Reviews

This CliffsNotes-style reduction of Orwell's "1984" has its moments, thanks to the stark lighting and sets, and the in-your-face didactic nature of the drama as presented. All the big ideas are spoon-fed to the viewer, which is refreshing in a way, although clearly contradicting the central issues concerning brainwashing of society.

Casting Eddie Albert and Norma Crane in the leads seems folly at first, but their very ordinariness actually fits. Lorne Greene is superb as the villain, especially his stentorian voice, perfect for the duplicitous role, even though somehow America found it so soothing as papa Cartwright.

So many small details stand out 70 years after broadcast. The costuming especially underscores the anti-Communist bent of both Orwell and America when this was performed. Today's authoritarians are a more varied set of people, ranging from Putin to Trump. Certain concepts, especially Freedom, have been double-thinked and double-talked to death over this timespan.

When Greene teaches Eddie not to believe his own lying eyes, it is so similar to the daily antics of Trump, Bannon and Steven Miller (among innumerable enablers) in trying to dupe people into believing whatever nonsense the Donald blurts out. His use of a sharpie to alter a map regarding matching his prediction to the actual outcome of a hurricane's landfall is strikingly like the alteration of newspapers (a function that is Eddie's job) to agree with outcomes to make Big Brother's predictions all come true retroactively. And in a less partisan but equally dangerous fashion, the surveillance society is already here.

After watching, I was curious as to the career of Scottish writer Wlliam Templeton, who gets the "written by" credit for this TV version. Mainly working in pedestrian TV assignments, he did contribute to the script of Carol Reed's classic film "The Fallen Idol", but amusingly his final screen credit came in 1966, writing the commentary for "The Naked World of Harrison Marks", a British nudie/cutie movie. That's show biz!

One of Adult Cinema's best actors, Tyce Bune, makes a one-joke fantasy from Vivid Video work. A fine director, Tom Elliot (a/k/a Ren Savant) indulges himself for a feature-length bit of whimsy that would have sufficed as a 1/2 hour XXX episode for TV's "One Step Beyond".

Oddly enough, the entire movie seems inspired by the Russ Meyer short film that was a porn (soft) milestone in the 1950s, "The Immoral Mr. Teas". That original little Walter Mitty tale of a guy who kept seeing everyone suddenly naked is what happens to Tyce Bune the trucker, whose endless hours on the road have him seeing things. He stops at the trusty diner, and his favorite waitress, Vivid superstar Kira Kener, seems to be naked as she serves him some lunch.

Soon, he imagines the diner cook Devin Wolf humping Kira right in front of him; a trio of customers also going at it, and then paranoia starts to set in. Kira suggests he rest for a few hours at the adjoining motel, but then he sees her reappear as the desk clerk there, giving him a master key to try and find out which unit is free. Lo and behold, Tony Tedeschi is f*cking Mackayla in every room.

Things escalate when back in the diner he sees Kira put up the "Closed" sign, strip and hump him right on the table, then offering pie for desert spread on her pussy. As this appetizing scene starts to repeat itself he flees in abject fear to end the movie.

Bune does a great job to help transition what seems at first amusing turn into a strange form of horror. It amounts to a novel version of the adage "Be careful what you wish for", and the sexy set of Vivid actresses are eminently watchable in action.

An understandably obscure movie, it sat on the shelf at Vivid for two years before release, and sank back into obscurity, so much so that my good deed for today was to add it to IMDb, 22 years late.

The ninth volume of this popular Transsensual series is a bust, no pun intended. Besides the switch from four segments down to three (with half an hour less total running time compared to previous ones), the story content is now minimal.

In fact, the third segment, titled "Balling the Soccer MILF" is merely a slapstick porn vignette without dialogue, copying the comedy format of competitor porn label "Oopsie!". Dee Williams is looking fine as the MILF, apparently a soccer coach as she blows a whistle, but strictly acting silly when she humps TS girl Zariah Aura after seeing Aura's big erect cock when mean girls "pants" her (pull down Zariah's sweat pants while all are exercising outdoors). Jewelz Blue catches Dee & Zariah humping at a parked SUV, and joins in for a hot 3-way.

