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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: December, 2014.
Director: N/A
Cast: Tina Smith, Ann Ali, Keith Erickson
Year: 1972
The Movie:
This film, without a directorial credit, starts off with a scene where we meet up with Nick (Keith Erickson), a twisted dope dealer who is hanging out in his living room with a cute blonde named Inga. She wants some smack, and he'll give it to her but not before she gives him what he wants. What does he want? A blowjob, but first he's going to make her take his socks off! She goes down and he bones the blonde in exchange for the smack. After he shoots off, he shoots her up, but shortly after her eyes roll back in her head and she dies.
Cut to a titty bar where a curvy stripper (with what is either a C-section scar or some weird mark from wearing underwear that was too tight) dances on a small stage. Someone needs to clean the stage mirrors because they're grubby, fingerprints are evident all over them. I remember going to a strip club in Portland where there were mirrors on the stage and the girls would clean them off with towels and a spray bottle after their run and I always wondered if that was really necessary. Now I know that it is. Or at least it was, in 1972. At any rate, a matronly blonde holds court at a table with some dudes. She rents a girl named Regina (Tina Smith) to a guy named Jerry for $100.00. They head off to a back room somewhere and screw.
From there, our matronly blonde Godmother meets with two other guys, one of whom walks off with two hookers. They screw.... after he complains about his 'damn wife!' In another back room some other guy screws a hooker. Lots of hookers are getting screwed. Godmother tells the roommate (Ann Ali) of the girl killed in the opening scene her friend is dead. There's no good way to break news like this - but Godmother has a plan. She is getting her people to set up a revenge scheme for poor dead Inga. She gets some of her working girls together to tell them that their man on the inside, Tony, has confirmed that smack dealer Nick is having a party this Friday. Tony is going to get these girls in.
The next night, at Nick's crummy apartment, he's playing cards with a few other slobs. The girls arrive, they're the entertainment for the night and one guy can't wait to bone a chick with 'giant watermelons.' The girls hang out for a bit but we know something is up. Drinks are served, beasts are fondled. They start splitting off to screw, and Godmother snaps some pictures. One guy bones two chicks and Godmother takes care of Nick personally. Everyone screws except Godmother, she just watches one of her girls do Nick. After that they finish up and pass out, our titular (see what I did there?) heroine wakes her girl and shoos her away. SPOILERS! Then she shoots Nick up with some smack and he wakes up... then dies slowly and painfully. "That was for Inga you bastard" she yells, and she takes the pictures with her and splits. Nick's friends find him dead. Back at home base the next day, Godmother gives a speech about saying no to drugs just as someone shows up to get revenge for Nick, but her pictures are enough to blackmail him into fucking off. The end.
Despite the obvious similarity in the titles The Godmother doesn't even try to emulate Puzo's famous book (or Coppola's famous movie) but it does offer plenty of busty ladies in grubby, low budget hardcore action. Nobody in the movie can really act, though Keith Erickson is fun to watch as the scumbag dope peddler, particularly once he starts getting really into having Inga take his socks off! No idea who played the Godmother character, she looks like a cross between Dyanne Thorne and Candy Samples but obviously isn't either one of those better known actresses. There are times where it looks like she's trying to read cue cards from off camera somewhere but even if she is, her line delivery is pretty dire. This makes for plenty of unintentionally funny bits scattered throughout the film, a highlight being her 'just say no' speech towards the end of the movie.
At sixty-two minutes this one goes by pretty quickly. It's a fun watch with a wacky crime/revenge story scattered in bits and pieces throughout the various fuck scenes. The sex is about average but it's nice to see Tina Smith show up here, because she's kind of a fox.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Godmother arrives on DVD in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio. It does look to have been sourced from a film print, and thankfully one that was in fairly good shape. Print damage is minimal, pretty minor actually, though grain is heavy. Was this shot on 16mm? Hard to say but maybe, it has that sort of look to it. Colors are a bit faded but reasonably stable and consistent throughout. Black levels are ok but not always reference quality. This isn't a bad transfer at all for such an obscure title.
The only audio option for the feature attraction is an English language Dolby Digital Mono track. There's some hiss here and there and some jumps and spikes in the balance of the levels but for the most part the dialogue comes through okay.
The extras on the disc include some short bonus films, starting with The Tattooed Lady, a thirty-six minute grinder made in 1977. When the movie begins, a girl with short blonde hair talks to a goofy looking tattoo artist in his tattoo parlor. He tells her how a girl came in yesterday with a tattoo on her abdomen, which puzzlingly leads to a flashback with a stripper who makes out with another stripper (one of them is Tina Smith). Rad. Lots of oil rub down action here.
