Paul Thomas was in a relaxed mood shooting "Crazed", a picaresque road movie with superstars Hyapatia Lee and Christy Canyon displaying a folksy charm that holds up quite well over 30 years after the 2-part movie was released. Chief defect is the decision, driven by the '90s VHS practice of issuing many porn films in two parts to help fill the massive video store demand for New Releases titles to keep fully stocked, each half running just over an hour long here -clearly a two-hour integral film would be fairer to the fans.
Carl Esser's screenplay takes off on the hit "Thelma and Louise", but it's quite different done in a porno vein. Unlike the fatalistic Sarandon/Geena original, it's told in flashback as Hyapatia and Christy separately tell each one's highly falsified story of crime to interrogator Esser, seated in a jail cell.
Lee has left her husband Wayne Summers, fed up with his kinkiness, the last straw being his hotwifing her for a masturbatory striptease to entertain his pals Jonathan Morgan and Tim Lake. She steals hubby's car and money from his safe and heads out on the road accompanied by friend Christy. The visit a roadhouse where Christy strips for the horny guys, including many extras like Jake Steed and Don Fernando in the audience, while Lee services Tony Martino in the back room. Martino is killed accidentally hit over the head with a bottle, each lady claiming the other one did it.
The rob a bank and a liquor store on their two-woman crime spree, giving a couple of sexy hippie girls a ride (Flame and Summer Knight), exposing our heroines to a completely different lifestyle. They turn Hyapatia on, who masturbates watching the lesbians make love, and then their boy friend Nick Rage shows up in his flower-power painted bus, with a threesome that turns on voyeuse Christy. Six minutes of coming attraction highlights for Part 2 finish the show.
The two stars are ebullient and give fine performances, and the overall carefree mood is contagious. One set of credits serves for both halves, but stars like Melanie Moore and Marc Wallice appear only in the Part 2 trailer footage.
Shooting in 35mm paid off for PT, as the show was popular in soft X cut on pay-cable.
