Entry 134: 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (1976)

9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (AKA 9 Lives of a Wet Pussycat-1976)

Dir: Abel Ferrera

"Your erotic fantasies never went so far!"

Heya, folks! We're in the middle of a global pandemic, something right out of one of the movies I might write about on here.  Currently my state, Minnesota, is under quarantine for two weeks.  In honor of that, I'm gonna ramp up my (mostly fucking nonexistent) output on here, but I'ma do something a little different.  For the duration of this quarantine, the Basement is going to become the Porn Pandemic, and I'll be focusing on viewing and writing about classic porno movies.  If you can't reach out and touch someone else...reach out and touch yourself.  Let's kick things off with one that's LONG been on my list, Abel Ferrera's 1976 debut feature 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy.

I'm gonna have ZERO trailers to share with you for most of these movies...

Because this is a Ferrera flick, it opens with a shot of a woman having her tits oiled up and massaged while some vaguely Catholic chanting is heard on the soundtrack.  We're then treated to a blowjob and 69 scene over the opening credits while a (pretty goddamn good!) funky 70s jam plays.  The woman involved in the coitus is our heroine, Pauline, A New York heiress.  She's presently having an affair with her French stable boy, played by an actor with the excellent name of Shaker Lewis!  Pauline is played by Pauline LaMonde, who was Ferrera's girlfriend at the time, and later (briefly) wife.  Pauline spends her days fucking various men and women, then sends letter recounting her amorous adventures to her chaste, opium-smoking former lover, Gypsy (Dominique Santos).  Pauline is in an unsatisfying relationship with her husband, David (David Pirell, who appeared in Ferrera's earlier short Could this be Love?); David can "ball and ball, and never lose his hard-on," but his icy demeanor leaves Pauline emotionally unfulfilled.  She straight-up rapes a dude in a public restroom, Gypsy masturbates while thinking of Pauline, and, in a flashback, Pauline's grandmother (LaMonde again) and her sister (Peggy Johnson, who later shared the screen with Sir Alec Guinness in Lovesick!), fuck their strict Catholic father (Ferrera with a terrible dye job) when he's drunk on wine. Pauline is also having an affair with a Nigerian princess (Joy Silver), who has rape fantasies while they engage in cunnilingus.  Eventually, Gypsy uses the power of Tarot (!) to get Pauline to return to her.  That's about it.

Ferrera didn't want to make a porno flick, but this was his most lucrative option after film school.  He wasn't originally supposed to appear in the film, but the actor cast in the father role couldn't...perform ("You pay a guy $200 to fuck your girlfriend, and he can't even get it up.").  He'd go on to make the watchable Driller Killer and the absolute classic Ms. 45 next.  9 Lives of a Wet Pussy is mostly recommended to Ferrera completionists; it includes very early examples of his trademark anti-Catholicism and grimy NYC location shooting.  Otherwise, it's a fairly standard-to-boring porno flick, albeit with sex scenes that are slightly less ugly than the usual 70s fare...   
  

  

Entry 133: The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991)

The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991)

Dir: Alan J. Levi

"Boomer Hayes, football's hottest quarterback, is in for the night of his life.  Because tonight, Beverly Hills is up for grabs, and it's up to Boomer to stop the biggest heist in history."



Hey, I'm back.  No fanfare, but I'm hoping it's going to be long-term.  Let's launch right into it:

Robert Davi (Die Hard, Maniac Cop 2) and Lee Ving (Clue, Dudes) lead a group of corrupt ex-cops who plan to loot Beverly Hills after a phony poison gas leak causes the city to be evacuated.  Past-his-prime football quarterback Ken Wahl (The Soldier, TV's Wiseguy) teams up with good cop Matt Frewer (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, TV's Max Headroom) to stop them.  Our heroes have to fight a tank and outrun a flamethrower in this silly action flick from the director of The Ipcress File and Iron Eagle.  Wahl makes lots of football puns and makes good use of his throwing arm with some impromptu Moletav cocktails, Frewer is a standout as the comic relief sidekick, and it's disconcerting to see Ving, frontman for the anarchic punk band Fear, wearing a cop's uniform.  This light, breezy action flick is a lot of fun, and coasts on the natural chemistry between Wahl and Frewer. The Taking of Beverly Hills should have been a hit and turned Wahl into a bankable action star, but it got tied up in distributor Orion's bankruptcy, sat in the can for two years, and eventually got dumped on home video after an extremely limited theatrical release.  Also with Harley Jane Kozak (The House on Sorority Row, Necessary Roughness), Lyman Ward (Creature, Ferris Bueller's Day Off), and Michael Bowen (Forbidden World, Kill Bill Volume 1).  The various artists soundtrack includes Sheena Easton, Keith Sweat, Tony! Toni! Tone!, EMF, and Faith No More's "Epic."  In 1992, Wahl suffered a debilitating spinal injury that required him to retire from acting.  It's a damn shame; I found him to be an affable, engaging screen presence who deserved to be better known.