The Girl Most Likely To (1973)

Directed by Lee Phillips
Starring Stockard Channing, Suzanne Zenor, Larry Wilcox
Unrated
USA

Remember those long-gone days when major networks would routinely corral a small truckload of their reigning prime-time stars and squeeze them all into a TV Movie of the Week? This is one of those. Don't let that deter you, however. Sure, there's a jarring commercial break-friendly blackout every 20 minutes and a suspicious lack of cuss words or nudity, but beyond the family-friendly veneer you'll find a wicked bit of pitch-black comedy that plays like a snarky cross between Dr. Phibes and Heathers.

A pre-Grease Stockard Channing toplines as Miriam Knight, a frumpy, dog-faced, wisecracking college girl with high hopes but low self-esteem. Miriam routinely swaps out universities, endlessly searching for a school with a boy-girl ratio lopsided enough for even an uggo like her to have a shot at a boyfriend. She finally decides on State University, since it's got the biggest pool of available men, and does her best to pitch woo.

Her roommate, Heidi ( Suzanne Zenor, the original Chrissy in the first Three's Company pilot), is a vivacious blonde cheerleader hotly pursued by most of the male population at the school. Dim-bulbed and vain, Heidi barely notices her new roomie, and when she does interact with her, it's mostly to bully her into secretarial duties. In exchange, she routinely sets Miriam up on blind dates with her cast-offs, but they always end in bitter humiliation for ugly duckling heroine.

Miriam's object of affection is a lunk-headed football player named Moose (Larry Wilcox, best known as Ponch's motorcycle cop partner in CHIPS). She lucks out when he's forced to take tutoring lessons from her to get his grades up. They end up going to the drive-in together, and Miriam is fairly certain she'll finally lose her virginity - with a popular jock, no less.

Alas, her clumsy attempts at seduction end in mayhem, and Miriam remains unwillingly chaste.

Things finally turn around for our plucky heroine when she scores the lead role in the school play. She even calls up her shlubby on-again off-again fiancé Herman (Warren Berlinger) to come watch her debut performance. It all goes swimmingly until she's handed a bouquet of roses on stage - she's deathly allergic to them. The performance abruptly ends in a fit of sneezes and coughs, Miriam's briefly adoring fans now erupting in derisive laughter at the red-faced actress.

Overcome with grief Miriam tears ass out of there and ends up smashing her car - and most of her face and body - into bits. The paramedics shovel what's left into the ambulance and take her to hospital.

I mentioned that this is a comedy, right?

After several reconstructive surgery procedures and months of rehabilitation, Miriam is finally ready to have her bandages taken off. When she is fully unraveled, she is shocked to find that she is now slender and gorgeous (well, as gorgeous as Stockard Channing can get, anyway), and finds that men are now ga-ga over her. So, naturally, she uses her newly acquired attractiveness to plot the and execute the murders of everyone who has ever wronged her, from Heidi to callous Dr Gates (The Love Boat's own Fred Grandy).

The deaths are not graphic, but they are gruesome - master-of-disguises Miriam convinces Heidi to backflip off their balcony to her doom; Dr Gates is given unnecessary surgery and dies on the operating table; Herman-the-plumber is drowned in a bathtub; one of Miriam's pool-playing blind dates is blown to smithereens with an exploding 8 ball; and so on - and Miriam, who appeared to be quite sane and rational before the surgery, shows no sign of regret or remorse for her killing spree.

Naturally, there's a police investigation. Grizzled detective Ed Asner is on the case. He is reasonably sure he knows who the culprit is. He is also reasonably sure that he's madly in love with her, as well.

Will Miriam finally find true love while she's still knee-deep in a bloody revenge war? And can a by-the-books cop cast a blond eye to the mayhem to snag the sociopath of his dreams?

Sure. Sort of.

Written by Joan Rivers - already obsessed with plastic surgery, nearly forty years ago - and directed by 50's TV actor turned 60/s70's TV everyman Lee Phillips, The Girl Most Likely To is a gleefully mean-spirited piece of work that predates contemporary schoolgirl killer romps like Heathers, Jawbreaker, and Jennifer's Body by decades. Of course, there is very little explanation for why Miriam would go from a friendly, reasonably well-adjusted young lady to a cold-blooded murderess so quickly, but who knows? Maybe they tweaked her brain as well during surgery.

