Madonna may not have been fully into her Sex-era in 1985, but she still represented unapologetic freedom and sexuality in her breakout years. The punchy, plucky nature of Madonna in those days isn't a world apart from the women coming up in a cheaper, punchier VHS-era porn scene, aspirations of glamour and artistic merit left behind.
Desperately Seeking Susan, which this film covers (with many references to characters being "desperate" while "seeking Susan" just in case you miss it), is also ready fodder for a porn makeover. The film follows the basic outline of DSS, but doesn't manage to adapt to anything worth watching.
From the start, the film makes dubious choices, as there's a lengthy scene with John Leslie and Erica Boyer, all the way down to bondage and footplay. This has some playful chemistry and a very natural rapport between the two, ending in Leslie's character being killed. This is certainly a way to make a mark, but the film never again takes this tone, and as a number of charismatic performers like Ron Jeremy and Tom Byron walk through their roles, Leslie's expertise is even more of a loss.
The killer, played by the director (credited as "Adam") and not Scott Irish as I initially assumed, repeatedly pops up trying to get Boyer's earring, but instead of being any actual threat to her or the other characters, he mostly just gets offers of sex from various lovely ladies, all of which he avoids. The oddest is when he wanders into a fivesome at the end of the film, where several of the women try to yank off his clothes as Byron and Joey Silvera keep acting like he's trying to get in their pants (if they were wearing any pants), for no apparent reason. He then takes Boyer's earring, but she reassures the others - and us - that she gave him a fake earring and she still has the real one. When did that happen? What happens when he realizes it's a fake? What was the point of any of this plot?
Of course, the plot wasn't what people were interested in, but most of the sex scenes aren't up to much either. We get a slew of extreme gynecological closeups which makes you lose all interest rather than feeling aroused. The most confusing scene involves Little Oral Annie as one of the gang girls and Francois as a cop she has to distract, where we not only get the alienating camera angles, you also get what is, I assume, terrible dubbing over the soundtrack that I'm not even sure came from the actors themselves. This is where just blaring elevator music probably would have been a better idea.
Patti Petite, in the Rosanna Arquette role, is an appealing presence, and her post-amnesiac sapphic encounter with Boyer is probably the movie's highlight, but again the movie doesn't really do much with her story, with the resolution of her getting her memory back amounting to her not caring and deciding to keep going with the fivesome.
Another odd choice is the use of Jeremy as Petite's allergy-laden schlub of a husband. Amanda Jane Adams ("introduced" as Kathleen Kelly) and Annie decide to seduce him when he goes looking for his wife. You'd think this would lead to a good scene where they talk him around and get him into enjoying himself. Instead almost all of this is left offcamera and we just get a generic threesome. There's some fire here, but it is wasted potential. You wonder if they might have some type of ending where he and Petite, now both sexed-up, will meet again, but no, he just...goes back home, I guess.
By the end of the movie, the main highlight is a catchy number called "Once Upon a Madonna," which at least provides justification for such a garbled title.
Desperately Seeking Susan, which this film covers (with many references to characters being "desperate" while "seeking Susan" just in case you miss it), is also ready fodder for a porn makeover. The film follows the basic outline of DSS, but doesn't manage to adapt to anything worth watching.
From the start, the film makes dubious choices, as there's a lengthy scene with John Leslie and Erica Boyer, all the way down to bondage and footplay. This has some playful chemistry and a very natural rapport between the two, ending in Leslie's character being killed. This is certainly a way to make a mark, but the film never again takes this tone, and as a number of charismatic performers like Ron Jeremy and Tom Byron walk through their roles, Leslie's expertise is even more of a loss.
The killer, played by the director (credited as "Adam") and not Scott Irish as I initially assumed, repeatedly pops up trying to get Boyer's earring, but instead of being any actual threat to her or the other characters, he mostly just gets offers of sex from various lovely ladies, all of which he avoids. The oddest is when he wanders into a fivesome at the end of the film, where several of the women try to yank off his clothes as Byron and Joey Silvera keep acting like he's trying to get in their pants (if they were wearing any pants), for no apparent reason. He then takes Boyer's earring, but she reassures the others - and us - that she gave him a fake earring and she still has the real one. When did that happen? What happens when he realizes it's a fake? What was the point of any of this plot?
Of course, the plot wasn't what people were interested in, but most of the sex scenes aren't up to much either. We get a slew of extreme gynecological closeups which makes you lose all interest rather than feeling aroused. The most confusing scene involves Little Oral Annie as one of the gang girls and Francois as a cop she has to distract, where we not only get the alienating camera angles, you also get what is, I assume, terrible dubbing over the soundtrack that I'm not even sure came from the actors themselves. This is where just blaring elevator music probably would have been a better idea.
Patti Petite, in the Rosanna Arquette role, is an appealing presence, and her post-amnesiac sapphic encounter with Boyer is probably the movie's highlight, but again the movie doesn't really do much with her story, with the resolution of her getting her memory back amounting to her not caring and deciding to keep going with the fivesome.
Another odd choice is the use of Jeremy as Petite's allergy-laden schlub of a husband. Amanda Jane Adams ("introduced" as Kathleen Kelly) and Annie decide to seduce him when he goes looking for his wife. You'd think this would lead to a good scene where they talk him around and get him into enjoying himself. Instead almost all of this is left offcamera and we just get a generic threesome. There's some fire here, but it is wasted potential. You wonder if they might have some type of ending where he and Petite, now both sexed-up, will meet again, but no, he just...goes back home, I guess.
By the end of the movie, the main highlight is a catchy number called "Once Upon a Madonna," which at least provides justification for such a garbled title.