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Stilted drama with sex; a clunker
lor_10 October 2011
Victor Bertini, who acted in Joe Sarno films in the '60s, directed this lump of coal, a deadly dull drama with some sex thrown in to qualify for booking at Adult Cinemas of the day. He should have stayed in bed, to paraphrase another sex film title from that era.

Credits are an intentional mess; I'll attempt to disentangle them a bit for posterity, but in porn, even the soft porn of 1968/69, hiding one's real name was de rigeur. IMDb relies on credits listed in the AFI Catalogue 1961-1970 (probably taken from a press book), but my credits are copied off the screen, as they should be.

Overwritten story (with particularly lame dialog, as Bertini -billed on screen as Burton- has no ear for the way people speak) concerns scientist Ben (Bob February, obviously a phony moniker) living by a remote lake. He's come up with some amazing innovations for automobiles, including new braking systems and other safety features, and has invited two company reps from Detroit for the weekend along with their wives.

Both guys want to sign contracts for Ben's inventions, and the wives are along to offer "incentives" (hint, hint, nudge, nudge). All the makings for a porn film, but muffed by the untalented Bertini.

Bella Donna, a Sarno MILF actress billed on-screen as "Lisa Milone" ("Carol Menson" per AFI) plays the scheming wife Lisa of Barney Dixon ("Kirt Galson" or "Marty Elson per AFI), a nebbish who whimpers and whines his way through the movie. She volunteers to seduce Ben, but her hubby is against the idea.

In contrast there's nasty Ron Kruger ("Dick Devine" on-screen, or "Kirk Garfield" per AFI), who reminded me of a clean-shaven version of the phony-smile chairman George Zimmer of Men's Wearhouse -so familiar from his smarmy current TV commercials. He keeps putting the pressure on his lovely wife Evelyn ("Carol Gian" on-screen, or "Jennie Reeves" per AFI, but in actuality soft porn star Uta Erickson) to come on to Ben, not go all the way but like any good B-girl tantalize the nerd.

This template for porn goes nowhere, as Bertini has no conception of how to direct a movie. The lakeside locations are quite attractive but ill used. One little picnic table scene outdoors runs over three minutes from an aloof master shot without a single cut -the camera is so distant that you can't see the folks' lips moving, hence it spells Cheap Filmmaking 101.

Elsewhere, the anonymous guy playing Ron overacts unmercifully, shouting his dialog and gesticulating wildly as if auditioning for summer stock. The contrast with the other males' overly understated (read: blank) performances is incredible.

"Linda Drew" (or "Susan Marlowe" per AFI) is listed for the flashback role of Ben's dead wife Margaret, but her face is not shown on-screen. Since she is supposed to highly resemble Uta (that's why Ben is attracted to her character Evelyn), it might as well be Uta in the flashbacks, face never seen, and the fake names could be a SLEUTH-type ruse in the credits.

Uta is coolly sexy as always, while Bella Donna shows off a terrific figure but her face is beauty-challenged. Both gals contribute to three brief, topless-only sex scenes, way too tame by 1969 standards and hardly justifying the talky tedium of the rest of the picture. The fans attending with porn as the promise must have been bored silly, and the various plot twists and character reactions (particularly by the husbands) are completely unconvincing.

Bertini uses a fake "vaseline-smeared lens" effect (more like just placing an obscuring lens in front of the picture) that's annoying and inconsistently used during the flashbacks about Margaret.
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