Littered with recognizable faces - Jim Backus is the school's drama instructor, Chuck McCann is the football coach, a very young and pretty Annette O'Toole is one of Miriam's classmates - and anchored by the impressive Channing, who somehow manages to remain likable, even when she's killing everybody around her - The Girl Most Likely To is classic nihilistic 70's cinema, fun and funny and almost absurdly dark. Mean girls - or anyone with an affection/boner for mean girls (guilty!) - will love it.

Clip: The Cheerleader Gets It!

- Ken McIntyre

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (2001)

Directed by David Grossman
Starring Markie Post, Anne Stedman
Unrated
USA

" I didn't change that much, did I?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure you didn't used to smell like cigarettes and macaroni & cheese."

The original Electra Woman and Dyna Girl aired in 1976 as part of the Krofft Supershow, the same brain-twisting Saturday morning kiddie show that spawned life-altering live-action freak-fests like Dr. Shrinker, Wonderbug, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, Magic Mongo, The Lost Saucer, and Bigfoot and Wildboy. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl starred Deidre Hall and Judy Strangis as the titular heroines, two clueless do-gooders in skintight lycra suits who traipsed around fighting retarded supervillians like Glitter Rock, a Jew-fro'd weirdo in spandex who tried to take over the world with bad prog-metal. While it only lasted for a grand total of eight 24-minute episodes, the show left an indelible mark on all the kids who watched it during it's initial run - especially the boys, including yours cruelly. We may have not known exactly what we were looking at, but we knew we liked it.

While the show was certainly never forgotten, it did lapse into utter obscurity for many years, until retro Cable channel TV Land began airing re-runs of the Supershow at the start of the last decade, turning on a whole new generation of pre-adolescents to the show's Electra-awesomeness and bringing back blissful, sugar-coated memories of long-lost Saturday mornings to creaky old bastards everywhere. The reruns proved so successful that rumors started circulating about a possible Electra-revamp!

Immediately after Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Deidre Hall landed a role on soap Days of Our Lives. She remained on the show for 33 years. So, Deidre was not available for crime fighting. Judy Strangis, meanwhile, had retired from acting in the early 1990's. She may have been coaxed back into the role, but a 50 year old Dyna Girl? That's really pushing the "Girl" part of the equation.

The solution? Recast the entire show, and update it for the cynical, pessimistic, post-ironic 00's. And then put it on the WB network.

Sure, sounds iffy. But how about we sweeten the deal by casting super-busty Markie Post in the lead role? That's right, the hot, uptight chick from Night Court, who was always dressed in fussy silk shirts and tight wool skirts. That chick would look fuckin' amazing in a superhero outfit, right?

Right. And that's what happened.

Only one thirteen-minute pilot was produced, and it was never aired. Written by Elisa Bell (Vegas Vacation) and directed by David Grossman (Desperate Housewives), Electra Woman and Dyna Girl was funny, sexy, tongue-in-cheek, and would clearly have been a classic bit of cult TV, had it been produced.

Judy (the positively delightful Anne Stedman) is a perky blonde college freshman who has modeled her life - including her choice of university - on Electra Woman, who saved her life as a young child during a freak Ferris wheel accident. Electra Woman has been in self-imposed exile for years, and Judy hopes that her invitation to the school's upcoming homecoming event will break her silence. The invitation is returned unread, so plucky Judy hops on a plane to Las Vegas to fetch her supergirl idol herself.

When she gets there, she finds Electra Woman on the skids, living in a trailer park and eating dog food. Worse still, midway through their conversation, a tow truck shows up to repossess the trailer, leaving the aging heroine Electra-homeless.

Judy takes Electra out for dinner and tries to convince her to make a comeback. Electra tells her she can't do it without Dyna Girl. Judy suggests they find her, and asks what she's been up to.
"Oh, probably still blowing my ex-husband," quips Electra Woman.
Clearly, there's some bad blood there.

You can guess where this is going, right? Judy and Electra stay at a motel for the evening. Electra gets smashed on the tiny bootles of booze at the mini-bar, and by the time she comes to, Judy has squeezed herself into the old Dyna Girl outfit, and booked them a meet and greet gig at a local jewelry store.

