is Hardbodies in a nutshell, which proves that aiming for the lowest common denominator doesn't always have be so miserable. Principal character Scotty Palmer (Grant Cramer), self-appointed "head of the Geek Patrol," is a scam artist who champions a sense of community among the female species and has a healthy, sexually-active love affair with a brunette bunny named Kristi (Teal Roberts), who is impressionable but not wholly idiotic. The key to his success is to "dialogue" the women, steering clear of antiquated one-liners and instead flirting with candor and style. On the opposite end are three vacationing squares: Ashby, the bluntly-named Rounder (Michael Rapport) and the even more on-the-nose Hunter (Gary Wood), the alpha of the over-the-hill trio. Their efforts to chat up young women routinely end in humiliation ("I don't f--- fossils for free"). When Scotty falls three months behind in back rent and is duly evicted, the geezers entice him to become a mentor (read: definitely not a pimp) in exchange for walking money and a more luxurious place to live for the time being.

Cue the obligatory array of pick-up montages, house parties and pratfalls, with Ashby emerging as the clear victor amongst the gang. Hunter proves a bit too reliant on spilling wine on girls' dresses to get them to disrobe, whereas Rounder bluffs himself into snapping bogus modeling photos for a gaggle of overly eager babes. Since this is Scotty's brilliant idea, Kristi rightfully blows him off out of frustration, but forgives him in time for a quintuple date at the club owned by body-building guru and potential business partner Rocco (special appearance by Antony Ponzini).

Alas, the morning after proves troublesome when Scotty intervenes on behalf of secretly coy exhibitionist Candy (Crystal Shaw) after she's manhandled by the lecherous Hunter, who retaliates by zeroing in on Kristi. Candy's confessional moment, in which she breaks down over the negative stigmas associated with being sexually curious, feels more natural and sweet-hearted than one may expect. Things wrap up in a marijuana-fueled haze and several embarrassing comeuppances for "Hunter's orgy gang," which Ashby indignantly refuses to be part of.

The trouble with most of these 1980s sex comedies is that they exist in such a moral vacuum that when it comes time to sermonize, such concessions to ethics come across as disingenuous and equally dumb. Hardbodies finds a consistent tone which the flagrantly bitter The Last American Virgin failed to exhibit, mostly due to the fact that it doesn't hold its characters in outright contempt. Even nominal antagonist Hunter displays enough integrity at the beginning to turn down underage sex before he goes full-on capitalist cretin. Add to that several endearing performances from both sexes and equal time for amiable introspection both girl-on-girl and guy-on-guy, which leavens the kitsch with considerable soul and wisdom.

Hardbodies still finds room for plenty of below-the-belt humor, with the most obvious being when Rounder takes a few blows to his "love nuts" and the most clever during a triple-intercourse montage wherein Ashby interprets oral sex by playing a heightened flamenco rhythm on his acoustic guitar, climaxing in a sudden breaking of strings. Even the persistently gratuitous nudity is not as vehemently irresponsible as most people give it discredit for. If there is a curious lack of variety in regards to the women (by tradition, Hardbodies exists in the same white bread world as the rest of the teen sex comedy genre), then at least one won't forget the sight of one of Roscoe's buff beauties performing a playful tease in view of the slovenly Rounder. Even Grant Cramer isn't too shy amongst the male cast to go the full monty.

Cramer, who would go on to camp up his lothario persona here in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, proves effortlessly likeable in the lead role. The fictional garage band Diaper Rash (whose set list includes such gems as "Computer Madness," "Mr. Cool" and "Give it a Chance") is filled in by the lady rockers of Vixen, who enjoyed late-blooming success in the 1980s hair metal scene with the Richard Marx composition "Edge of a Broken Heart." And aside from Roberts, Shaw and Somers, B-movie fans ought to enjoy seeing several name cult actresses amongst its cast, including Kathleen Kinmont (Renegade), Darcy De Moss (Reform School Girls) and the late Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000) as Kristi's estate-selling older sister Lana. And yet, even with all of these lovelies, it is both Sorrells Pickard as the easygoing Ashby and Courtney Gains as the dweebish Rag who help make this a not-so-guilty pleasure. Already fresh from his mutinous, menacing debut as Malachai from Children of the Corn, Gains particularly appears to be having the time of his life in more comical surroundings; not everyone can flip off people in 48 different languages, dress in unflattering drag or fondle a grossly-realized pair of fake DDs with as much enthusiasm as him.

