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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: April 16th, 2024.
Director: Paul Gerber, Dik Cumming, n/a
Cast: Rita Bedford, Rachel L’amour, Flo Fontaine, Tami French, Pete Dawson, Jan Davis, Sue Peters
Year: 1972/1976/1971
Night At The Pussycat Volume 2 – Movie Review:
The Pussycat Theaters were a notorious chain of XXX movie theaters setup throughout the great state of California that operated from the late sixties into the mid nineties, showing a load of different adult films to a west coast audience hungry for filth. Alpha Blue Archives’ Night At The Pussycat Volume 1 DVD release recreates what it might have been like to take in three smut-filled featured on the big screen at one of these venues.
Her Taste Of Freedom:
The first feature on the disc is also known as Bad Barbara (but not the same Bad Barbara starring Sharon Mitchell). This sixty-seven minute movie opens with a couple passionately going at it while some soothing folk music plays on the soundtrack. When they finish, we learn their names as Alan (Robert Harte) tells Barbara (Violette Wide) how beautiful she is but she tells him she feels empty and suffocated before then telling him in rhyme more about her feelings. She feels trapped and he doesn't get it. The talk turns into an argument and he blames her friend Beverly (Christine Bailey) for putting ideas into his head and tells her he needs to get ready because Jeff is coming over.
Barbara heads into Manhattan where she meets Beverly for lunch to complaint about her relationship, telling her she wants to end it with Alan. Beverly stands up for Alan but Barbara isn't having it, he just doesn't make her happy anymore and she tells Beverly "I just want to get fucked."
So, armed with that attitude, after lunch she does a bit of window shopping and winds up in a clothing store where she meets a long-haired shaggy looking dude named Mark who she just can't take her eyes off of. When she complains that the pants she's trying on are too tight, he helps her and then they get it on while some smooth jazz sets the mood. Barbara splits when his girlfriend comes back from wherever it is she went off to.
Meanwhile, Alan uses a payphone to call Barbara who is none too happy to hear from him. He invites her out for dinner but she's not into it, she has other plans. Those other plans apparently include going to Beverly's place for dinner and then heading out to check out a porno flick at the nearby adult cinema (the movie earns some bonus points for featuring a bit of footage of an actual operating XXX theater)! After the movie, Barbara drives Beverly home but clearly turned on by the movie, she then hooks up with a tall bald guy, a friend named Jim, who takes her back to his place for a drink and a dink. She tells her about her situation and they screw. Alan calls her again and she finally invites him over. They talk about their feelings over coffee and he asks her back but she isn't into it. He splits and she watches a movie on TV but someone is watching her through the window. She goes to bed and has strange, surreal dreams about having oral sex with a dude while Beverly also has oral sex with a dude, and that dude might be Barbara! The soundtrack during this sequence is so abstract and bizarre that it's kind of amazing. She wakes up in a fright but, clearly aroused, masturbates before going back to bed.
She calls Beverly and explains her weird dream and then heads out to meet up with Mark and his girlfriend for dinner. Beverly doesn't seem to have a job but clearly has plenty of spending money to keep herself entertained and occupied. Dinner, of course, turns into a three-way but Barbara isn't happy about it, she feels like they treated her like a piece of meat. While she an Alan, who is now dating a chick named Melanie, patch things up or will Barbara's newly discovered sexual awakening cause her to go insane or just wind up really lonely? Maybe she’ll fall in love with a flute player? WHO CAN TELL????
A surprisingly grim slice of hardcore melodrama, Her Taste Of Freedom never feels especially original as we’ve seen stories about women wanting to go out there and get some play out on screens in XXX movies countless times before. That said, there’s some decent enough acting in this one, with Violette Wide doing a surprisingly believable job as the lead. The story is simple but the acting makes it pretty watchable. The cinematography and production values aren’t especially amazing or anything but they’re certainly functional enough. It would have been nice to get more footage of early seventies New York City worked into the narrative, we get a bit but not a lot, and more footage inside what does appear to have been an actual functioning porno theater would have definitely given the movie more of a time capsule quality, but what’s here is at least interesting to see in that regard.
As to the actual sex in the film, it’s performed with a fair amount of enthusiasm. There’s nothing here that’s going to set your loins ablaze but the performers seem engaged and the dream sequences is weird enough to stand out. There are no credits included on whatever source Alpha Blue Archives used for this edition.
