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Released by: After Hours Cinema
Released on: 5/24/2011
Director: Bob Chinn/Various
Cast: John Holmes, Rene Bond, Sharon Mitchell, Bobby Astyr, Vanessa Del Rio
Year: 1971/1971/1975
The Movies:
FLESH OF THE LOTUS (1971):
One of approximately a zillion Johnny Wadd films that Bob Chinn and John Holmes made together in the seventies, the film begins when a woman we will learn is named Sheila is hanging out in a living room and using a big floppy dildo on herself. While she's in the throws of self pleasure a mysterious Chinese guy (Bob Chinn himself) in dark glasses shows up behind her and slits her throat.
Somehow private detective Johnny Wadd (John Holmes) winds up at the scene where he talks to a guy named Alex about what a shame it is that Sheila's dead, and then Wadd notices a lotus flower on the floor that you know just has to be a clue. Alex tells Wadd to go visit a lesbian friend of his named Billie Ray. Wadd gets into his convertible and puts on his hat and remembers Sheila fondly in a flashback scene in which he gropes her in a kitchen and then bends her over the table to give her what for. He finds Billie Ray's place and she shows Wadd how much she loves women by stuffing a giant dildo down her throat, between her hooters and then up her cooch. Wadd watches for a bit and then drops his pants, at which point he apparently makes quite the heterosexual out of skanky little Billie Ray as she deep throats him as best she can and then lets him bone her.
After Billie Ray's been turned, she tells Wadd to go visit a chick named Suzie (Andy Bellamy) who might know more about Sheila's death. Wadd shows up and Suzie spills the beans, telling him that Alex is actually a drug dealer trying to get a hold of a heroin shipment worth a half a million dollars. He also apparently likes boning, which we see in a flashback where he and Suzie get it on. With that out of the way, it's time for Wadd to solve the case, which he does sort of when he confronts Alex about his real occupation. Alex tries to pay him off but Wadd roughs him up and throws him into a wall. Somehow he figures out that the killer is the mysterious Chinese guy from the beginning and that said Chinese guy is hanging out in a park or maybe someone's backyard. It's there that Johnny Wadd and the Chinese guy square off in the worst kung-fu fight you've ever seen and one that makes the fight scenes in The Guy From Harlem look like something out of a Bruce Lee Movie.
Made very fast and very cheap, qualities made painfully obvious in pretty much every aspect of the production, Flesh Of The Lotus is a fun movie. Holmes may not be particularly convincing as a private eye here, he'd do better in later movies, but it's not for lack of effort on his part and Chinn as the silent assassin is suitably sneaky and sleazy in his non-sex role (the only non-sex role in the entire movie - everyone else gets it on at some point). Like the rest of the films in this triple feature it clocks in at under an hour and once you take the sex out of it the story is told in roughly ten minutes, but it moves at a good pace and as ridiculous as it all is, you can't help but have fun with this one. Chinn would work in more noir elements, better camera work and stronger storytelling in the later Johnny Wadd films but this early entry sets the stage for what was to come - a cool private dick that the ladies can't say no to, amazingly awful fight scenes, femme fatale's galore, and all that fun stuff. There's also some pretty cool footage of L.A.'s Chinatown in here too.
Check out our interview with Flesh Of The Lotus director Bob Chinn by clicking here!
TEENAGE FANTASIES (1971):
Also released by After Hours as Sounds Of Sex (on their Grindhouse Hotties: Rene Bond Sleazy Triple Feature), this 1971 film features Ms. Bond basically playing herself and introducing a series of hardcore vignettes, each one based on someone's fantasy (and for the record that someone is never actually a teenager, making the original title an odd choice). The film begins with Rene in mid-blowjob, explaining her love of performing oral sex which leads up to a big ol' facial finish before segueing into our first 'fantasy' in which a nerdy man is seduced by a more aggressive female who takes him into the bedroom and has her with him.