Said store turns out to be a grimy pawn shop, but you've got to start somewhere. While they wait for somebody - anybody - to show up for an autograph, a couple shotgun-toting thugs show up to rob the place. Will Electra Woman shrug off her apathy and become the ass-kicking superchick she used to be?

Maybe. If she doesn't get too winded.

For a fifteen-minute pilot, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl is jammed with eye-popping set-designs, super-powered cameos (Aqua Man protests the salmon lunch at Judy's school), funny and surprisingly raunchy dialogue ("Wonder Woman has better tits than I do. Fake, but still, what a rack"), and most importantly, Markie Post in a tight, cleavage-heavy super girl outfit. Had this show been developed and produced, it would have been legendary. Legendary, I say!

But it wasn't. Markie Post has been relegated to TV guest spots lately, and Anne Stedman's last steady gig was in the Fox sitcom misfire The Mullets back in '04.
Of course, that doesn't mean there won't be another attempt at reviving the franchise at some point. Chicks in spandex punching dudes never gets old.

In the meantime, check out the '01 pilot yourself. It is truly Electra Awesome.

And while we're on the subject, why not soak up some vintage Electra Woman and Dyna Girl?

- Ken McIntyre

Cheeky! (2000)

AKA Trasgredire
Directed by Tinto Brass
Starring Yuliya Mayarchuk, Leila Carli, Vittorio Attene
Rated R
Italy

I asked for Frivolous Lola and got Cheeky! instead. A fair substitution, I think, because what appealed to me in the Lola trailer was pretty much what I got in Cheeky!. Which can be summed up in one word: ass. If you are a fan of the nude female bottom, of rearview snatch shots, of loose morals and tight-assed women, this movie is for you. It’s the story of Carla (played with cheeky exuberance by Yuliya Mayarchuk), a hot young blonde visiting London while waiting for her boyfriend, Matteo, to join her after his exams. Carla is not overly fond of undergarments and likes to wear short skirts, which is convenient because everyone she comes in contact with (her lesbian real estate agent, the real estate agent’s husband, even the guy working in the photography shop (Brass in a Hitchcockian cameo) ), finds their fingers up her twat, preferably from behind. Poor girl. Matteo, the jealous type, finds some letters from an old beau of Carla’s, and his jealousy escalates until, unable to take it, he confronts her in London, blah blah blah. (It all works out, don’t worry.) In the behind the scenes extra with director Brass, he explains that “the ass is the mirror of the soul,” that we can lie with our faces but not with our bums, and while I find myself hesitant to agree wholeheartedly, I like what he’s done here.

There are some very creative ass shots, mostly involving mirrors, that bely a pretty sophisticated artistic sensibility for a softcore porn director. I was particularly impressed by the reverse strip-tease scene; watching someone get dressed has never been hotter. I promise that you’ll find yourself both turned on and amused by this film (often at the same time). There is even a message hidden (okay, not so hidden) in its clefts, I mean, depths.

Cheeky!, indeed…

- Holly Engel

Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman (1975)

Directed by William A Levey
Starring Dyanne Thorne, Jay Rasumny, Samual Mann
Rated R/XXX
USA

"Remember: only screw with suckers."

The mysterious William A Levey (RIP?), frequent co-conspirator of sexploitation pioneer Harry Novak, has one of the most incredible directing resumes ever. He is responsible for blaxploitation/horror mash-up Blackenstein (1973), a retro-teen sex comedy starring Debra Winger's boobs (Slumber Party '57, 1976), a roller-boogie epic (Skatetown USA, 1979), a seriously low-rent Black Stallion rip-off (Lightning, the White Stallion, 1986), and a biker flick/slasher hybrid starring Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter (Hellgate, 1988). How can one man be responsible for so many bizarre visions? To quote scream queen Tara Cardinal, who was talking about a far lesser light than Mr. Levey, "He's either a genius, or he's not."

I guess that one's up to the ages, but I'm betting on the former.

Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman is probably Levey's looniest concoction, and that's saying something.

Sexy sci-fi flicks weren't a new idea by 1975 - witness Flesh Gordon, Space Thing, 2069 A Space Odyssey, Zeta One, Barbarella, Nude on the Moon, etc. - but nobody thought to add that one extra ingredient to the boobs n' spaceboots mix: non-stop, unrelenting vulgarity. Also, the palpable sense that the people making the film you are watching are bug-fuck insane. Oh, and rape. That was new, as well. Throw all that in the mix, add lots of tits and a couple of aliens in silver hotpants, and you've got the enigmatic madness that is Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman.