Cut back to the tattoo parlor, it's story time. Two years ago, dude tells us, a secretary named Ruth came in and complained that she never got the male attention she wanted. She got a tattoo on her bum and now guys can't resist her. She has to literally break up fights because guys want her so bad. She shows one guy the ink on her ass and then fucks him.
Back at the parlor, tattoo guy is now putting a piece on first girl's butt. Rag time piano music plays. Then we see a guy hop into a train car, looks like the tattoo guy, the car is full of hay. He finds a sleeping hobo hottie there and bones her. Back at the tattoo parlor, the first girl fantasizes about being nude in the woods and dancing by herself. She swings from a tree and masturbates. Then tattoo parlor guy shows up and they screw very quickly. Fin.
It's kind of quaint to see how 'uncommon' tattoos appeared to be in seventies porno movies compared to the modern day where it's just as common to be covered in them as to not be. The girls in this movie flaunt their ink, but it's generally just a little piece about the size of a silver dollar and almost always somewhere that can be covered up easily by clothing. The short is kind of incoherent but amusing enough in its own retro way. Tina Smith looks great here too.
Up next is the sixty-four minute All American Hustler, from 1976. The story is kind of hard to follow because the audio is pretty bad here. A title card tells us we're in L.A. when the movie starts. We see a girl named Carol (Mickie Lynn) swim in a pool. A Dude shows up, they look at one another. She gets out of pool, they fuck. Credits play over top. They finish then argue. He is into other girls, she's not cool with that. She gives him money and kicks him out.
At the airport some businessmen are having a fascinating conversation about how big the airport is. They are lined up with councilman Murphy, and then we see a guy with a big mustache talk to the girl, candy from opening, he might be Murphy. Hard to say cause the audio sucks. Carol meets another girl, Candy (Candy Kay), and they talk and then later they talk some more with mustache guy. One actress flubs her lines. She looks a bit older and feels responsible for Carol for some reason. From there, a black woman sings a song about being unlucky. She wears a polka dot dress and matching hat. Candy sings next, and then Carol shoots dope next door. Yucky needle breaking skin scene - blood! Ick.
Dude comes to find candy in the shower. Joins her. They screw. Carol beds the head businessman, the one who was impressed with how big the airport was. They talk... and talk... and talk some more. Carol and Candy start hooking, make a bunch of money, and drugs are bad. Carol ends up at a cult compound of some sort. An orgy breaks out and a folk singer guy plays shitty song on a shitty guitar while an American flag flies behind him. I'm lost. Not sure what's going on anymore. The next day some annoying dogs bark a lot. Some girls talk. Candy tells Carol she is told she is being too negative. Oh yeah? She's going to show you just how negative she can be! She cries then goes back to her apt and showers... and slits her wrists. The end.
Huh. That's not a very happy way to make a porno movie, now is it? The IMDB credits Michael Pataki as 'Carol's boyfriend' and the guy sure does look like him. Also some audio recordings of Richard Nixon are used at one point. This has a sort of avant garde style to it but it doesn't work so well. Tina Smith shows up in one scene though, and she's still kind of a fox. Some dude naked Huck Walker gets directing credit. Bonus points to Mr. Walker for trying to tell a gritty 'slice of urban life' style story, but this movie is just grim and hard to follow. It sounds like the audio was recorded in a cave and the dialogue and character names are pretty tough to keep straight for that reason.
Also included here is the 1972 Diverse Industries two part loop, Breast Orgy - together they run about twenty-four minutes. The first part begins when Uschi Digard starts to fool around with a guy who looks like he was in The Monkees. As she shows off her jugs, a few other ladies come into the room and join in - Candy Samples, Tina Smith, Ann Ali, Marsha Jordan and a few others. Part Two picks up where Part One left of... the ladies all flaunt their big boobs for our hero and for the camera and this dude goes to town. Candy oils herself up and then later puts some whipped cream on her jugs. There are a lot of big boobs here. The packaging for this release claims it was transferred from the original negative and it looks pretty good here.
A 'Retro Starlets' trailer advertising other ABA DVD releases and static menus/feature selection round out the extras.
The Final Word:
The Godmother is kind of a fun vintage XXX crime movie, definitely worth a watch if you're into the quirky, low budget side of vintage adult movie making - the presence of Ann Ali and Tina Smith don't hurt things either. The bonus films are a mixed bag but worth checking out, making this disc a pretty interesting collection of obscure seventies trash.
