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The Lost Films Of Orita De Chadwick (Alpha Blue Archives) DVD Review

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    Ian Jane
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  • The Lost Films Of Orita De Chadwick (Alpha Blue Archives) DVD Review



    Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
    Released on: December, 2015.
    Director: N/A, Anthony Spinelli. N/A, N/A
    Cast: Orita De Chadwick, Rock Crusher, Cindy Johnson, Nancy Martin, Keith Erickson, Ric Lutze, Becky Sharpe, Annette Michael, Marsha Hart
    Year: 1973

    The Lost Films Of Orita De Chadwick - Movie Reviews:

    Orita De Chadwick never rose to the heights of 70's porno starlets like Linda Lovelace or Annette Haven but she made a lot of movies in that decade and some of them are pretty decent. She's got an interesting screen presence - she's lithe, very thin, but very feminine looking. She played characters both dominant and submissive equally well and showed some genuine enthusiasm in front of the camera, whether she was engaged in the old 'in out' or simply just acting. Alpha Blue Archives has put together a pretty decent collection of her work, spotlighting four films from her early seventies hey-day.

    69 Sunset Strip:

    We start with a fifty-four-minute piece that opens with some narration that's honestly pretty hard to hear. The hiss is strong and there are drop outs and splices - but then we get the music from TV's Dragnet over the opening credits and we learn that a man named Sam Shovel (played by Rock Crusher!) is our hero. He's a private dick who goes public every chance he gets and he's here to tell us about a case he worked last month.

    At his office, Sam takes a call, telling a potential client on the other end of the phone 'I dig deep.' See, she hasn't been fucked in over two months and she figures he's screwing around behind her back. She wants him to figure this out. Soon enough, he's over at her place. She introduces herself as Barbara Nichols (Cindy Johnson) and they talk about the case, his rates and his experience. She cuts him a check, gets him a glass of scotch (with one ice cube) and after dumping the drink on him, his pants come off and, well, they screw while a muzak version of 'I'm In The Mood For Love' plays in the background.

    He splits her place and gets to work, trying to track down the husband. It turns out he might be hanging out at a place called Club 69. The Peter Gunn theme plays on the soundtrack as Sam makes his way into the joint. De Chadwick has a small role here as a topless waitress. Sam and the other patrons talk up the waitresses while a live sex show plays out on stage. Things heat up in the crowd too, as Orita goes down on some dude and the other guys get sucked off too. This doesn't have much to do in the way of furthering the storyline here, but it ups the sex quotient considerably - and hey, those live sex show performers are pretty funny to watch, strutting about on stage in front of 'Old Glory,' go-go dancing before getting down to proper boning. She gets bonus points for wearing some pretty neat boots.

    Elsewhere, Barbara's husband (Thad Watson) is screwing around behind her back, talking to the new flame (Penny King) about how if she gives him enough time he'll leave her for good. After they talk, they oil one another up and go at it - Sam manages to get some pictures of them doing the dirty deed. He brings them to Barbara, who has just had a new waterbed delivered, and Barbara complains about how her beau left her for such an ugly woman… and then they screw. That's pretty much it. Sam's narration promises a sequel, but that doesn't appear to have ever materialized.

    This one is pretty bottom of the barrel, there isn't much of a story here at all and the production values are zilch. Rock Crusher is a seriously goofy looking guy, no idea why anyone would cast him as the lead in an adult movie. He's amusing in his awfulness but he's not the right guy to carry a film like this. we're never asked to take this seriously as any sort of hardboiled story, but even as a comedic parody of old noir pictures he's just not good. The ladies fare better. The actress who plays Barbara is quite cute and enthusiastic enough to stand out. De Chadwick's role in this is small, but she performs with enthusiasm. The sex show scene is quite amusing and the soundtrack, made up entirely out of stolen music, is kind of neat. Not a good movie by any stretch, but as a curiosity item, okay… fine.

    The Nymph Tapes:

    Up next is a fifty-eight-minute production directed by Anthony Spinelli (under the alias of Sybil Kidd), which opens with the theme from Shaft playing over the opening credits. Isaac Hayes is rolling in his grave somewhere. We see a weird chicken restaurant and then some Los Angeles traffic. From there, the narration tells us of a woman named Alicia (De Chadwick, credited as Romy Mill). A doctor (Nancy Martin) interviews Alicia about her nymphomania alongside another woman named Ann (Trish Prado). Alicia embraces her condition while Ann denies it, tries to hide it. The two women sit on a couch and enjoy some drinks while Doctor Evans (Nancy Martin) sits in a wicker chair nearby and asks them about how they fuck.