I can't in good faith give this movie even a four-star rating, simply because it is very tacky and tasteless in ways that often times have little to show other than skin. The appearance of a noxious bunch of fart-lighting morons (including an unflattering early role for stuntman/horror icon Kane Hodder) who turn from nemeses to accomplices rings false and proves more uncomfortable than the admittedly queasy-making antics of the three "fossils." This is a fantasy of mid-life crisis in which the audience is expected to be on the side of a bunch of old bulls. At least those had affluent voices of reason sounded by Ashby, Kristi and her best friend Kimberly (Cindy Silver), who finally comes around to making love with the long-suffering but noble Rag out of genuine solidarity.

"Genuine solidarity," two words I've always wanted to use in describing a dopey sex comedy but never had the chance to. Shouldn't good sex arise from good vibes, the kind which the vast majority of 1980s movies mostly demonized? Oh, Hardbodies...I give in. You are that rare sex-related 1980s film that inspires people to want to have actual sex. Just like Candy, you really don't deserve the ditzy rep you have gotten over the years. I guess you'll always be my bigger, better deal.

Enchantéd, Pt. V: Second Time Lucky

Enchantéd: A Retrospective Tribute to Diane Franklin

V. Second Time Lucky (1984)

(R, United International Pictures)

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[ED: The following article has literally been ghostwritten by the spirit of John Bishop, who dictated this article to a close friend in the wake of an unanticipated heart attack after repeated viewings of both Summer Girl and Second Time Lucky. Until he has ailed enough to type the next article in this series, which is devoted to the movie that introduced him to Diane Franklin in the first place, all we have for now is this piece regarding the 1984 movie Second Time Lucky. Our best wishes go out to John and his closest friends and family...]

The overwhelming temptation with this review is to write about what every other person who has seen Second Time Lucky can only focus on, which is the slack-jawed, goo goo-eyed glory of watching Diane Franklin frolic about a New Zealand wilderness in the buff (and still managing to star in a PG-rated movie, at least in some territories). In all honesty, I can't deny the allure of such fanservice, myself, particularly because unlike the last two movies which displayed Diane's fantastic flesh, herein I can find only guiltless pleasure in the sight of a very beautiful, barenaked woman, the same one who stole my heart whilst keeping her clothes on (in Better Off Dead, natch), without the context fouling up my natural arousal.

Remember that in The Last American Virgin, Karen is twice stripped down in moments that are particularly unpleasant to watch. The first, of course, is her inevitable sexual encounter with the boorish Rick, which poor, lovesick Gary cannot effectively delay. The postmodern reading behind Gary's pursuit of Karen is that of a "stalker with a crush," and in this scene in particular, that description feels dangerously true. Although the viewer who actually believes in love would wish Gary had the fortitude to stand up for himself and for his feelings toward Karen, what if he did happen upon Karen and Rick making it in the press box? Very little he has done prior to that suggests a comfortable self-reliance in making his intentions clear. Chances are that if he caught them, he'd only be acting in the manner of a sad, teenage voyeur. The use of The Commodores' "Oh No" is another clue to the tragic futility of Gary’s adoration for Karen.

The second is Karen's stay at the abortion clinic, which the less said about it, the better. In both cases, Diane's nudity is deployed with proper context towards the downbeat story so that any deliberate ogling carries with it the sense of shame and sorrow.

Amityville II: The Possession, meanwhile, didn't linger as much on Diane's R-rated parts, framed primarily to showcase her body from the shoulders up and thus emphasizing natural facial expressions, a particularly poignant power Diane has as a performer, over gratuitous fanservice. The moments of more explicit nudity are fleeting and handled with more taste, which is surprising since Patricia Montelli doffs her nightgown to appease her evil-spirited brother Sonny and ends up getting violated in a particularly queasy fashion.

It took the network-aired MOW Summer Girl from 1983 to show some form of progress. This is the first movie in which Diane Franklin demonstrates sex appeal in a truly playful manner, rich with glamour, conviction and class. There are still a few notable implications, mainly in the first instances of calculated titillation used to ensnare Gavin/the viewer, first by having Cinni take her shirt off near an open window and then at the beach via her application of both water and lotion in a teasing manner. And that Cinni is the villain of the film does invite a correlation between her comfortable acceptance of her femininity and her impure schemes against the Shelburne household. Diane talks about this double-standard in her autobiography, but nevertheless she projects a mature attitude of seduction and is allowed a greater chance to become charismatic in her sensuality, not just merely desirable.

