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maybe if you're really bombed
12-string2 November 2002
This 1977 pic is a downright oddball number which hoped for cult status but never made it. A theatrical bomb on the porn circuit, it somehow failed to achieve midnight movie immortality in the straighter world.

The feature which seems to have been nearest and dearest to the heart of creator Johnny Legend was a rockabilly soundtrack -- OK bar band music but sadly lacking the honking, hiccuping splendor of the 50s jive it tried to emulate. The rest of the package is a slipshod mix of (mostly) early 70s hardcore loops, bad comedy by amateur actors, and endless footage of cars cruising downtown Modesto at night, all shot on what looks like a budget of about $42.75. There's a sort of story. Nympho Babsy Beaudine escapes from the local laughing academy and searches for men, while a neighborhood pervert simultaneously searches for a hot chick. Teens Serena and Lynn Margulies drive so much it's no wonder there was a gas shortage in the 70s. Legend himself, as the 50-watt version of Wolfman Jack, smokes doobies and plays music from his DJ perch. Oh, yeah, and there's a naked bakeoff contest and a bit of bestiality (implied, not shown, and used for what the filmmakers believed to be comedy).

Film turns out to be neither fish nor fowl -- unless you change the spelling a little. If you're looking for hardcore, and you probably are if you're reading this entry at IMDb, don't even pause here. Legend bought some old loops with John Holmes and others, and spliced them into the picture. Porn superstar Serena gets pretty darned nekkid (and nekkid, she's pretty darned pretty) but doesn't actually do anything, just in case you were wondering. Legend handily gives the worst performance in the movie, making the porn cast look like the Redgrave family.

Just as "2001" seemed so much more profound (and coherent) if you blew a few joints in the balcony, this one might be sporadically funny to a well stoned audience. But I wouldn't count on it. And anyway, that stuff is illegal. You shouldn't be using it. And the 12-stringer seriously doubts they've *made* enough of it to improve this film.

In the end, there's just the music, which might be worth buying on CD if you really like rockabilly and find it in the $2.99 bin.

On the IMDb scale of 1-10, I give this a 1 -- still another argument for the inclusion of 0 on that 1-10 scale.
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8/10
A hilariously horrendous tongue-in-cheek porno comedy hoot
Woodyanders13 April 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Picture an episode of "Happy Days" gone incredibly seedy, with lots of foxy naked women and scuzzy hardcore sex scenes, with the added attraction of a fantastic rockabilly score and plenty of amusingly leering humor, and you'll have a good idea of what this enjoyably mindless 50's nostalgia-tinged mess is like.

Writer/director/producer/star Johnny Legend, a show biz jack of all trades whose many job titles include wrestling manager, filmmaker, rockabilly singer/songwriter (Legend's potent double whammy of the truly cool "Are You Hep to It?" and the especially smokin' "Hot Rocks" are featured on the movie's stand-out soundtrack, which boasts such appropriately salacious tunes as the deliriously bawdy "Slip, Slip, Slippin' In" by Mac Curtis, Ray Campi's feverishly cooking "Eager Boy," and Alvis Wayne's tart'n'tasty "I Wanna Eat Your Puddin'"), cameo actor, and general all-around self-stylized California eccentric, juggles several balls here with largely disastrous results, creating a delightfully obnoxious tongue-in-cheek fiasco with an endearingly rank and witless sense of breezy'n'cheesy high school locker room humor. Legend even acts in this gloriously ghastly and off-the-wall period oddity; he hammily portrays manic, fast-talking, foul-mouthed second-rate Wolfman Jack wannabe disc jockey Mambo Remus.

The plot is messy, sprawling, and virtually nonexistent, the editing, sound quality, and cinematography are all strictly home movie level amateurish, the characters by and large extremely unappealing numbskulls (Tony Conn in particular is seriously creepy and unlikable as lonely, tormented, pathetic middle-aged voyeur loser Willy), and the dialogue is pretty terrible, but that really doesn't matter much. This film is still awful funny in a so-crass-it's-killer sort of way. The loosely knit, often crudely humorous and usually quite sexually graphic vignettes rigidly adhere to an "American Graffiti"-like multi-storied format; my favorite subplot focuses on the randy escapades of a sex-crazed madwoman called Babs the nuthouse nympho. Better still, the hardcore sex scenes are every bit as rough and raunchy as they ought to be (among the highlights are the gorgeous Serena masturbating with an automobile cigarette lighter and legendary Me Decade porn stud John Holmes doing just what you think with two lovely ladies both inside and beside a pool). Plus there's lots of uproariously tasteless bad jokes about such trashy topics as smoking weed, cunnilingus, fellatio, rape, and even bestiality. A real sleazy hoot.
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