It Had to Be You

Jim Enright and Jonathan Morgan have teamed up for many great Wicked features, but this vehicle for contract star Temptress is rather mediocre among their output. It's a case of going for the easy sex and getting the show in the can, rather than trying hard to be creative.

Temptress, whose smoky voice and beauty in a very tall package is an instant turn on here, pretty much walks through her central role as a gal getting a personal assistant job to exec TJ Hart at the publishing company of Playboy-imitation "Bachelor Pad" magazine. Dillon Day is the Hefner-esque owner and Morgan plays a creepy womanizer sort of running the show for Hef, I mean Day.

Loaded with slapstick (pushing people into a swimming pool is a gag oft- repeated here by Enright, the rom-com clichés come at you fast and furious, but the pacing is way off. Like typical Wicked and Vivid releases around the turn of this century the brief (VHS-driven) running time is filled mainly by XXX sex content, so the ups & downs of a rom- com relationship (between Dillon and Temptress) is sabotaged in favor of getting on with it and bringing them together in the sack (inevitably) in the final reel. Much as I enjoyed staring at Temptress, she is far from ideal casting in this project, especially given her seeming disinterest in her role.

So the main takeaways from this light exercise come from some oddball supporting casting. Enright proves to be an equal-opportunity employer, with two beautiful Black women in the cast -virtually unheard of from a major Adult studio of this era for a release that is not specifically targeted as "ethnic" or "urban" content -pick your favorite euphemism. The wonderful Kitten, a show-stopper in her uninhibited gonzo appearances, shows up with even bustier Briana Banks for a photo shoot, and Enright cross-cuts between Kitten servicing staff photographer Steve Hatcher while Banks does her deep-throat thing on an ultra-crass Morgan.

Kitten pops up later in a dual role, playing the fabulous figure in an orange bikini who answers the door at Dillon's lavish mansion. Out by his swimming pool she's flanked by the inimitable Vanessa Blue - a bit role to be sure, but still a sight for sore eyes.

Central gimmick of a sub-par George Kaplan script plays very much like a Sandra Bullock or Katherine Weigl mainstream film. Temptress is thoroughly annoyed at the chauvinistic editorials (unlike Hef's progressive Playboy Philosophy of 50 years back) from Bachelor Pad's publisher and makes her reactions known in the office. Dillon is immediately impressed by her beauty, so to avoid her wrath, he orders underling Morgan to change places with him, pretending to be the publisher living at the mansion. This cornball ruse eventually backfires when Temptress figures it out, but even cornier is their mending fences in the sack.

With this cast the sex scenes are red hot, and another surprise, bad for the film's structure and overall credibility but great for us fans, is that the major femme role is actually filled by Kylie Ireland as Temptress's BFF and sort of mentor of a roommate. Kylie has two sex scenes, including getting upstaged in a threesome by the fabulous Chloe, as sensual a blow-job artist as they come. Enright also keeps things light by not having Chloe do her patented anal thing in this show, but fans must have seen her go the Hershey Highway route a thousand or so times in other videos.