69 Minutes:
69 Minutes, which ironically on this disc runs sixty-six minutes, opens with a marching band doing their thing at a parade while the opening credits inform us as to the presence of supporting players like Fanny Bangs, Buck Studs, Mary Suckles and John Flusher appearing in the movie we're about to watch. Huzzah! Then we get to see a steel drum band play for a crowd where a weird creepy clown wanders around. Sequined American flags adorn the festivities and costumed characters join in on the fun.
While this is going on, a grocery store is getting ready to close. The grouchy manager berates his employees for taking too long as he wants to see the parade. When he goes to the back room, one of the cashiers lets a man with a weirdly receding hairline inside. This guy has a gun and, with help from two of the foxier ladies working the registers, they rob the place - but the manager has a shotgun and he manages to outsmart the robber until the girls come in and literally stab him in the back. They grab the money and split but not before shooting the manager with the shotgun. This makes the guy with the receding hairline horny so he and one of the girls go into a backroom for a quickie and then everyone splits, escaping into the chaos of the parade and jumping into a car and fooling around while they make their escape (it probably isn't safe to masturbate with a loaded gun while driving, but these characters live on the edge!).
Meanwhile, a cop in a wicker cowboy hat and aviator shades named Constable Jones calls up his lady friend and asks her to come down to the office for sex. She can't, her husband is around, and she tells him to go somewhere and jack off. He agrees with this assessment of the situation and grabs a copy of Screw to get to work in his squad car, ignoring a radio message from dispatch alerting him to the robbery and a description of the suspects. Instead, he fantasizes about getting it on with the woman he called earlier.
The three robbers make their way to a safe-house and count their loot. The dude screws one of the girls while the other gets dressed to go the beach. The shapely black maid shows up to clean the place but doesn't seem upset but their presence. When she heads into the bedroom to clean up, she walks in on the pair screwing and, shockingly, this turns into a three-way.
At the beach, the other girl meets a guy named Bob Watson who offers to help her apply her sunscreen. She seems into it and gazes at his bikini brief-clad junk. After a good rub down, they head back to the house and walk in on the three-way which turns into an orgy when a random couple shows up- and then with four minutes left in the movie, there's a twist!
The opening credits of this movie note a ‘karate expert’ named Kum Too as having worked on the movie (there’s no karate in the movie at all)! On top of that, it was written by Jack Mehoff, photographed by Seymour Slits and edited by I.C. Cocks. The costume work was done by Izzy Hung while Mike Crofone handled the audio recording. The esteemed Claude Balls Jr. produced the film. Also, you get to see a girl masturbate with a pistol. Featuring a lot more driving footage and parade footage than your average adult movie, it’s a primitively made crime caper but amusing in its own way. Shot in Texas (if the license plates are anything to go by), it’s quick in its pacing. Set to a soundtrack of some quirky (and likely very stolen) music, the movie starts off with a decent enough plot but by the time the bandits get to the safe house, that’s tossed out the window and the second half is mostly non-stop sex, culminating in a big old orgy. The women are okay looking by the standards of no-budget regional smut, but there isn’t anyone here approaching A-lister status by any stretch.
The acting is about what you’d expect. The principal performers handle the material well enough, though no one is really delivering anything all that special in terms of their acting ability, save for the grumpy jerk who runs the grocery store in the opening heist. He’s unintentionally hilarious, uttering all manner of profanity before meeting his demise. Production values are a bit better than you’d probably expect, with the filmmakers using the parade to add some regional interest to the proceedings. There are multiple locations used and some decent beach footage thrown into the mix as well.
Ernie’s Joint:
Last but not least, Ernie’s Joint, a movie that opens with a cock-shaped warning screen with text that reads "This film is presented for viewing and education of consenting adults only." That warning then literally goes up in flames and we cut to a naked man reading nudie magazines and dry humping a bear skin rug with a freakish amount of aggression. Elsewhere, a woman in a shower rubs her boobs. A couple - the woman is named Jane (Sue Peters) talk over top of this footage about the man, and how he can't make it with a woman. He tells her it's the same with this sister, presumably the lady in the shower. She can't make it with guys. This is off to a weirdly complicated start, but it's set to a rad score.
