Velvet Hustle

This sleep-inducing porn feature, duly reissued on Vol. 128 of Something Weird's Dragon Art Theatre series, comes from untalented filmmakers John Banks and Joe Serkes. I have a date to watch Banks' other effort SINS OF THE FLESH, but already gave at the office sitting through a couple of Serkes' horrible amateur efforts.

Title refers to a last-minute plot device, which seems tacked on to nearly an hour of random sex footage, and is delivered in voice-over narration. Jesse Adams stars (uncredited) as Don, a renowned fashion designer with truly beautiful girl friend Elaine (uncredited Virginia Winter -more about her later). After she gives him a blow job while driving, they arrive at a party, a staging which kills off the remainder of the film.

Writer-director Banks cuts back and forth between various sex scenes at the party, which is not an orgy but rather consists of desultory twosomes and threesomes. Besides brunette Winter, there are several attractive blondes in the cast and the film does have a modest appeal via their eye candy presence.

But the XXX action is strictly mechanical, and the soporific score could put even the hardiest film buff to sleep. Given the slow-slow-slow Muzak treatment are such standards as "What a Wonderful World", theme from "Midnight Cowboy," "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Misty", last two indicating Clint Eastwood may have been the target audience.

Biggest waste is Virginia Winter, an extremely alluring actress who was showcased opposite Rene Bond in TEENAGE FANTASIES: PART II and gives off a most appealing Candida Royalle look. I'd like to see more of the blonde co-stars too, one of whom is given an insulting introduction by being humped by a Cinzano bottle instead of a penis. Probably saved on having a fluffer on set.

Finale has Winter après-sex stealing some papers from a bedroom at the party, and exiting with Adams, who voices over "what a beautiful ripoff", evidently stealing designs for his next haute couture collection. Auteur Banks could have slapped a million other non-story pegs on this aimless footage just as easily and to just as null an effect.

As with other films made by these sad excuses for pornographers, there's a boilerplate cast list displayed (from Kay Louis to Sam Failus) that bears no relationship film-to-film with the performers on screen.