Private Asshole (Jay Rasumny) and Private Jackoff (Sam Mann) are two foul-mouthed cadets from Planet Urine (Listen, the humor's not going to get any more high-brow, so if you want to bail now, I understand) sent to Earth to impregnate as many females as possible, since Urine is due to get sucked into the sun in 500 years. They figure they'd better start early on their invasion. So, off they go, in a spaceship that looks like a potato chip bowl with a Star of David on the top from the outside, and a garden shed wrapped in tinfoil on the inside.

They touch down in Hollywood, and immediately hit the streets, looking for action. They wear glam-rock outfits and have over-sized monster heads, but it's Hollywood at the height of the glam/disco era, so nobody pays them much mind. Well, one guy shakes his fist and yells "Fuckin' drag queens!", but they are mostly left alone.

They spot a place that looks promising: Wild Mary's brothel. They head inside - invisibility cloaks on - and spy on folks as they pay for sex.

There's a wide variety of tasty morsels on deck, including Janice Karman (instantly recognizable from her role as Bunny in Switchblade Sisters, and currently the voice of Theodore in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies!) and, somewhat alarmingly, Ilsa She Wolf of the SS herself, Dyanne Thorne. Thorne had a long history as a singer/dancer/comedy performer, but most of the world knows her exclusively as the cruel and icy-cold Ilsa, so it's a real brain-twister to see her here, as the befuddled hooker chosen to bust Private Jerkoff's human-female cherry.

Turns out aliens have winking eyeballs where their penises are supposed to be. So that's weird. Also, instead of penises, they have tongues that pop out of their noses. She deals with it. A buck's a buck.

Meanwhile, at a local make-out spot, Billie Jo (Anne Gaybis, Fairy Tales) romances a sailor that she is either going steady with or is mistaking for some other guy. Hard to say which, since she calls him by half a dozen different names.

The aliens spy on her amorous backseat adventure and decide that she'd make good breeding stock, so they zap her up to the ship mid-coitus to finish her off.

Having sufficiently balled their first Earth women, the aliens take a nap. When they wake up, their commander, Colonel Putz, tells them to get back to work, but to watch out for "faggots", because they're no good for breeding purposes. Putz has problems.

And then there's Marvin. Essayed by the awesomely named Pepi La Rue - who, sadly, never acted again - Marvin is a red-headed, molester-mustachioed bag o' bones who gets lucky, for once in his miserable life, when his frumpy bride suddenly turns into a glamorous, sex-charged vixen over breakfast. Marv and wifey get it on, but then Private Asshole accidentally zaps a naked Marvin onto the ship instead of his missus.

They work it out, though. After they have sex with Marvin's wife, they go to the movies. Jerkoff thinks they might get to ball some Hollywood starlets. Asshole is doubtful.
"All we'll see is a bunch of gays," he says. And that's exactly what happens.

After meeting their first gay- and deciding that he was sorta cute - the two aliens strut around Hollywood Boulevard in their silver hotpants, deciding on a movie to see. Asshole wants to check out Deep Throat, but Jerkoff snaps at him: "There's no time to masturbate, we have to fornicate!"

Their stroll doesn't really get them anywhere, however, so they head back to the ship and watch the making of a porn movie on their super-futuristic surveillance device. It's actually a very long set-up for a lame gag. See, the director of the film is gay, and the girl in the boy-girl scene he's directing is a lesbian. So nobody's happy, and the scene isn't working. They break for lunch. He goes off to fuck the lighting guy, and some hot chick shows up and has sex with his starlet. After lunch, everybody's happy, and the scene is a success.

Pretty funny, right? At least it ends in some decent girl-on-girl action.

And then, Private Asshole gets VD. Colonel Putz suggests that he "suck on some pussy", but then relents and lets him come home to get some Uri-cyllin. Turns out their home planet looks exactly like the Hollywood Hills. Imagine that!

"6 days later", Private Asshole is feeling much better, so they head back to Los Angeles. Did you know that if you look at the Earth from space, it's got the names of every place printed right on it? That's got to be very convenient for space travelers.