    As the shrink asks questions above the loud sounds of a barking dog, we learn about the girls' different experiences. Alicia talks about getting turned on and sexually interested in her three brothers growing up and she talks about how she lost her virginity to them in the family garage. She also talks about getting busted masturbating by her father, which led to her sucking him off. From there we see Alicia and her favorite brother, Allen (Paul Scharf), go at it on a waterbed. As they screw, we hear Alicia go on about her theories on sex and some of her other experiences.

    From here, the doctor decides she wants to do some testing on Alicia in the examination room. This involves bringing in two associates (Ric Lutze and Keith Erickson). Alicia is wired up so that they can note her levels of arousal as various things are done to her. The guys each get a turn on her. From there, after we get a weird montage of different audio clips of different women talking about sex, we get to know more about Ann. She talks about how she can control her sexuality and then talks about how she lost her virginity at twelve to the man she wound up marrying. She talks about how her husband sometimes brings home other partners, male and female, to gang bang her and take Polaroids. She talks about what she likes and doesn't like.

    Ann does a voiceover while we see footage of her and two guys screwing around at a bar. It turns out her husband was coy enough to bring his own brother home to screw her while he took pictures. Ann is also wired up, the same way Alicia was, for further testing. Lutze and Erickson appear again as a weird muzak version of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' plays on the soundtrack and then later a muzak version of 'Light My Fire.' As the movie comes to a close, Alicia and Ann are holding hands on the doctor's couch, now clearly in love. Then they have a three-way with the doctor… THE END!

    Sorority Sisters:

    This third film is a fifty-five-minute cheapie that opens with a sorority ritual where Orita lays naked and spread across a bed. Gregorian chants fill the soundtrack. The room is lit only by candlelight. A very skinny man, his face covered in a black mask, comes into the room and they have sex. There's a sweet reel to reel tape recorder in the background.

    From there, we learn that Cheryl (De Chadwick) is the older sister of Melanie (Becky Sharpe) and she wants her to join the Kapa Delta sorority she's been enjoying for some time now. Her boyfriend has just been drafted and she doesn't want to mess around on him. She's more interested in her education than her social life. Cheryl at least convinces Melanie to come by the sorority house and check things out.

    Cut to Melanie and her boyfriend Chuck making out in the car. She asks him to take her back to his place, which he does, and they screw. More weird classical music plays in the background, with vocals, to class things up a bit. The next day, Melanie arrives at the sorority house to meet up with Cheryl and Helen (Annette Michael). Melanie is invited to stay the night and accepts. She and Cheryl poke about the house and as weird music plays we see Helen go down on some guy. The girls watch. From there, we see Cheryl, Melanie, a guy named Cappy (Paul Scharf) and his roommate (Ric Lutz) smoke weed in front of an American flag. Cheryl screws around with both of the guys but soon the roommate decides he wants a piece of Melanie - and he gets one. They have a four-way and everyone seems pretty happy with the end results. Melanie joins the sorority and arrives at the house again the next night at 7:30. Music from 2001: A Space Odyssey plays in the background.

    When she arrives, Helen gets Melanie naked on the bed and calls in a guy named Alan (Neil Perlman). Helen gets him ready for action and then he gives Melanie a proper boning. Weird space noises play on the soundtrack, it gets pretty trippy. From there, we get another scene set in the same room that the opening scene was in - the one with the candles and the reel to reel in it - complete with more chanting. Melanie is naked and spread on the bed and that same skinny masked dude shows up to get a piece. A second person comes in and joins in as the 'Hallelujah Chorus' plays on the soundtrack and Melanie gets done with a vibrator, seemingly none too happy about that. We won't spoil who the second person is but it doesn't take a genius to see this twist coming.

    This was pretty decent. It's definitely a weird one, the rituals that open and close the film are atmospheric and definitely odd. The sex that happens in between these scenes is well shot and passionate. The story itself is pretty basic but there's enough weirdness and kink in here to keep things interesting. Becky Sharpe is plenty cute and well-cast here and De Chadwick gets a lot of screen time too (and she makes the most of it). The film, which also seems to have been released under the title of Pledge Sister, moves quickly and has no trouble at all holding our attention. It's quick in its pacing, shot with an eye for composition and, well, just genuinely intriguing.