Scene's silliness includes Dee masturbating atop a big dildo that is attached to a soccer ball, and the climax of Aura's fake cum in Dee's mouth shot, has a surprised Dee spitting all that cum onto a car window, porno's version of a comedy "spit take". Two cis-girls among the exercisers get no screen credit and almost no screen time.

Another fake cum in the mouth shot occurs in a romantic scene between Kenzie Taylor and veteran TS star Foxxy. They come home after a party and it's morning already, with the sun up. Kenzie laments: all that's missing is a hard cock, and Foxxy surprises her with an erect cock of her own. The plausibility of Kenzie having spent all evening and night without suspecting that her date Foxxy is trans beggars belief.

Remaining scene is pretty much a tease: gonzo TS actress Kalli Grace seems overconfident, chatting with her date Dillon Diaz, and boasting about her dick. But she is strictly a bottom in her sex scenes, so the possibility of pegging is an illusion. Kalli's chief appeal here is her natural breasts, not augmented, but little acting ability is demonstrated.

Mile High scours its Sweet Sinner label catalog to recycle four sex scenes dating back over a decade each. The theme is (supposedly) sex with a neighbor, with three "Neighbor" series videos offering source content along with a "Swinger" wife-swapping segment.

From 2013's DVD "The Swinger 3", two couples are featured, but it is after their agreement to "wife-swap" that the sex scene of married couple Nick Manning and Dana DeArmond is shown, as the other couple, Allie Haze and Danny Mountain, back out of the swap when Allie gets cold feet about the adventure. Allie & Danny are shown here only briefly in the scene's set-up. So despite the DVD's title, the scene's content is not about neighbors having sex.

The three remaining sex segments come from Sweet Sinner's various "Neighbors" releases. From "Naughty Neighbors 2" (2010), bosomy Sara Stone seduces Tom Byron in a highly satisfying, natural and erotic segment. Its context is lost, however, as we don't see this as her retaliation for Byron's wife Lisa Ann having seduced Sara's young husband Dane Cross in the original movie. That omission is what's wrong with these Sweet Sinner latter-day excerpts from the archives.

"The Neighbors Volume 2" (2012) provides a scene of Evan Stone making love to the neighbor, Avril Hall, of his daughter Lily LaBeau. The original movie's elaborate plot involving squatters and sexual shenanigans is omitted (along with LaBeau's footage), to merely focus on the older/younger couple Avril and Evan, who are not neighbors. Hall is worth watching, a beautiful but forgotten starlet of a decade ago.

And from "The Neighbors Volume 3" (2013), India Summer and Steven St. Croix have sex, one of many such scenes the two have had together on screen over the years. They are not neighbors, but in the complicated original screenplay (all of which is lost here), each is the widowed parent of two separate young people who are neighbors, unseen Michael Vegas and Maddy O'Reilly.

So "Neighborly Love" is just a catchy title, not a true description of the compilation video's contents.

Ostensibly a porn parody of John Waters' typical social satire "Pecker", Michael Zen's "Peckers" conjured up instead for me the phenomenon of Yoko Ono the experimental filmmaker, her career before she dated and married John Lennon.

Specifically her movies "No. 4" and "Bottoms", which make an Ono statement by photographing naked backsides, in keeping with many experimental films of the '60s era, notably the classic 1940s movie "Geography of the Body", which was widely shown on the Underground Midnight Movie circuit two decades after it was made.

Zen is working for Vivid Video, and spotlights its superstar Raylene, cast here as a still photographer whose art project is to photograph a series of erect penises, using porn models. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Ian Daniels uses a video camera and is more inclined as a filmmaker toward pornography than art, and he takes umbrage at her working with so many studs, which he conjures up as "cheating" on him.

Zen does take a light poke at pretentious artists, but like Daniels' character, he is first and foremost a pornographer. He ends the movie with a speeded-up footage of the resulting exhibition of framed cock photos Raylene took, with folks examining them as art, but otherwise we are treated to a rather arousing set of sex scenes featuring top talent in action.

Notable is porn superstar Chloe, whose boyfriend here is Lexington Steele, and the movie climaxes (literally) with her extended sex scene with Lex that shows her deep throat ability (memorably with Lex's big dick wrapped with her string of pearls necklace, a scene later improved upon in a Mandingo segment of the porn "Once You Go Black..." series, co-starring Lauren Kain).