In Summer Girl, Cinni was a schizoid bombshell who slipped in and out of personalities to both give her an advantage and to demonstrate her instability. The Australian production Second Time Lucky is more generous towards Diane's character-oriented performance preferences, as she plays era-hopping variations on the Biblical persona of Eve all the way from the Book of Genesis to the New Wave, No Nukes modern world. Temptation is posited in several different period settings as Adam tries his best to resist in the name of both God and true love.

Yes, this is essentially a romantic farce which mines the classic Judeo-Christian fable of mankind’s fall from grace for erotic jokes and japes. The premise is that God in Heaven (Robert Morley) gets a collect call from his downstairs neighbor in Hades (Sir Robert Helpmann) challenging him to a "double or nothing" wager to see if man still has what it takes to uphold the saintliness and virtue of His image. Their pawns are two bespectacled college kids sitting aloof at a hedonistic frat party, conveniently named Adam and Evelyn and played with clear concessions towards the American teen market by Roger Wilson from Porky's and Diane Franklin from The Last American Virgin. It’s a typical meet-cute marathon session wherein hapless valedictorian Adam takes a tumble down the stairs and bumps into Evelyn, known by her friends as Eve, leading to a succession of toothy grins, wide eyes, and serendipitous sentence fragments. Of course, Adam accidentally stains Eve’s party dress and she unwittingly picks his room in which to change. And it’s expected that an elderly neighbor calls the police complaining of a disturbance of peace.

Adam doesn't predict the archangel Gabriel (John Gadsby), aka Gabby, to show up incognito as a motorbike cop and whisk him away to the Garden of Eden. Decreed as "the chosen one," the naïve Adam fails to catch on quickly in regards to what the setting dictates, and reluctant Gabby's vague instructions do him little service once Eve appears in a very familiar body, namely that of Evelyn. Adam plays along with the scenario as does Eve, who dutifully gets paid a visit by the snake, or merely Satan with a sock puppet, once she happens upon the Tree of Knowledge. The Devil dupes her into eating the apple, persuades her to offer one to Adam and, naturally, the first test is a smashing failure.

But God need not fear, as there's always a second time...and three more after that.

Gabby frequently reminds Adam of a certain "danger signal" involving a particular impulse that, if Adam had any cognizance (or the slightest history of arousal, despite protesting at one point that he feels like he’s been swindled into a skin flick), would immediately recognize. His second go takes place in ancient Rome during the Gallic war, wherein “Adameus” returns from battle to the cheers of Caesar (Lucifer) and his voluptuous vestal virgin fiancée Devia (Eve). She beckons Adameus to her nuptial bed and promptly seduces him into a stupor, allowing for Caesar to catch Adameus and sentence him to ignoble death in the Coliseum.

Round three is where the turnaround finally occurs, as Adam’s now an English soldier in WWI wounded by a bomb (a candle dropped down from on high by the frustrated Lord) and taken under the care of a comely French nurse (Eve). But she’s still the Devil's plaything, as Old Scratch resurfaces now as Wilhelm II and Eva is his top spy. They still get found out by the British army and Eva is placed on the firing line, where Adam realizes in the midst of a potential tryst that he's not supposed to give in to lust. But will his newfound freewill carry him through the rest of the tests, as he attempts to sway Eve into rediscovering her own immortal soul whilst the Devil thickly lays on the deceit?

Let's get this out of the way right now: Diane Franklin is really splendid in this movie. I mentioned that in Summer Girl, you could sense Diane’s growth as a creative, confident screen presence, building upon the promise of her first two film roles (I will leave Deadly Lessons alone, because that's the last movie I'd recommend to anyone who hasn't watched a single DF vehicle). With Second Time Lucky, Diane continues to prove herself an enchanting, relaxed actor of both boundless range and splendor. Seeing her as Devia in the Roman passage and as a gum-chewing blonde gangster moll named Evie in another Chicago-set vignette invites sincere comparisons to Liz Taylor and Jean Harlow, but Diane finds her own groove in every unique character and works wonderfully through vocal inflections and multiple body languages to make each personality dazzle.

Better Off Dead diehards (myself, included) should thrill to the revelation of watching Diane act with her first use of a French accent. The character of Eva is more than just a precursor to Monique Junet, though, especially in the direct sexiness Diane brings to this duplicitous nurse. Watching Eva come on to Adam in her cell provides the film its best moment of genuine steamy bliss, and when she taunts her executioners with a brazen flash of her breasts, accompanied by a snippet from "La Marseillaise," my own heart could do nothing except explode on the spot...just my luck.

