User Reviews

As the waning days of XXX's Golden Age came to pass, disposable fluff like this formed the last dregs of hardcore theatrical output. Lensed on 35mm, VANESSA - MAID IN MANHATTAN also takes place largely inside a single house, and is about as engaging as that constraint implies. Despite the title, the main star is Brooke Fields, playing a version of herself. Tired of her glamorous life as a Hollywood celebrity, which seems to consist mainly of dancing to a song about herself while director Pachard - in a cost-saving cameo - photographs her, she heads to the East coast for some R&R, planning to stay with "some friends... or friends of friends," whatever that's supposed to mean. Unbeknownst to Brooke, both her hostess, Jeanette (Colleen Brennan), and Jeanette's sister, who for some reason is also staying in her home, are scheming to fix up their sons with Brooke in hopes of marrying into her glamorous lifestyle. Treating Brooke to dinner, both women sic their offspring on her, with Jeanette's nephew Mark (David Scott) emerging the victor over her nebbishy progeny Rick (Jerry Butler) because of his greater familiarity with conversational film vocabulary. Amidst all this (and quite irrelevant to it), Jeannette's husband Jack (Eric Edwards) is schtupping the maid (Vanessa del Rio), while her daughter Jill (Danielle) fornicates with the gardener (studly George Payne, surely proving a more satisfying meal than what's on the table). Things turn around for Rick after he bumbles into Brooke in the hot tub, and the two hit it off as his sincere personality begins revealing itself. But can Rick stick the landing and wed the young ingénue? (SPOILERS) In a weird twist, the answer is no. Pachard's film is full of weird zigs substituting for zags, and none is bigger than the denouement. Finally revealing his mother's scheme to Brooke, Rick scares her off and she storms out, in a requisite fit that should result in the couple making up a few scenes later after Rick vows his sincerity. But the film weirdly fizzles out. Brooke grabs a limo to the airport, picks up Alan Adrian for some backseat suction, then kicks him out and the film ends, with Brooke heading back to LA and no particular point being evident to the proceedings. (END SPOILERS) This curious disengagement runs through the entire film, which is so shoddily constructed it's often hard to tell why anything's going on. The basic set-up of the warring matriarchs is fairly standard, yet beyond its establishment the concept is so lazily developed it barely registers. The two mothers both push their sons to wed Brooke, but there's little sense of competition, and no real stakes (it's never specified why Brennan needs the money, and her sister just wants to use it to run away with her lover). The mis-focused title emblematizes the problem, with del Rio barely even registering as the titular maid (if you'll pardon the pun). For that matter, the action doesn't even take place in Manhattan, but rather a suburb. Fields is a fine - though not terribly interesting - in what should have been the title role (she loudly proclaims "Just tell them Brooke does New York!" at the end of the first scene, suggesting what was probably the original title), and Brennan and Edwards are reliably amusing as the scheming, adulterous parents. Butler has decent acting chops but is woefully miscast as a nerd, with a crummy pair of glasses slapped on his robust physique crudely substituting for characterization. Oddly, Payne and Adrian acquit themselves best in throwaway roles, with George providing just the right note of bravado as Jill's landscaping paramour (before Brennan takes him down a peg), while Adrian nails the naiveté of his young hitchhiker, surprised ON THE PROWL-style in Brooke's limo. Beyond that, the only highlight is a surprising incest scene between Mark and his mother, which doesn't have a ton of electricity but at least lends the film some taboo spice. While the Golden Age of porn is often vaunted as an era of impressive craftsmanship, it produced its share of stinkers, too. Not bad enough to even be memorable, VANESSA - MAID IN MANHATTAN is merely disposable - a perfect embodiment of the end of an era.

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