Oddly, Zen does not have any anal sex scene with Chloe (usually her specialty), instead featuring an obscure actress named "Deja Blue" (who vaguely resembles an ugly version of superstar Jenna Haze). Condoms are used throughout, but the sex is hot enough that I wonder why this is not as well known (or shown) as much as Zen's many other movies.

JoyBear's head honcho (for over 20 years now) Justin RIbeiro dos Santos farmed out this production to filmmaker Dave Menich with good results. It's something of a comeback for big Dave, who made a couple of very poor movies for Wicked Pictures release I saw 3 years back.

Though the director and crew are new, the result closely resembles the JoyBear style -mostly pantomime, as five vignettes are presented limning the adventures of a fledgling coed rock band on the road. Yank Erik Everhard (a famous veteran of two decades of porn including Euro work in recent years) is the group's manager and driver, piloting his vintage (and ugly) VW Minivan in a sort of road movie, porno style.

The femme cast is beautiful, and the sex scenes pleasant. The thin storyline is voiced over by a female narrator, the JoyBear tradition. Only significant difference is the 148-minute running time, way, way longer than usual.

Dick Powell is so effective in his breezy, no worries approach to playing roles like this lawyer known for his theatrical moves, that he carries this slight story with admirable bravado. Never a doubt he'll be successful at trial.

Two wonderful character actors at the beginning of their careers highlight the show: Charles Bronson, instantly sympathetic as the suspect on trial, accused of armed robbery and murder, and Strother Martin, a key to the story's solution. Less impressive is Marian Carr as the segment's leading lady, who later appeared in feature films by Robert Aldrich, as did Bronson in "The Dirty Dozen". No hint here, however, of Aldrich's cinematic skills that made him a major director in future.

Manning the director's chair for the first time, Pat is hamstrung by poor material that doesn't fit with the "Danger Man" series format, and a lousy supporting cast. Given the wealth of British film and TV talent of the time, it's quite disappointing.

Though hardly avant-garde as his "The Prisoner" series became, the narrative seems made up as it goes along, substituting surprise for suspense, and heavily dependent on Pat's voice-over to explain what's going on. The quickie wrap-up at the end, in which mere seconds rather than minutes are devoted to mopping up and tying loose ends after the show's climax, is often used in this series, but very slapdash in the way it treats the leading lady's character.

Maggie Greenwald, whose work I've admired since "The Kill-Off", does a fine job in capturing another era, that of the dawn of World War II in the American South, in its sad tale of love thwarted by prejudice, with great sympathy generated for the underdog. Also sad is the current increase in bigotry in America, putting us on the precipice of a return to such awful times, if powerful forces on the extreme right, get their way.

Powerful performances by Julianne Nicholson, Margo Martindale and Lorraine Toussaint propel the compelling narrative, which while not being preachy does follow time-honored and well-meaning, predictable story arcs.

"Naked City" takes time out from chases and shootouts involving hardened criminals to become comedic with this silly but highly entertaining episode. It instantly reminded me of the British comedy film tradition, specifically the then-current 1960 classic "Make Mine Mink" starring Terry-Thomas.

Veteran acting talent spark the show as Mildred Natwick is delightful as the heartwarmingly nefarious maid to a dead-broke, formerly wealthy family, the Hackers, headed up by Roland Winters and Nancy Carroll. Adding to the fun are the clueless adult kids William Hinnant and Joyce Bulifant.

The crimes of stealing jewelry from well-heeled guests at parties thrown by the Hackers is the excuse for Horace MacMahon to memorably make faces and get exasperated in top comic form. He was always amusing on the show, but here lets loose brilliantly.

Technically, this silly segment represents "jumping the shark" a couple of decades before Henry Winkler did on "Happy Days". But like a series digressing into a Christmas show or a Thanksgiving episode, this is merely a respite from the downbeat cases of crime essayed week after week.

When I looked up the career of early Talkies superstar Nancy Carroll, (so fine here in such an amusing late-career role), I was surprised to see her 1929 credit co-starring in "The Wolf of Wall Street", a lost Paramount film (literally lost) from which Martin Scorsese ended up reusing the title (from the 2007 book of that name) for his famous Paramount movie released 85 years later.

