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Night Pleasures Plus The Lost Films Of Joan Devlon
Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: December, 2014.
Director: Henning Schellerup (as Hans Christian)
Cast: Joan Devlon, Desiree West, Alice Fairchild, John Leslie, Johnny Keys
Year: 1976
The Movie:
Henning Schellerup's 1976 film Night Pleasures starts off with a scene where a stripper strips to the sounds of a guy tinkling away on the keys of a piano. The bar is located in San Francisco and it is run by Harry (John Leslie) and Mike (John Seeman) and they're auditioning for some new talent (which offers up an excuse to show off a neat naked fire eater routine).
Their bar has seen better days. While Mike holds out hope that they'll be able to make enough money to turn things around and allow him to play piano to his heart's content, Harry has no such delusions of grandeur. They employ a foxy cocktail waitress named Trudy (Joan Devlon) and she just might be their ticket out of this bad scene. See, Trudy has no qualms whatsoever about screwing anyone and everyone she needs to or wants to screw. If that keeps the cops off of their back, she's happy to blow the fuzz behind closed doors.
Into this shady world comes a foxy woman named Leslie (Melba Bruce credited as Melba Raye). She needs a job and she'll do whatever it takes to land one. Not so surprisingly, Mike falls for her but as this is a sort of porno-noir, well, it'll surprise no one to learn that Leslie has bad news written all over her. He wants her to give up her life as a floozy, and he wants to bone her in the shower, but when she doesn't want to listen to his advice he flips out and he rapes her. He's nice enough to apologize afterwards, but still, bad move Mike. Meanwhile, Harry is pimping out Leslie and when his business partner finds out? Things don't go well, some guys get dead and Harry gets to bone Melba and another waitress named Brenda (Desiree West) at the same time.
The story here isn't much to write home about but the movie is nicely shot and it's got a lot of cool piano music on the soundtrack. The bar where most of the action takes place in is sufficiently grimy looking and the cast all do decent enough work here. John Leslie is fun to watch as the bartender. He's got a perpetual five o'clock shadow and he seems to spend a lot of time polishing glasses with a grubby dish rag behind the bar but he's good in the role. John Seeman is also decent here. You don't have a problem buying his affections for Melba Bruce's character, but you know it's not going to work and that he's going to snap. The ladies all do the guys one better though - no shock there. Devlon gets quite a bit of screen time here and she's on fire, looking great and really just going for it any time the opportunity presents itself. Desiree West also has a nice supporting role and Melba Bruce as the girl with a past is also plenty easy on the eyes. Curly haired Alice Fairchild also shows up here as does cute blonde Susan Catharine, Turk Lyon and Ken Scudder. We get a few cool strip tease acts in here, some 'sex in public' action that takes place in the bar and then before it's all over with, a big ol' group grope session where Fairchild, Catherine and Bruce go at it with David Book and Paul Scharf on the tables in the bar.
This one was previously released on DVD-R from Something Weird Video where it was double featured with Experimental Marriage. That version was pretty severely cut but this one runs almost seventy-four minutes and it looks to be the complete, unabridged version.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Night Pleasures arrives on DVD in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio. It does look to have been sourced from a tape, and a fairly raggedy tape at that. Ignore the tracking lines that show up on the bottom of the frame if you can and take in all the fuzzy, faded glory of this one. Dark scenes are too dark, contrast is blown out and colors look bad. The screen caps don't lie.
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.
Extras start off with the first bonus film, a picture made in 1975 called Decline And Fall Of Lacie Bodine (or just Lacey Bodine according to the title card). Devlon plays the titular Ms. Bodine, who laments the failure of her marriage to husband Jason (Ken Scudder). She's got her bags packed and she's going to split - 'only suckers get married.' She's drinking some whiskey as she think back on when she and Jason used to be so horny they couldn't even wait to change clothes at the party. Cue the first sex scene of the feature as the two of them go at it, Lacey still in her wedding gown and looking a-okay.
A month after their vows, Jason is pimping Lacey out and when she protests, he slaps her around and roughs her up a bit. From there we learn how Jason made Ashley work her magic on Eve (Valerie Franklin), the wife of his friend Ashley - this segues into the lesbian scene that you knew was coming, each lady looking just fine in some fancy seventies era lingerie and Devlon taking matters into her own hands to get things moving. The guys come in and it turns into a rough four-way. Once that's over with, we learn how Lacey peeked in on Jason and Ashley screwing Eve in the bathtub. They don't know that she knows, and of course, getting an eyeful of that gets Lacey all hot and bothered and it's here that Lacey realizes she's got voyeuristic tendencies.
Eventually she does split from Jason and then befriends Anne (Veronica Taylor), her new neighbor. This offers more opportunity for voyeurism when she watches Anne screw her boyfriend (Johnny Keyes). He gets rough with her and she likes it. When he realizes Lacey is watching them, he makes her get in on the action too.
The Decline And Fall Of Lacey Bodine is a fine pornographic soap opera. The cast all do fine with the dramatic aspects of the storyline and it moves at a good pace. The film is nicely shot, has some pretty decent music to complement the action, and it offers Joan Devlon fans the chance to see her in a legitimate starring role (she gets more screen time here than anyone else in the picture by a large margin). That'll be reason enough for some to want to check it out. This one is full frame and the audio is in Dolby Digital Mono format but it is in much, much nicer shape than the feature presentation is and it looks to have been taken from an actual film print and not from a crummy old tape.
The second bonus feature film is If Mother Could See Me Now, a sixty-one minute long piece made in 1974. It starts out with a grease-ball porno mogul telling a woman (Devlon) to show him what she can do. She gets naked, plays with a banana and then after he's pawed her lovely curves he calls in two black dudes and another white chick to get down. From here until the end of the movie it's basically just a big ol' interracial orgy with the two black guys getting it pretty good from the two ladies. At the same time, the ladies are just as keen on playing with each other as with the boys. That's pretty much it. There's really no story here at all. This one is also a fullframe, Dolby Digital Mono. Tape sourced and also looking pretty lousy. There's weird reggae music over the opening credits and then used periodically on the soundtrack throughout the movie.
The disc also includes a rare loop entitled Suck It To Me. There's not much to this one - Joan starts off in bed, alone, taking care of business herself. A dude comes in and takes her clothes off and he starts groping her. He looks kind of like Keith Moon from The Who. They have sex, the end. It's silent but ABA have put some mood music overtop to give you something to listen to. Clocking in at eleven minutes in length and made in 1972, it's been transferred from the original 16mm negative according to the packaging and the transfer is quite strong.
Outside of that we get a promo spot for the Alpha Blue Archives Retro Starlets line, static menus and feature selection.
The Final Word:
Night Pleasures Plus The Lost Films Of Joan Devlon offers the raven haired starlet's fan base plenty of pretty solid footage of the actress in action both explicit and dramatic. Throw in some fine supporting players and some interesting bonus films and it's a little easier to look past the lackluster presentation of the feature attraction.
