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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: February 14th, 2023.
Director: Bob Chinn
Cast: Hyapatia Lee, Bud Lee, Erica Boyer, Shanna McCullough, Paul Thomas, Mike Horner, Desiree Lane
Year: 1983/1983
Purchase From Amazon
Body Girls / Let’s Get Physical – Movie Review:
A double dose of Bob Chinn's directorial output featuring the beautiful Hyapatia Lee in both features? Proof positive that there is a God, and that he's a fan of Ms. Lee too. It would seem, after all, that she was blessed in more ways than one! And on top of that, each one of these Caribbean Films Productions features its own ridiculously catchy theme song!
Body Girls:
Our first feature tells the story of one Jackie Lalay (Hyapatia Lee). Not to be confused with Jack Lalanne, Ms. Lalay owns a gym that she has named after herself. You can recognize it pretty easily when you walk by, because it has a big pink sign outside featuring silhouettes on the left and right side of some naked ladies, clearly in great shape. When the movie begins, she and her pal Jim Wilder (played by her then husband Bud Lee) are getting it on.
After that? Well, things are going just fine for Jackie until a couple of thugs (Gary Eberhart and Rich Ryder) from a competing gym show up and try to make trouble. But Jackie isn't having any of it. She and fellow fitness fanatic Shelley (Erica Boyer) lure the dudes into the gym, get them into some precarious situations and then show them whose boss - Jackie does this by using a strap-on on one of the dudes, which was unexpected but kind of funny. Girl power! At any rate, it's obvious to anyone that is paying attention that the rival gym is trying to gum up Jackie's business, but why? Well, it's got everything to do with an upcoming competition for the best club around or something like that, and it seems that this mysterious competitor is in it to win it.
From there, the rest of the movie follows Jackie's attempts to come out on top, be it by luring a judge into coming over to her place for a little extra-curricular activity, the kind that just might change someone's mind, or indulging in a completely gratuitous but entirely welcome Sapphic coupling with a naí¯ve but willing friend (Lonnie Emerson)! Who will win the competition? How many people will Jackie screw? Who gave Erica Boyer that haircut? Why is Francois so unintentionally funny? How did they get away with ripping off that song from Flashdance in the opening theme music?
Really, when Hyapatia Lee is in seven (yes, count'em, SEVEN!) of the scenes in this feature you won't care. She owns the movie and Chinn is clever enough to let her run with it. She gets considerably more screen time here than anyone else and the picture is all the better for it. The story isn't much to write home about, it's rudimentary but effective and it allows for some wonky comedy if not anything remotely close to character development or drama. It's light and fluffy stuff, there to string together the sex scenes and on that level it works. Chinn's typically glossy style is employed well here, the film is nicely shot and well-paced. Not an essential eighties picture by any stretch, but it's a fun watch and fans of Ms. Lee will definitely appreciate all the screen time she gets here.
Let's Get Physical:
The second part of this double feature is a bit more engaging but still completely dopey in the way that a lot of early eighties porn movies tend to be. It tells the story of Carl Schmidt (Paul Thomas), one of the greatest dancers to ever strut his stuff across the stage. When his foxy wife Maria (Hyapatia Lee again) catches him celebrating his latest success with another woman (Martina), they fight on the way home - which causes them to drive off a fucking cliff!
Skip ahead a little bit and Carl and Maria are still together, but he's got a bum leg and a bum boner. He can't get it up since the accident and so she finds comfort in the arms of Renee (Shanna McCullough), the latest student that they've brought in to their dance school. Carl watches the two lovely ladies lick like lesbians lick and low and behold - schwing! Once he realizes the effect seeing his wife go to town with another woman has had on him, he and she easily coerce Renee into having a three-way with them back at Casa Del Schmidt, but when Carl pays more attention to Renee than to Maria, she gets upset. Not to be outdone, the next day she winds up taking solace in the arms of fellow dancer Scott (Mike Horner). Will Carl and Maria be able to save their damaged marriage or are they destined to fuck around with other people in leotards until the end of their days?
The best part of this movie is when Paul Thomas sits down at a piano and sings a heartfelt song! Is Thomas actually singing in this one? Maybe. Kinda sounds like him but they mostly shoot the back of his head so it's hard to tell. It's also worth mentioning how damn close the opening theme song comes to ripping off a certain Olivia Newton John track - it's amazing they got away with this! As to the movie itself? The plot is silly but reasonably effective. Thomas is a decent dramatic actor but he spends much of the movie dressed in hokey looking dancer dress and you can't help but giggle at this, because it's completely giggle-worthy: he looks funny. There's also the dance numbers. Clearly Hyapatia knew what she was doing, this lady could move to the music like a champ, but when the music she's moving to is a thinly veiled cover of Beat It, again, you have to giggle.
The sex, however, is good. The opening scene with Thomas and Martina is fine but it's the scenes with Hyapatia and McCullough that really stand out. These girls go at it like they mean it and hey, God bless'em for it. Erica Boyer and Francois pop up again towards the end of the movie as well. Again, it's nicely shot and well-paced. The plot isn't supposed to be funny, but it is - this is pretty entertaining and worth seeing for that first Lee/McCullough scene alone.
Body Girls / Let’s Get Physical – Blu-ray Review:
Vinegar Syndrome brings Body Girls / Let’s Get Physical to Blu-ray with both films sharing the same 50GB disc framed at 1.85.1 widescreen and in AVC encoded 1080p high definition with the transfers taken from a new 2k scans of the original 35mm negatives. Picture quality on this release is much improved over the already nice looking DVD release from 2016. Detail is stronger in every shot and colors look better as well. We get nice, accurate looking skin tones and solid black levels and the images always look like proper film transfers, showing no problems with any noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression artifacts.
Audio options for this release include 24-bit English language DTS-HD 1.0 Mono tracks for both films, with optional English subtitles available for each film. Sound quality is pretty solid. Range is a bit limited by the original recordings but the levels are balanced in both films, the scores sound good and the dialogue is always easy to understand.
While the older DVD release was barebones, this Blu-ray edition does feature a new interview with director Bob Chinn that runs just under twenty-four minutes. Titled 'Getting Physical With Bob,' it sees the director speaking about how he came to direct the two movies on the disc after directing Lee's first two features, what Hyapatia and Bud Lee were like to work with as well as their ambitions, Where Bud Lee took his alias from and how he became a filmmaker himself after working with Chinn, Chinn's relationship with Jack Remy, what some of the other collaborators were like to work with like Pearl Diamond, Shanna McCullough and Francois. He also talks about why retired when he did, how he tried to make adult films that were a bit different than the majority of XXX movies made at the time, creating the sets for Let's Get Physical (originally titled 'Turning Point') and quite a bit more.
If you purchase the disc from Vinegar Syndrome's website, you can get your hands on a nice embossed slipcover from Robert Sammelin limited to 3,000 pieces. The disc also comes packaged with some nice reversible cover art.
Body Girls / Let’s Get Physical - The Final Word:
Bob Chinn's Body Girls and Let's Get Physical might not rank up there with the director's best films, but it's an enjoyable double feature of early eighties smut made all the more pleasant by the presence of Ms. Lee. Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray upgrade is a good one, presenting both films in much improved presentations and with a new interview with Bob Chinn to complement the package.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Body Girls / Let’s Get Physical Blu-ray screen caps!