These three "Mommy's Girl" segments united on VOD are some of the best in the series. It's more than chemistry between the actresses -they're all revved up for Sapphic action in the faux incest mode.

Title scene is a very pleasant, almost gleeful vignette that benefits from a couple of talented performers, who are able physically (as well as acting out the minimal story set-up dialogue) to sell the concept of a kindly mother teaching her daughter the art of Sapphic sex.

River Lynn tells her Earth mother stepmom Sophia Locke how she's broken up with her boyfriend at college, and is instead curious about a girl who is coming on to her. She's interested, but doesn't know how to deal with a same-sex sexual relationship.

Mom Locke kindly offers to show her how it's done, and soon both ladies are employing for the camera the sensual moves and positions of lesbian porn.

Nothing new here, but it's a satisfying, tasteful XXX scene directed by Ricky Greenwood, which following a recent trend offers no screenplay credit.

"Tension at the Table" is outstanding -higly erotic, fun to watch and boasting two fine performances.

Directed by the Anatomik Media team, the set-up is engaging: Dee Williams as the stepmom is sitting at a dining room table reading a romantic novel for her book club, but masturbating (tastefully shot), turned on by the action.

Her daughter Sophia Burns comes in and sits down, working with her laptop on preparing a term paper for college. But we see that she has a window open to a lesbian porn site, watching Spencer Bradley and others have sex, and also masturbating under the table. We see both of them in action, but their extracurricular activities are hidden from each other.

An accidental burst of sound from the computer gives away the game, and both of them notice the other's fingers in action. An awkward situation, but the segue from apologies to the two horny ladies having faux incest together is convincingly acted, leading to a half hour of hot, hot explicit lesbian sex.

The scene depicts the first time of stepmom/daughter sex for the characters, and veteran Dee and newcomer Sophia both sell the action with aplomb, generating a large number of believable orgasms as pros.

Right from the engaging pantomime beginning of "Grown-Up Talk" through to the inevitable XXX-content Sapphic sex, this is a perfectly-acted engaging scene.

It begins with very cute stepdaughter Leana Lovings peeking around corners at her mom Lexi Luna cleaning up the kitchen. What would seem to be mere drudgery is made to appear glamorous and quite sexy, by the clever styling of Lexi in a glamorous dress, sweeping up the floor in her bare feet, and of course bending over occasionally to allow the camera to take in her lovely rump.

From the vantage point of Leana as young voyeuse, the scene segues to a conversation after Lexi spots the eavesdropper. It's delightfully cute that Lovings does not speak, merely smiling or nodding her head in response to stepmom's talk.

When she admits to having heard her mom chatting with her girlfriends, Leana asks what all the talk about "pussies" means, thinking it refers to cats. Lexi sits her down on the couch and gives a rather clinical discussion, but things change when her daughter admits to having a crush on her. She's reluctant to agree when the kid asks to be taught all about lesbian sex, but gives in, and the fans benefit from the expertly performed resulting sex scene. Lovings' ability to stay in character and seem innocent no matter what she's doing (as a sex performer) is amazing.

This is one of the best "naughty but nice" scenes I've watched in a long time, resulting in a standout for the "Mommy's Girl" series.

Mark Stevens was a terrific film noir actor, reminding me of William Holden, but never an A-lister. This excellent movie that he made as producer, director and star for United Artists has the precision and impact of a Kubrick movie, and still packs a wallop 70 years after it was made.

The ingenious plotting and structure is different from the usual caper or trackdown movie, with enough twists and turns to keep me constantly guessing, and guessing wrong. The power of real B movies from the '40s and '50s is the tight characterizations, and what a treat to see John Marley a decade or so before his rise to prominence as such a distinctive character actor for Cassavetes and Coppola -here a great supporting role as one of the doomed criminals. Similarly, Jack Klugman is just right as a poor slob being interrogated.

The talent of Stevens on view here makes it such a shame that his career as a filmmaker didn't flourish -reminds me of my favorite character actor of the next generation, Steve Ihnat, who worked with Robert Duvall early in their careers but died young after only directing a couple of movies.

Stepmom as sexual mentor to her daughter is a porn trope given a whole new lease on life by the Anatomik Media directing team in "Grown-Up Talk".