From there we watch Rene go down again, and then learn how an old man loves to get with younger women. He discusses how he can't perform with the same sort of stamina as younger men can but makes up for it with his ability to put 'an entire inch of tongue up a girl's ass.' We then witness him hop into bed with a remarkably eager twenty-something lady who doesn't seem to mind his liver spots, flab or black socks. From there it's back to Rene's oral fixations (it may seem repetitious but she does it with such skill and obvious genuine enthusiasm that it doesn't get tired) before closing out with a vignette in which a girl gets turned on by a man actually loving her (she tells him to stop while they make out because she doesn't want to get hurt - he proves he won't hurt her by groping between her legs!) and the final act in which a girl watches her boyfriend make it with another chick only to join in on the action.
Suzanne Fields and the omnipresent Rick Lutz both appear in the film alongside Rene (who we only ever see from the shoulders up but who looks as adorable as ever here with a schlong in her mouth!) and the film moves at a good pace. The sex is hotter than usual, creepy old guy scene notwithstanding, and if the score and production values all scream with seventies XXX clichés, well, that's half the fun of a movie like this one.
THE HORNY LANDLADY (1975):
Our third and final feature begins when a chick named Carrie (Sharon Mitchell) is entertaining her boyfriend, Stony (Bobby Astyr), in a room she rents from a fairly reserved landlady named Dorothy (Vanessa Del Rio in one of her earliest features). They sneak up to her room and undress and have a pretty good time together rolling around in the bed and bumpin' uglies and thankfully finish up just before Dorothy knocks on the door. She's been in the kitchen making coffee this whole time and wants to talk to Carrie. The two ladies chat while Stony hides under the bed, and then he splits and Carrie takes off.
Dorothy, nosey lady that she is, snoops through Carrie's stuff and finds a nifty old porno mag. She checks it out and has a fantasy about a black dude boffing an Asian chick which we see reenacted and shot in some very soft lighting. Carrie and Dorothy talk again and it turns out, as if you couldn't tell, that Dorothy really needs to get laid. Carrie heads to the bar where she talks to a guy enjoying a cool, refreshing bottle of Miller High Life, the Champagne of Beers, and she sets something up for Dorothy, who she instructs to visit a sex instructor named Vincent. Before you know it, Dorothy is in a bedroom where some guy named Larry is sticking his dick in every one of her three canals of love while some other creepy dude sits in a chair and directs the action while enjoying a nice glass of wine.
What? Ha. Wow. This story is awful. There are no credits on the print After Hours used for this release so it's pretty much impossible to figure out who is responsible for this mess but hey, enjoy it for what it is. Sharon Mitchell actually looks very good here, not wasted on smack as she appears to be in some of her other films but rather, lithe and very into what she's doing. Del Rio is Del Rio, she fucks with gusto the way she's famous for while Bobby Astyr steals the show as the comedic fuzzball who kind of jumps around like a flea when he and Mitchell almost get busted by Vanessa. The sex is plentiful and actually fairly well shot for the most part. We spend an inordinate amount of time in Vanessa's kitchen watching her make coffee but hey, gratuitous Miller High Life product placement, swank early seventies fashion and furnishings and anal sex are rarely combined so gleefully.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Each of the three movies is presented in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio and transferred from film. They haven't been fully restored so expect a fair bit of print damage and plenty of visible scratches but that doesn't really detract from the experience much. Colors are faded and black levels all over the place but if the elements are in rough shape, at least the disc is fairly well authored and not plagued by compression artifacts or edge enhancement problems. Flesh Of The Lotus has been released before by both Something Weird Video and VCX and the VCX release looked a bit cleaner than this transfer. The Horny Landlady was also released previously by Something Weird Video, but that disc isn't handy to compare it to.
The audio is on par with the video, in that it's rough but serviceable considering the origins of the films and the materials available to work with. Each of the three English language Dolby Digital Mono tracks has some hiss and some audible cracking in spots but most fans of this material won't mind so much.
Extras are limited to trailers for a few other After Hours Cinema releases, menus and feature selection. 42nd Street Pete provides quick introductions for each of the three films and there is a booklet of liner notes inside the keepcase that give some basic background information on the three movies in this collection and on the Venus Theater itself, which make for an interesting read.
The Final Word:
As rough and tumble as they are, this is a pretty entertaining trio of low budget vintage XXX quickies. The video quality isn't so hot but the movies are a kick and fans of bizarre low rent old school smut are guaranteed to have a good time with this one.