    The Liberty Belles:

    The final film on the DVD, seemingly also from 1973 (a busy year for Orita De Chadwick), opens with two girls doing some shopping. They decide, after a while, to call it a day and head home.

    We cut to a couple in bed going at it - Roland (Ric Lutze) and Helen (Orita De Chadwick). She's clearly in control here, though he doesn't seem to mind that in the least. A pretty happening big band jam plays on the soundtrack. The two shoppers, Cheryl (Lily Foster) and Theresa talk about Cheryl's situation - she's paid $500 a week to screw her man and not work. Anyway, it seems that these girls are Helen's roommates and that Helen is the publisher of an adult magazine, Roland her secretary/boy-toy. Helen sends him home for the night but tells him to arrive at the house again tomorrow and off he goes.

    Theresa has to go get ready to meet her man James so Helen and Cheryl opt to have some rad lesbian sex. Theresa's boyfriend is James, who works in publishing. This matters later when we learn that Roland has penned a novel entitled 'A Woman In The Web.' He wants Helen to look at it but she doesn't take him seriously and sees him only as her sex slave. As Theresa and Roland develop a 'friendship' of sorts, she hands his book over to James to take a look at and before you know it, Roland is the next big thing in the publishing world. As the story plays out, the girls screw the guys and the guys screw the girls. James and Theresa go at it first, and when he refers to her as a 'piece of ass' she says 'who says women's lib isn't making any headway?' Helen gets pissed off that James beat her to the punch with Roland's book, which leads to her seducing him while, in the next room, Roland gets it on with Theresa. As it comes to a close, the three girls and the three guys (another guy is introduced to the storyline at one point but it's confusing and we aren't 100% sure who he is) have a three-way in the living room to bring everything to a close - celebrating the book deal and women's lib all at the same time!

    This one is actually a lot of fun. De Chadwick plays the queen bitch character really well and she looks great doing it. More importantly, she also appears to be having a real blast doing it. During the scenes where she's demeaning Lutze it's hard not to notice her fighting back laughter in a few scenes. No one was taking any of this seriously, and that's probably for the best. The 'women's lib' angle that is worked into the storyline doesn't really go anywhere, though to be faire the most dominant character and the strongest character in the film is Helen. None of the girls are coerced into doing anything they don't want to do here, they are often in charge of the men in the film. That makes this stand out a little bit from the early seventies smut pack, at least in that regard.

    Production values are slim but this was shot by someone who knew how a camera worked. It's not a fancy looking film but everything is in focus and the angles are fine. The bulk of the film all takes place inside one big house but it's not a big deal, at least they switch up the rooms often enough that it isn't too distracting here. The sex is performed well, passionately and enthusiastically. De Chadwick is at her best here, she looks great and definitely seems to be enjoying herself throughout the picture.

    The Lost Films Of Orita De Chadwick - DVD Review:

    All four films on this disc are presented in 1.33.1 fullframe, which would appear to be their proper aspect ratios. These all appear to have been transferred from prints, which is a good thing. The first few minutes of each picture look a bit rough but things tend to clean up after that. The first film looks a little rougher than the others but it's still quite stable. Colors can sometimes be a bit faded but only a bit. Sure, proper restorations would have gone a long way here, but ABA doesn't do that. At least the transfers aren't tape sourced, even if we do get an ABA logo for a few seconds at the beginning of each of the four movies on the disc (thankfully it isn't recurring).

    The only audio option for the four feature attractions are English language Dolby Digital Mono tracks. The audio quality here isn't great but it's sufficient. The first few minutes of the first film sound awful but things do, thankfully, clear up considerably after that. The other movies sound a bit better but still not great. Dialogue can sometimes be muffled and flat. No alternate language or subtitle options are given, but you probably knew that already.

    Aside from static menus offering feature selection, an Alpha Blue Archives Retro Starlets promo spot is included and… that's it. But hey, you get four movies on this disc, that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for complaining when you look at it that way.

    The Lost Films Of Orita De Chadwick - The Final Word:

    Alpha Blue Archive's DVD release The Lost Films Of Orita De Chadwick offers up four legitimately obscure (if not technically lost, since they're all on this DVD) in acceptably battered condition. Taken from prints, the transfers are all watchable enough, just not perfect. The movies themselves are all pretty decent. The first is the weakest of the group but even then it has its moments. The other three are genuinely fun and/or interesting for various reason, not the least of which is the screen presence of Ms. De Chadwick herself. If you're a fan of her work, this is worth seeking out.





















































































































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