Ready for another ironic sexual switcheroo? White-fro'd Mr. Hardy is rebuffed by his wife, Gloria. He pretends to leave in a huff, announcing that he's going to the gym to "Play with himself", but he really goes upstairs to bang his maid, Suzette (Sandy Carey, Naughty Stewardesses). Meanwhile, as soon as hubby leaves, Gloria calls for her butler, and has awkward 70's sex with him. What a crazy set-up!

Naturally, the spacemen beam the two girls up and have alien nose-sex with them. At one point, Private Asshole gets so excited that his tongue pops right out of Suzette's mouth and starts spewing what looks like dirty toothpaste. So that's pretty wild.

Later on, a high school girl in a mini-skirt and knee-high socks (Gayna Shireen) is strolling through the ghetto when she's kidnapped by a John Holmes-looking creep who takes her to an abandoned building, cuts off all her clothes with a knife, and rapes her. Midway through, the spaceman beam her up. Are they saving a damsel in distress? Nope. They rape her, too. And then they send her back down so that the guy can finish the job.

I know. That sounds horrible. Here's the gag: when she gets back to Earth, she is somehow empowered by the intergalactic rape, so she grabs the knife and forces herself on the guy. She turned the tables on him, see? Funny, right?

Holy smokes, Mr. Levey. Dunno what you were thinking with that bit.

After that debacle, Putz tells orders his men to go to the middle east and "Fuck some local cunts" for their last mission.
Cut to: tent, interior. The Shiek (Ray Miles, Satan's Black Wedding) is busy putting the moves on a fast-talking slave girl with a hillbilly accent (toothy beauty Joyce Gibson, Linda Lovelace for President). She distracts him by calling on a belly dancer (Anisa Gluzan), and while said dancer does her thing, the slave girl escapes.

Also, for some reason, Russ Meyer girl Haji is in the tent as well. She wanders off.

The shiek's left with only one girl (Valeria Nicorre), so he rolls around on the ground with her, but the spacemen beam her up for "One last piece of ass and some 'sponge gumming'."

What the fuck is sponge gumming? It sounds horrible.

Anyway, they send her back, but she doesn't end up in the shiek's tent. Oh, no. She lands someplace far more wonderful!

Boy, are you in for a treat with that scene.

And then there's a final gag. The end.

Ridiculous? Yep. But then again, so were the mid 1970's. So in that respect, it's an almost perfect distillation of the times. Remember, these were the days when hardcore was sorta mainstream, when guys wore big gold medallions and showed off their chest hair, when disco dominated, when swingers' clubs were in full swing. Everybody was really into fucking and UFOs and mustaches, and Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman has them all. I was only six years old in 1975, but still, this is exactly how I remember it.

There are two versions of this film out there - hardcore and softcore. I've never seen the triple X version, but seeing as half the fake-fuck scenes here involve popular 70's exploitation actresses, it must be pretty amazing, at least on the celebrity skin level. I can't imagine you could actually masturbate to it, though. I mean, every frame of this film is completely retarded. Oh, boners will be popped - there's half a dozen gorgeous and frequently nude starlets on full display here - but this is more of a berserk performance art piece than porn. It's like a Passion Play as performed by half-naked lunatics from the local asylum.

In other words, it's fucking awesome.

Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman is available from Something Weird Video.

Wham! Bam! Thank You, Spaceman (1975)

- Ken McIntyre

Boobie Trap (2001)

Directed by Herb Henderson
Starring Melissa Wolf's tits and the ever versatile Louis Cypher as Stockinghead Joe
X Rated
USA

Anyone who'd call their film 'Boobie Trap' in 2002 is either crazy or a genius. Turns out Herb is a little of both. Any guy that has no qualms with stopping the action for ten minutes at a time so that the Botticelli-esque flesh sculpture that is stripper Michelle Wolf can take the time out to masturbate in the shower is fuckin' alright with me. Boobie Trap follows the strange tale of Grace (Stacey Sheets), whose sister, Twyla, a wayward hooker, has been viciously murdered. She's sure it's our girl Melissa, who's a rival hooker named Clara. Pimpless, Clara just brings men home to her luxurious mansion, but apparently, she's been cutting into the local street action as well. Grace hires Harold (Randy Byars), a down on his luck gumshoe, to find out who killed Twyla. Harold looks more like the guy that does payroll at the salt mines than he does a detective, and his weird mustache, which looks like one of those fake fuzzy caterpillars from the 70's that you pulled on an invisible string, is not easily forgotten. Perfect b-movie casting.

