If insulting the audience with intentional nastiness were rewarded with brownie points, filmmaker Lou Campa would be ready to bake. His metier was soft porn, and this is a healthy portion.
Ingenious, if heavy-handed premise, is that a vice lord, played by a less white around the temples than usual Gerard Damiano, will go to any lengths to oppose liberalization of marijuana laws. God forbid that maryjane or other drugs be made legal -then there'd be no place for the mob.
To this end he kidnaps anti-drug crusader June (lovely Tina Buckley) and with the help of an ultra-motley crew of henchmen and henchwomen spends two weeks "conditioning" her to become a nymphomaniacal sex addict. (Oddly enough I just got through seeing a famous porn opus on conditioning, INVITATION TO RUIN, just before screening C'MON BABY LIGHT MY FIRE.) He's going to photograph her in compromising positions for which marijuana will be blamed, thereby causing her comrades to redouble there anti-marijuana efforts. It doesn't make much sense, but there is an inner logic to porn scripts that my constant research has yet to penetrate.
That's the film in a nutshell, but there's plenty of moaning and groaning by Tina en route to a hurried, utterly unconvincing twist of a happy ending (!). The fun of watching this junker is the goofball characterizations the properly monikered Campa has conjured up.
Slimy mob boss played by Damiano with his distinctive Bronx-accented delivery is fun to watch. Larry Hunter as Pancho, the sex machine enlisted to deflower (and then Golden Shower) June gives a new meaning to the show biz expression "over the top". And June gives nuance to soft porn thesping. Either through arduous rehearsals, or merely picking it up naturally, she can differentiate verbally between "Please don't!...Stop!" and "Please don't stop!" with the best of them.
Tech credits were not up to snuff, with murky black & white visuals, but one of my faves, composer Dave Herman, delivers an energetic rock score, even segueing to some hypnotic Ray Manzarek runs saluting (as per the title) The Doors.
