FOURPLAY from Something Weird Video is one of the label's many oddities -worth issuing not for its quality or audience potential but just because it's there. This random approach is congruent with my own filmgoing history and so I inherit the task of reviewing it.
One reason to watch is blonde star Viju Krem -besides her very strange name certainly one of the prettiest porn actresses who never made it. Here she's teamed with unknown David Anthony in the film's flimsy cover story - the two of them making (simulated) love out in pristine fields, streams, wherever outdoors.
With a tripod nearby they are ostensibly discussing plot lines for their next movie, but what we get is merely a variation of O. Henry style tales told 'round the campfire, each illustrated with some nudity for our listening and dancing pleasure. (I suppose this might have served as '70s drive-in movie filler, but it was never booked in my neck of the woods.)
Resulting series of four unrelated vignettes that seem to have been played by a hard-up group of Kenley Players rejects from summer stock - actors and actresses so in need of a buck that they'll take their clothes off for the camera. It is technically not pornography, almost too tame to be even soft-core in content, though there are moments of full-frontal nudity.
First vignette is acted out in period costume, as a virgin and an older gentlemen bet on racing their horses, the guy losing on purpose and humping by a tree resulting. Story is supposed to be clever but it ain't, and like those that follow suffers from way too much narration by the principals Dave & Viju.
FOURPLAY unfolds as a sort of "can you top this?" marathon, with Viju and Dave trading tales, few of which are interesting. Viju's story is set in the '20s (I guess) concerning a woman married to a rich guy but attracted to their chauffeur -who she humps while daddy's away. Rather ludicrous premise has the old man with incipient dementia and the duo gaslight him by convincing him he's hallucinating with a lame trick of humping under a tree he's climbing and quickly all dressed again when he comes down -he thinks he imagined the whole thing.
When Dave interrupts, questioning the speed required here to dress, Viju counters that they will accomplish that through cinema magic. There's little magic in FOURPLAY unfortunately. The structure reminded me of Bunuel's best films and his dark sense of humor, but the anonymous filmmakers lack such talent. IMDb lists a followup film TAKE TIME TO SMELL THE FLOWERS with the same team and cast, but I suspect that is merely an alternate title for FOURPLAY.
After a brief but memorable fantasy image of Viju and Dave making love while water skiing, tales resume with perhaps the best short story in the bunch. Laura is married to a shady loan shark Benny and Freddie is a friend of his. Freddie sets out to get the better of them in a contrived but clever scam. He succeeds and this skit had the makings of a fun STING movie that would lend itself to soft-core with perhaps a John Dahl directing (and Linda Fiorentino making a comeback?).
The interstitial Viju/Dave turns to BDSM at this point with him stringing her up to tree branches to rape her and even threatening her with a knife - way too strange for ostensible hosts/narrators to behave, even as Dave cops out: "I guess I've seen too many Hitchcock flicks".
Back to the tales, with Viju spinning a hoary one about guys at a bar betting they can bed a woman, with the trickery involved laying an egg for me. Next one is the movie's intended piece de resistance, a fanciful variation on farmer's daughter dirty jokes involving a traveling guy who tricks a rube farmer and his equally dumb (but pretty) young wife. She delivers full- frontal nudity during the key doggy-style climax scene, and the smutty gimmicks here are timeless, but too little too late to save FOURPLAY.
Viju and Dave end the film similarly doggy-style and a rather dismal hour of stillborn ideas and clumsy footage comes to an end. The more of these unreleasable features I sit through the more I realize how much influence tax loss and write-off loopholes contribute to cinematic foolishness.
One reason to watch is blonde star Viju Krem -besides her very strange name certainly one of the prettiest porn actresses who never made it. Here she's teamed with unknown David Anthony in the film's flimsy cover story - the two of them making (simulated) love out in pristine fields, streams, wherever outdoors.
With a tripod nearby they are ostensibly discussing plot lines for their next movie, but what we get is merely a variation of O. Henry style tales told 'round the campfire, each illustrated with some nudity for our listening and dancing pleasure. (I suppose this might have served as '70s drive-in movie filler, but it was never booked in my neck of the woods.)
Resulting series of four unrelated vignettes that seem to have been played by a hard-up group of Kenley Players rejects from summer stock - actors and actresses so in need of a buck that they'll take their clothes off for the camera. It is technically not pornography, almost too tame to be even soft-core in content, though there are moments of full-frontal nudity.
First vignette is acted out in period costume, as a virgin and an older gentlemen bet on racing their horses, the guy losing on purpose and humping by a tree resulting. Story is supposed to be clever but it ain't, and like those that follow suffers from way too much narration by the principals Dave & Viju.
FOURPLAY unfolds as a sort of "can you top this?" marathon, with Viju and Dave trading tales, few of which are interesting. Viju's story is set in the '20s (I guess) concerning a woman married to a rich guy but attracted to their chauffeur -who she humps while daddy's away. Rather ludicrous premise has the old man with incipient dementia and the duo gaslight him by convincing him he's hallucinating with a lame trick of humping under a tree he's climbing and quickly all dressed again when he comes down -he thinks he imagined the whole thing.
When Dave interrupts, questioning the speed required here to dress, Viju counters that they will accomplish that through cinema magic. There's little magic in FOURPLAY unfortunately. The structure reminded me of Bunuel's best films and his dark sense of humor, but the anonymous filmmakers lack such talent. IMDb lists a followup film TAKE TIME TO SMELL THE FLOWERS with the same team and cast, but I suspect that is merely an alternate title for FOURPLAY.
After a brief but memorable fantasy image of Viju and Dave making love while water skiing, tales resume with perhaps the best short story in the bunch. Laura is married to a shady loan shark Benny and Freddie is a friend of his. Freddie sets out to get the better of them in a contrived but clever scam. He succeeds and this skit had the makings of a fun STING movie that would lend itself to soft-core with perhaps a John Dahl directing (and Linda Fiorentino making a comeback?).
The interstitial Viju/Dave turns to BDSM at this point with him stringing her up to tree branches to rape her and even threatening her with a knife - way too strange for ostensible hosts/narrators to behave, even as Dave cops out: "I guess I've seen too many Hitchcock flicks".
Back to the tales, with Viju spinning a hoary one about guys at a bar betting they can bed a woman, with the trickery involved laying an egg for me. Next one is the movie's intended piece de resistance, a fanciful variation on farmer's daughter dirty jokes involving a traveling guy who tricks a rube farmer and his equally dumb (but pretty) young wife. She delivers full- frontal nudity during the key doggy-style climax scene, and the smutty gimmicks here are timeless, but too little too late to save FOURPLAY.
Viju and Dave end the film similarly doggy-style and a rather dismal hour of stillborn ideas and clumsy footage comes to an end. The more of these unreleasable features I sit through the more I realize how much influence tax loss and write-off loopholes contribute to cinematic foolishness.