Harold dutifully hunts down Clara, but like most of us, he's more interested in getting his dick sucked by a hot stripper than justice, so he ends up in a seriously compromised position when the real killer shows up to turn this flesh feast into an HG Lewis flashback. In a surprisingly graphic scene, Clara gets her tits sliced off, insuring an end to her endless series of nude scenes.
What kind of madness is this? Believe me, the ride gets wilder as the night drags on.

I was completely waylaid by this crazy-ass movie. This is actually the uncut, X-rated version, which explains the blowjob and the graphic masturbation. But the guy in the afro and the twisted face mask? That's way beyond X, baby, that's completely out there.

I wish Herb Henderson made a million more movies, with even fatter strippers and more blood, because Boobie Trap reminded me of those long-gone 70's drive-in roughies that went straight for the reptile brain. Unfortunately, this has so far been it. Melissa Wolf, however, is still quite active. Besides maintaining her official website and appearing in various publications (there's really a magazine called Cougars?!), she still makes the occasional Z-movie appearance - most recently in 2008 slasher Hell-ephone.

PS: You may have noticed the sad lack of screengrabs here. Sadly, my VHS copy of Boobie Trap has wheezed its last breath. If anybody - including you, Herb, if you're out there - has another copy, drop me a line. We really have to revisit this one on the show soon.

- Ken McIntyre

The Naughty Stewardesses (1975)

Directed by Al Adamson
Starring Connie Hoffman, Marilyn Joi, Donna Young, Sydney Jordan
Rated R
USA

"Eat Your Heart Out, Burt Reynolds!"

70's Z-king Al Adamson - the genius-blunderer behind eyeball searing trash like Dracula VS. Frankenstein (1971) and Brain of Blood (1972) - and his longtime partner in grime, producer Sam Sherman, clearly thought 1975 was the Year of the Stewardess. Together, they produced two waitress-in-the-sky epics in '75: Blazing Stewardesses and The Naughty Stewardesses. Although they shared several cast members, both films were quite different from one another. Blazing was a cringe-worthy 'comedy' full of creaky old vaudeville acts and slapstick gags. Naughty Stewardesses, on the other hand, was a sexploitation/kidnap drama mash-up with a generous dose of nudity and a creaky old cowboy. Both made a bundle at the drive-ins during their initial releases, but they have not aged equally well. Blazing is literally painful to watch at this point, even with the benefit of 70's nostalgia-goggles. Naughty Stewardesses, on the other hand, still gets the job done. In fact, it remains one of Adamson's most consistently watchable films, and may be his strongest directorial effort, next to 1969's notorious Satans's Sadists. Not surprisingly, he reportedly hated it.

Debbie (Connie Hoffman) is a golden-haired starchild from Nowheresville, headed to Los Angeles to discover herself. She nabs a decent gig as a stewardess, and even ends up rooming with a whole house full of them.

Her new roomies - Jane (Sydney Jordan), Barbara (Marilyn Joi, Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Shieks), and Margie (Donna Young, Fugitive Girls) - are all free-spirits prone to mile-high club antics and sexy, extravagant house parties. In fact, they throw an anything-goes bash for Jane's birthday just a couple days after Debbie arrives, complete with a live penis-cake for raunchy Jane.

This proves all too much for small-town Debbie, who is quite unsure whether she wants to be part of this permissive new lifestyle. Margie talks her off the ledge, however, and the two begin to bond. Debbie calms down, and the girls resume frolicking through the friendly skies. And then, presumably because it was cheap to film, the stews go traipsing around the Las Vegas strip, gawking at the neon and occasionally tugging at a slot machine.

Later, during a bumpy flight, some dude starts having an allergic reaction to something. Or maybe he's choking, it's never all that clear. The point is, the fucker turns purple.

He is saved by retired soldier Brewster (40's cowboy star Robert Livingston), a smooth-talking ladies' man/rich old bastard. Despite the fact that he's a cadaverous 70 year old, the stews are quite taken with him. He even talks Debbie into going home with him.

When he gets there, there's already a naked broad waiting for him in his bed. He leaves Debbie downstairs and tells her he has to attend to a sick dog upstairs. So he bangs the chick and then sends her packing, so he can work on Debbie. Not a bad night for a great-grandpa.