Right from the engaging pantomime beginning of the scene through to the inevitable XXX-content Sapphic sex, this is a perfectly-acted engaging scene.

It begins with very cute stepdaughter Leana Lovings peeking around corners at her mom Lexi Luna cleaning up the kitchen. What would seem to be mere drudgery is made to appear glamorous and quite sexy, by the clever styling of Lexi in a glamorous dress, sweeping up the floor in her bare feet, and of course bending over occasionally to allow the camera to take in her lovely rump.

From the vantage point of Leana as young voyeuse, the scene segues to a conversation after Lexi spots the eavesdropper. It's delightfully cute that Lovings does not speak, merely smiling or nodding her head in response to stepmom's talk.

When she admits to having heard her mom chatting with her girlfriends, Leana asks what all the talk about "pussies" means, thinking it refers to cats. Lexi sits her down on the couch and gives a rather clinical discussion, but things change when her daughter admits to having a crush on her. She's reluctant to agree when the kid asks to be taught all about lesbian sex, but gives in, and the fans benefit from the expertly performed resulting sex scene. Lovings' ability to stay in character and seem innocent no matter what she's doing (as a sex performer) is amazing.

This is one of the best "naughty but nice" scenes I've watched in a long time, resulting in a standout for the "Mommy's Girl" series.

A very pleasant, almost gleeful "Mommy's Girl" vignette benefits from a couple of talented performers, who are able physically (as well as acting out the minimal story set-up dialogue) to sell the concept of a kindly mother teaching her daughter the art of Sapphic sex.

River Lynn tells her Earth mother stepmom Sophia Locke how she's broken up with her boyfriend at college, and is instead curious about a girl who is coming on to her. She's interested, but doesn't know how to deal with a same-sex sexual relationship.

Mom Locke kindly offers to show her how it's done, and soon both ladies are employing for the camera the sensual moves and positions of lesbian porn.

Nothing new here, but it's a satisfying, tasteful XXX scene directed by Ricky Greenwood, which following a recent trend offers no screenplay credit.

Shot in glorious black & white 'Scope (a format I adore but which is rarely used), "Flood Tide" from Universal is an anomaly: instead of a Douglas Sirk feature starring Rock Hudson, we have George Nader starring for the studio and director Abner Biberman (whose previous Universal dramas starred the likes of Merle Oberon and Mamie Van Doren!) in material more suited to an exploitation film by some indie of the pre-porn era.

I greatly enjoyed the numerous perverse twist and turns of the script, which centers around a young boy played by Michel Ray who is crippled. He has an unhealthy codependency relationship with his mom Cornell Borchers, and by chance both of them become inextricably linked with Good Samaritan bachelor neighbor Nader, who happens to be a handsome, wealthy playboy completely disinterested in any lasting relationship.

The movie begins in a format familiar from that great, influential stage-to-film "The Bad Seed", in which Patty McCormack was the cinema's ultimate evil child. Having a crippled, seemingly helpless kid (Ray) do terrible things repeatedly and get away with it is a novel story starting point, which gradually is overcome by the foreground off and on love affair between his mom Borchers and handsome, sympathetic Nader. The way the conflicting plot threads are resolved is quite satisfying and uplifting, the opposite of the vicarious thrills of rooting for the bad guy one gets in an exploitation movie.

Watchinig it seven decades after release, I had odd reactions. First of all, the "crippled kid" centerpiece reminded me immediately of Girlfriends FIlms' greatest hit from a decade ago (and its sequel) "Poor Little Shyla", in which crippled Shyla Jennings is tormented sexually not only by her peers but especially adults in an all-female lesbian dark XXX melodrama. The gimmick of women being the perpetrators rather than men gives this type of child molesting/abuse story a vicarious thrill that tickled a large porn audience, presumably predominantly male (whatever the marketing declares, lesbian porn is, like all porn, aimed at and consumed by males).

Making the saga even stranger is the casting of Nader, who in later years was revealed to the public to have been Rock Hudson's homosexual lover. Throughout "Flood Tide" he convincingly plays a knight in shining armor out to save not just his romantic interest Borchers but her son Michel. The homoerotic attraction between the two men is present but never made explicit, and one could imagine a 21st Century remake of this material in which it was brought out more to the surface (tastefully) -and providing a challenging role as the playboy turned savior for any number of stars to fight for, say Gosling, Chalamet or Austin Butler opposite some talented child star plus glamorous leading lady. Add in the inherently incestuous subplot between mother and son and you have the makings of a unique mainstream project.