After the lady in the shower masturbates, our chatty couple splits from wherever it was that they were after having introduced Joe, the bear skin rug fucker, who has an Australian accent, to the sister, who we learn is named Beth (Jan Peters). They decide to "give it a try" and wind up unsuccessfully trying to have sex. She's more upset than he is but he isn't happy with things either. Unsure what to do about this situation, they decide to take a trip... on drugs! Joe busts out his kit and they shoot up together and try again will some wonky easy listening plays on the soundtrack. This time, the fornication is successful!
Meanwhile, that chatty couple from earlier complains about how dope is the only way that Joe and his new friend can make it. From here, we cut to Joe trying to score some dope from a sleazeball named Ernie, who isn't willing to just hand over the smack. Ernie wears an ascot and dark sunglasses, he's pretty cool. Since Joe can't get what he needs, the couple decides to pay Ernie a visit and see if they can get some on Joe's behalf. Since they don't have the money, Ernie isn't going to hand it over but he tells them they can make some money by fucking on stage.
The couple goes home and has sex, I guess to see if they have what it takes, and then heads back to visit Ernie who immediately puts the couple on stage in front of a crowd of rowdy perverts to do their thing. After a successful show, Ernie hands them a few bucks but it isn't enough to get Joe the dope he needs. Because he is a scumbag, Ernie coerces the girl into blowing him to cover the rest of what's needed, after which she brings Joe the dope he needs and celebrates by having sex once again with her boyfriend. In the other room, full of heroine, Joe and Beth get it one once more.
The couple, however, likes they money that they're making so they keep performing for Ernie. He's happy about this until his customers get bored with them, at which point he decides he needs some "new blood." He makes this happen by getting Jane to make out with another woman. While Jane and her pal are working their asses off to keep Joe in dope, he and Beth keep going at it. When Jane gets pregnant, Ernie sends her off for the weirdest underground abortion in history - things just get worse for everyone from there.
If this were better acted and set to a different soundtrack, it’d be pretty grim stuff and to be fair, even in the state that it’s in, it goes into some very dark territory at times. The fact that the guys who play Ernie and Joe are so ridiculously bad, however, makes this tough to take seriously, but the movie still delivers a pretty high sleaze quotient. It’s all over the place, in terms of tone – starting with some humorous bits involving Joe and his bear skin rug and then showing us a back alley ‘abortion – but that serves to keep it surprising. The aforementioned soundtrack, while not always appropriate for the action taking place in the film, is nevertheless actually really good in that it’s catchy and unique – so yeah, doesn’t fit the movie but is fun to listen to.
The sex doesn’t have a lot of energy or enthusiasm most of the time, but sometimes that suits the story being told. The cinematography isn’t especially noteworthy and there isn’t much to note in terms of locations used, the bulk of the movie taking place inside a few poorly lit locations. Still, Ernie’s Joint is interesting not so much as a work of erotic filmmaking but as a hardcore XXX exploitation oddity. There are no opening or closing credits included on the source used for this edition and it appears that a title card has been digitally added to the feature.
Night At The Pussycat Volume 1 – DVD Review:
All three movies on the DVD are presented in the 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratios and, unlike most Alpha Blue Archives releases, look to have been sourced from film prints rather than tapes. Granted, if they were taken from prints they were prints that have seen better days and there hasn’t really been any restoration done here, but these at least look like proper film. Colors are okay but can get murky, skin tones can sometimes look a little too hot or too pink. It’s watchable enough and not likely to look much better anytime soon. Expect an ‘ABA’ bug to appear periodically on each feature.
The English language Dolby Digital Mono sound mixes are on par with the video presentation – it won’t blow you away but it’ll do. Some hiss and background noise is omnipresent but that’s to be expected. Most of the time, the truly gripping dialogue is pretty easy to understand and follow and the levels are fine. There aren’t any subtitles included here, but there isn’t much of a plot to any of the three movies so you really won’t need them even if you are hard of hearing.
There are no extras on the disc, just static menus offering feature and scene selection.
Night At The Pussycat Volume 1 - The Final Word:
Alpha Blue Archives’ DVD release of Night At The Pussycat Volume 2 offers up three vintage hardcore obscurities on disc in watchable, if not amazing, condition. The movies themselves are worth seeing for fans of old school XXX for the various reasons noted above, with this triple feature offering up a strangely compelling mix of drama, sex and sleaze.