Lucky Stiff

I recall seeing a soft-core version (circa 1970 production) of the exact same premise as Veronica Hart's Penthouse time-killer about a pesky ghost, and it wasn't much better. You feel like this has been run into the ground a thousand times already even though that's a wild exaggeration.

Steven St. Croix is the stiff, with three gals gazing into his open coffin at the funeral home, making disparaging comments about their time with him. He talks to the audience and later, though invisible to fellow cast members, tries to steer their activities from beyond the grave.

All this just as an excuse for flashbacks of their sex with him or other guys, plus a pay-off lesbian threesome as the three ladies bond over their misfortune of having hitched their wagons to creepy St. Croix sequentially over the years (he's no bigamist). India Summer, Nikki Fairchild and Holly Wellin comprise the trio, while Penthouse Pet Shawna Lenee is shoe-horned into the show for variety's sake.

Hart, whose directing career never lived up even a tiny bit to her all- time great status as an Adult Cinema actress, botches the finale in which, like some old William Powell movie climax (oft-mocked decades later by Don Adams), tons of explanations and coincidences are trotted out verbally as if anyone cared. The sex scenes are perfunctory, and supporting (male) cast truly lousy: St. Croix backed up by untalented Niko (better off showing off his six pack in numerous Playgirl compilations) and who- he? Jack Logan.

As ghost stories go, give me "Topper" anytime.