Presumably, Adamson cast Livingston because he was a contemporary/friend of Al's dad, cowboy star Victor "Denver Dixon" Adamson. Fair enough, and Livingston was certainly spry for 71, but he was clearly 25 years too old for the role. The ridiculous, ill-fitting blue jumpsuit they have him in for half of the movie doesn't help the case much, either.

At any rate, Debbie's latest flight takes her to San Francisco, so she decides to see the sights. She ends up in a cab with Cal (Richard Smedley, The Abductors) a talky driver who tells her she'd make a great model. That shit has to work once in a while, right? Somewhere along the way, he gets into a road rage incident with a burly black guy in a VW Bug, who punches him in the chest so hard it makes his head bleed.

Naturally, Debbie ends up going home with him, just to make sure that he's OK. Once he gets her in his place, he starts to show her his collection of photographs, and she agrees to model for him.

Cue the takin' pictures montage, complete with a horrendous/awesome Jesusploitation number by John Kay's pre-Steppenwolf band The Sparrow called "The Rainsun Song" that starts out like warbly acid-folk, but bursts into Polyphonic Spree-esque sunshine pop by the chorus.

Also, there's a bunch of Hare Krishnas wandering around. You used to see those fuckers everywhere. Where'd they all go?

That all goes so well, they go home and do a topless shoot. But afterward, Cal starts crying. This is what you would call a "warning sign".

Creaky old perv Brewster throws a bash at his place. Barbara pops her top and frugs around the swimming pool while her boyfriend EV (Al Richardson, Mean Mother) raps with Cal. Cal explains that he's looking for work as a photographer, and EV tells him he might have a gig for 'em. Hardcore porn!

Cal doesn't seem to fazed by the offer, but then he starts hassling Dab about how he hates her friends. And then he splits. Eventually, the party breaks up, allowing Brewster the opportunity to hit on Debbie. Amazingly, she lets the skeletal old bastard have his way with her. So that was kinda gross. In the morning, Brewster drives her to work, and she says, "That was the most delirious, wonderful night I've ever had."

Brewster drops her off, picks up Margie, and brings her home to fuck in some sort of French sex basket. Not a bad day's work for an 80 year old.

Meanwhile, our man Cal is really losing it. He calls Debbie to reconcile, but she blows him off, so he threatens her and hangs up. Then he goes back to work shooting "Locked Loins", but starts spazzing out mid-shoot.

He tells EV that he's part of the "People's Liberation Front", which has helped out "Lots of blacks and Chicanos". He also says they get by on ripping off rich old fuckers like Brewster. If EV will help him out, he can knock over Brewster for $50,000, and also get back at Debbie in the process. Clearly, Cal needs a rest. Preferably at the state hospital.

EV agrees to help him - for two-thirds of that take. That's ridiculous, but Cal's nuts, so he goes along with it. AV tricks the girls into thinking they're going skiing, but he really ends up kidnapping them in a cabin and holding them for ransom. Brewster agrees to pay the 50K, but plans on giving them something else entirely - a hail of bullets.

Again, pretty ballsy plan for a 95 year old guy.

Back in the cabin, Cal admits to Debbie that he is both impotent and certifiable. Then he rapes her. Afterwards, she slips out the window and makes a run for it through the snow. EV takes off after, and we rush towards a thrilling climax full of rapists, kidnappers, pissed-off stewardesses, and old dudes with high-powered rifles.

Stylistically similar to 1979's head-spinning Cheerleader's Wild Weekend - which also starred Marilyn Joi - The Naughty Stewardesses deftly balances tongue-in-cheek humor with 70's scuzzball nihilism and TV Movie-of-the-week style-action.

Of course, we are dealing with an Al Adamson film, so there's a fair amount of stock footage and stilted dialogue to wade through, but even so, the performances are solid, the girls - particularly Sydney Jordan, who sadly never acted again - are both fetching and frequently undressed, the music is both ridiculous and sublime, the over-aged cowboy is hilariously miscast, and there's a slapdash, anything-goes energy to the production that's difficult to dislike.

And also, it's got stewardesses in minidresses and go-go boots. So everybody wins.

Naughty Stewardesses and Blazing Stewardesses are available in a two-disc set from Retro Seduction Cinema.

- Ken McIntyre