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Stiff Competition (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
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Stiff Competition (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: April 26th, 2022.
Director: Paul Vatelli
Cast: Gina Carrera, Cyndee Summers, Patty Plenty, Bridgette Monet, Kitten Natividad, John Leslie, Herschel Savage, Paul Thomas
Year: 1985
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Stiff Competition – Movie Review:
Directed by Paul Vatelli, 1985’s Stiff Competition opens with a scene where a young woman named Tammy (Gina Carrera) and her older, male escort arrives at an underground club where, after paying a twenty dollar cover to the knife wielding door man, they enter and discover the reason for the crowd - blowjob contests!
When the current contestant, The Mouth (Susan Hart), bails on the proceedings, leaving Jeff (Kevin James), the man in charge of the event, without a main event, Tammy decides she'll step in and finish the job. From here, Jeff takes Tammy under his wing. Now dubbed Tammy The Tongue due to the oral technique she's perfected on poor old Jeff, the two prepare for the big upcoming 'Suck Off' in Las Vegas, where the man in charge, Don Head (Ron Jeremy), will hand out a fifty-thousand dollar cash prize to the winner.
Tammy's rise to fame hits hard and fast, bringing her to the attention of a horny lesbian reporter (Kitten Natividad) but she isn't a lock for first place. Reigning champion Cynthia Silkthroat (Cyndee Summers) is coming out of retirement with some help from her manager, Jake The Snake (John Leslie), and competitors like Pattie Cakes (Patty Plenty) and her manager Wayne (Herschel Savage), as well as sultry Texan Linda Lonestar (Bridgette Monet), also have their eye on the prize.
Fast-paced and frequently quite funny, Stiff Competition isn’t meant to be taken in the least bit seriously despite the fact that it is played straight, though it does attempt to throw in a bit of drama and intrigue towards the finale. The sex is performed with enthusiasm and well-shot, and the movie is full of weird bits of presumably ad-libbed dialogue that is as awkward as it is funny. At one point, when John Leslie is having sex with Cyndee Summers he tells her, in the heat of the moment “you look like a stallion” a couple of times before realizing what he’s said, only to then correct himself and say “No, I look like a stallion!” Then when he finishes up, he tells her that her “ass is an achievement!” The dialogue is wonky like that, much of it feels unscripted (probably because it was).
Production values are quite good. The movie has a decent, light score, strong cinematography and a variety of sets and locations to keep things interesting. The main draw is the cast, however, with Gina Carrera doing a great job impressing the audience with her skills in what was her adult feature film debut. On top of that, we get Russ Meyer’s former main squeeze Kitten Natividad in a brief but memorable girl/girl scene, curvaceous Cyndee Summers, Bridgette Monet looking good and putting on a goofy accent and Patty Plenty bringing up the rear. As far as the male talent goes? Kevin James gets a lot of screen time and makes the most of it, Herschel Savage and John Leslie both clearly have a blast playing the ‘bad guys,’ and Ron Jeremy’s hair has never looked wilder than it does in the finale. Paul Thomas does a really fun job of proving on screen play by play commentary during the ‘Suck Off’ championship scene, and if you look closely in the crowd you’ll see Bill Margold show up. Two of the ‘studs’ used in the contest scenes are played by Tom Byron and gay porn star Michael Christopher.
Stiff Competition – UHD Review:
Stiff Competition comes to UHD in an HEVC encoded 2160p 4k transfer with HDR10 “newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative” and framed in its proper 1.85.1 widescreen aspect ratio. Picture quality is great. There’s loads of detail here and the image is virtually pristine, save for the odd small white speck now and again. Colors look excellent and flesh tones are nice and natural. Texture and depth are strong throughout as well, and the image always looks appropriately film-like, showing no noticeable issues with compression, noise reduction or edge enhancement. It’s hard to imagine the movie looking much better than it does here, it’s a very impressive effort.
The 24-bit English language DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix on the disc is also very good. Everything is clean, clear and nicely balanced. There are times where maybe there isn’t so much range but that’s quite obviously due to how the audio for the movie was originally recorded. There are no problems to note with any hiss or distortion and the dialogue always sounds nice and clear. Optional subtitles are available in English only, and on the Blu-ray (not the UHD) there are French and German dubbed tracks provided that are kind of amusing to hear.
Extras start off with a feature length audio interview with lead actress Gina Carrera by historian Casey Scott that is very much worth listening to. She looks back on the making of this pretty fondly, talks about how she isn’t Italian despite her last name (which was a stage name given to her by Paul Vatetlli, who real last name was Carrera!), how Stiff Competition was her first feature, alias’ that she used when she was doing loops before doing features (one of which was ‘Bang Bang’ and given to her by Jim South), how she got into the adult industry in the first place, shooting much of the film on sound stages, how she got along with her co-stars in the film, behind the scenes prep work required to get some of the male performers ready for action, memories of other notable performers she worked with in other films, thoughts on working on the east coast versus the west coast, getting along with Henri Pachard/Ron Sullivan, how and why she remains proud of her adult film career when at times in her past she wasn’t, lying about her hardcore work to get a gig with Playboy in Las Vegas only to get caught and fired, working with Andy Milligan on The Weirdo and how she wound up in that movie, working with Penelope Spheeris on Suburbia, trying to get her music career of the ground, moving out of hardcore and into doing fetish work specifically and lots, lots more. This runs the duration of the film and there’s no dead air, it’s packed with stories and recollections and it’s as fun to listen to as it is interesting.
The disc also includes a new video interview with actress Kitten Natividad that runs for fourteen minutes. She talks about her background as a burlesque and go-go dancer, only doing girl/girl in the film because she was married at the time, how she felt that Gina Carrera didn't like her, getting introduced to Russ Meyer and what he did for her career, her struggles with substance abuse and 'bad men,' her off-screen romance with Meyer, how she wound up in The Gong Show Movie, some television work she did in the seventies, not having a script to work off of in Stiff Competition, getting along with Patty Plenty on the shoot, working with director Paul Vatelli and quite a bit more.
As far as the packaging for this release goes, Vinegar Syndrome offers up some reversible cover sleeve artwork and, for the first four thousand copies purchased directly from Vinegar Syndrome’s website, a super awesome limited edition embossed slipcover designed by Robert Sammelin.
Stiff Competition - The Final Word:
Stiff Competition is pretty fun, a good mix of comedy and sex performed by a strong cast and with some appreciable directorial flare here and there to keep things interesting. Vinegar Syndrome’s has rolled out the red carper for the film, offering it up with some nice extras and a presentation quality that is nothing short of excellent.
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