Sharon Kane, wearing striking eye makeup that only Eva Green could love, does a Rod Serling role, as the on-screen narrator of five fantasy sex scenes, all set in an alley. Her pithy intros try to suggest a mood, including talk of time travel and other nonsense, but what the viewer receives is all-sex, no-dialogue porn.

The real-life couple of Dillon Day and Dasha (I suppose their production company should have been named 3Ds) hump away, and just to show they are open about such matters, Dasha also gets to have sex with Eric Masterson. There's nothing special about any of the sex scenes, though a lesbian pairing of Dee and Jordan is arousing. Alas, busty brunette Jordan is left out of both the opening and end credits. She's a somewhat mysterious porn actress -I've never seen her in any other movie.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed and Produced by Stanley Kubrick, for Columbia Pictures release. Screenplay by Terry Southern, Stanley Kubrick and Peter George, from Peter George's novel "Red Alert"; Photographed by Gilbert Taylor; Edited by Anthony Harvey; Music by Laurie Johnson; Production Design by Ken Adam; Special Effects by Wally Veevers. Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, Tracy Reed and Shane Rimmer.

Stanley Kubrick directed this classic science fictional satire. It's an hysterical black comedy dealing with the possibility of nuclear holocaust due to the mad decision of a general to initiate a nuclear first strike, and the installation of uncontrollable doomsday devices.

Ricky Greenwood brings "Dirty Cops" to a conclusion with a fine balance between sex and violence in terms of content, a surprise given that violence is generally shunned these days in Adult movies, due to censorship fears.

Penny Barber asserts herself as tough, pragmatic police captain -using her strong acting talent to hold the story together, and then following up with hot sexual skills, even squirting for her fans' delight.

After upbraiding her officers Alex Jones and Nicole Kitt for screwing up (literally screwing in Episode 1) on the job, she and district attorney Isiah Maxwell have a strong foursome sex scene. Back to advancing the story, they put their clothes back on, and she sends our heroes to go save kidnappee officer Alff from the clutches of evil villain Scott Nails.

This leads to quite violent fighting and a shootout also involving corrupt detective Jennifer White who is in league with Nails. The conclusion is satisfying, and chalks up the 4-part series as one of director Greenwood's better tributes to traditional Hollywood genre films, as adapted to the prurient needs of today's Adult movie audience.

In yet another tribute to traditional Hollywood genre films, producer-director Ricky Greenwood fashions a well-made cop thriller, released in four segments on-line by Digital Playground.

Nicole Kitt and Alex Jones star as a pair of Black cops who are working on the case of a fellow cop Daniel Shar, who is kidnapped by big-shot criminal Scott Nails and held for a multi-million dollar ransom. Our hero and heroine come to loggerheads with the detective on the case, Jennifer White, who is cahoots with Wilson.

After several strong sex scenes and conflict with their superior Penny Barber along with the district attorney Isiah Maxwell, they finally rescue Shar and close the case in a violent ending.

The sex scenes are strong, and there's also some well-directed action footage as Ricky manages to fit a useful storyline (without any on-screen scripting credit) into the predominantly XXX content.

Boring and repetitive best describe this Oopsie segment, poorly directed by Siouxsie Q and Michael Vegas. It's 100% gonzo filler.

Popular TS stars Ariel Demure and Emma Rose are shopping at a boutique-size store (cheap set) for beds and linens, and they try out the merchandise, with salesgirl Siri Dahl attracted to their dicks. The pair of helmers waste little time: after a minute or two the pantomime gives way to a lesbian threesome. There's no dialogue at all, just some pornspeak and grunting.