The whole principal cast is encouraged to handle multiple personalities, including Franklin, Wilson, Gadsby, Helpmann, and John-Michael Howson as Satan's overeager emissary. Although not all of them rise to level of a Peter Sellers or Alec Guinness or Mel Brooks, they are occasionally fun to watch and do allow for some better appreciation of the performers. Wilson doesn't quite nail each Adam variant with the same finesse as Franklin (although he shares with her a sense of plucky humor: "Would you settle for demigod?" he concedes to a pompous Caesar), but gets better as he goes along. Although his injured English soldier looks very similar to Cary Elwes from The Princess Bride (he even says "As you wish" at one instance), Wilson's highlight remains his untouchable Prohibition copper Adam Smit in the film's funniest ("Is that what the chef recommends?"), most dramatic segment. Helpmann and Howson provide the movie more than its fair share of ham, camping it up recklessly in an attempt to make the film’s innuendo-laced dialogue sound more droll than it is on paper (Howson’s swishy Mark Antony surrogate communicates only in comically gay comebacks). The amiable Gadsby, meanwhile, is the brunt of some of the script’s most embarrassing dialogue (the "jolly roger" speech is a low) as Adam's hesitant celestial guide.

Would you believe this one-time Bo Derek vanity project was directed by Michael Anderson if I told you? Michael Anderson, Sr., the English journeyman who once scored the mother of all triple crowns in the 1950s with The Dam Busters and adaptations of both 1984 & Around the World in 80 Days, who later found cult esteem among genre fans for Logan's Run and Orca: The Killer Whale in the late 1970s? Anderson has an impeccable sense of scope and is one of the most generous directors any actress would seem fortunate to collaborate with. Even in a pan-and-scan DVD transfer that is regrettably murky and noisy at times, Second Time Lucky has production values of immense grandeur and a perky female lead who never stops brightening up the scenery. This is a pair of aces that desperately cries out for a full house of some serendipity that doesn't quite get dealt.

I will not chide the film for its predictability, as the opening makes it clear that Adam and Evelyn are preordained lovebirds meant for a duet, but the inconsistencies of the screenplay are tough to ignore. Begin with Adam, a real-life braniac whose commencement address hints at avoiding temptation but whose intelligence wavers between an understanding of God's will and a staggering density. He gets fooled close to three times until he knows exactly what the "danger signal" entails, which is kind of pathetic for a romantic lead let alone a young man of his age. Evelyn, too, betrays her own apparent smarts without explanation, which has the unwelcome hint of objectification despite the instinctive nuances Diane brings to the characters, who progressively develop a little more heart and soul with each passing reincarnation. Did Evelyn blindly agree to let the Devil possess her before she appears in Eden? I dunno, but at least there is no incest involved. Setting aside all manner of theological paradoxes, I'd rather just say that the love story element itself is rather contrived if ultimately cute and graced with some sweet chemistry.

Although it's not a trying experience if taken wholly as a lark, Second Time Lucky is scatterbrained and often too sophomoric for its own good, threatening to extinguish the honest sparks developing between Adam and Evelyn. Despite the best efforts of Roger Wilson and Diane Franklin, both of whom eclipse their prior libidinous glories as Mickey and Karen, one could easily forget there is supposed to be a love story by the time things wrap up with a sacrificial show of devotion spurned on by a cheater in the game. The greatest reward of watching this at least once (I don't suggest multiple times unless you're asking for an RSVP to '80s babe heaven the same way I did) is that Diane acquits herself very gracefully in preparation for the next entry in this series, one that offers up her most warming, lovable "babe" persona in the midst of a madcap suburban wonderland.

The Scorpion Releasing DVD release recycles the old 1.33:1 master from the antiquated Academy disc without much restoration, but Diane Franklin and veteran producer Tony Ginnane, a familiar voice from Scorpion's previous releases of The Day After Halloween and The Survivor, do allow for this edition to be truly special. They team up for an audio commentary and provide individual interviews, and Diane raids her photo book for some typically adorable behind-the-scenes stills. Ginnane continues to charm and inform in his native Australian brogue, but this is Diane's maiden voyage on bonus feature territory, and her hyperactive, super-enthusiastic personality is in full flight. Aside from referring to Evie as a "sexy dingbat" and continually marveling at the freedom of her performances repeatedly with a disarming sigh or cry of "oh my gosh," Diane also points out something not mentioned in her book: that Roger Wilson wrote and performed the song ("Radioactive Tears") which he uses to spit in the face of the Devil for the final segment.

Because of Franklin and Ginnane's participation, Second Time Lucky seems an apt description for this film’s American DVD release history.