Siri is now, a decade after her naturally big-bust heyday, a big-butt star instead; in fact, her two trnas-female co-stars have bigger and better looking breasts than she has now. Both Ariel and Emma fake their ejaculations: Ariel's is a pretend creampie (no evidence shown, not even the usual fake dripping cum) and when Emma supposedly cums on Siri's face it's invisible: shown in long shot in let's pretend mode.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Nathan Juran; Produced by William Alland, for Universal-International release. Screenplay by Martin Berkeley; Photography by Ellis Carter; Edited by Chester Schaeffer; Special Photography by Clifford Stine; Music Supervisor: Joseph Gershenson. Starring: Craig Stevens, William Hopper, Alix Talton, Donald Randolph, Pat Conway, Florence Ames and Paul Smith; Narrated by Marvin Miller.

Exceedingly cheap monster proves to be a hazard to planes in flight, but is felled when some neat military shenanigans are brought to bear against it. Radiation created it, of course.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by and Produced by Val Guest. Released in America by Universal-International. Screenplay by Val Guest and Wolf Mankowitz; Photographed by Harry Waxman; Camera Operator: Moray Grant; Edited by Bill Lenny; Music by Stanley Black; Special Effects by Les Bowie. Starring: Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Michael Goodliffe, Renee Asherson, Bernard Braden and Reginald Beckwith and Edward Underdown.

British science-fiction film classic of suspense, when the Earth's orbit is shifted as a result of the great powers' nuclear testing, and the Earth becomes doomed to burn. Before the end, however, the price of a Coca-Cola rises tremendously. A novel approach: the film is told from the vantage point of a newspaper reporter.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed and Produced by Lindsay Shonteff; Executive Producer: Kenneth Rive. Released in America by Associated Film Distributing. Screenplay by Ronald Kinnoch and Charles Vetter; Photography by Gerald Gibbs; Edited by Ernest Bullingham. Starring: Bryant Haliday, Wiliam Sylvester, Yvonne Romain; Philip Ray, Sandra Dorne, Nora Nicholson, Karel Stepanek and Alan Gifford.

British supernatural horror thriller dealing with ventriloquism and hypnotism. Excellent development of eerie atmosphere, with mucho attention paid to pretty babes. Soul transference from man to dummy is the film's premise.

The main stars return, but the action is weak in this followup to Bud Lee's "Supermodel", a big-deal Vivid Video release.

Now heroine Lene is out to get the ring of gigolos who prey on rich women, following the death of the previous leader of that crime group after the first movie. Leena is the villainess in charge, and she's out to get Rebecca Wild, the widow of Leena's previous dream guy, who inherited his newspaper empire.

Buck Adams has little to do in this sequel (except have some sex of course) as the guy out to capture Lene. Steven St. Croix is torn between Lene and Leena, and chooses the wrong side.

Set in the world of modelling, Bud has lots of footage of beautiful models at work. The sex content is a mix of softcore and hardcore with enough soft plus soft angles to indicate the feature was aimed at hitting wider markets, such as a trimmed version for cable TV or export. The climax of the main story is given short shrift, in a brief, poorly staged final confrontation.

Not as well known as his later hits, "The Swap" shows Paul Thomas's serious approach to Adult filmmaking early in his stint directing for Vivid Video.

With IVF in the headlines lately thanks to right-wing efforts to abolish it along with so many other aspects surrounding their crusade against abortion, the subject of infertility is the core of Airel Hart's screenplay (using a pseudonym "Ashley Richards"). The movie stars two couples: Jennifer Stewart & Joel Lawrence, plus Sharon Kane & Jerry Butler. Joel and Jerry are business partners, and of the four of them, Joel has low sperm count and Kane has feritlity issues.

Jerry comes up with the idea of swapping partners: He will make love to Jennifer and then all four of them will share custody of the baby, if they're successful. Not everyone is crazy about the idea, and even Greg is not sold on it, as he and Jennifer don't get along in the first place.

Out of desperation, they all finally agree, and Jerry & Jennifer begin a regular program of lovemaking, earnestly aiming at having a baby. Amidst the arguing, the other spouses get jealous, and finally Joel f*cks Sharon after they watch "Dumbo" on TV!

The balance of sincere drama over the issue and clever rom-com antics (especially when Joel & Sharon are caught in the act of making love, not part of the quartet's agreement) make this an enjoyable movie, better than many mainstream rom-coms. A 12-person orgy takes place halfway through the show (with our quartet merely watching, surprised at the type of party they were invited to attend), perhaps a sop to porn fans, as PT treats the other sex scenes tastefully in line with the story.