After watching this clunker, I had to look up the credits of director Pieter Vanderbilt (and his writer) and learned that they had made only five Adult films. Significantly, a handful of viewers commented extremely positively about some of the five, myself included! What Kool-Aid were we drinking?
The answer is that here we have obscure pornographers, quite unsuccessfully (from a career standpoint) trying to be different. Perhaps the kind words we wrote about the other films were warranted, but this movie with its famous Fritz Lang homage title proves they were on the wrong track.
This is insular film making. It seems overly serious and morbid, but the in-jokes and puerile satirical elements stick out and sink it. No one wants to be lectured by a self-absorbed smut peddler! (to put it bluntly).
Story set in the San Francisco area concerns an alcoholic music-video director played by Joey Silvera, seen shooting an untalented rock band with a couple of porn actresses as sexy dancers -sort of an instant satire of those Gangsta Rap videos, but with Black rock musicians instead of rappers. Joey's producer (and best friend) John Leslie wants the video to be sexier, starting an argument between the two guys.
Leslie wants Joey to go for rehab for a couple of weeks and dry out, so he oddly bets him that he can't direct a hot porno film. If he can, Leslie will double his salary. If not, he has to check into a hospital for treatment.
So Joey hops into his limo, after we watch a tedious series of random (and pretentious) flashbacks of sex with his girlfriend Rhonda (played by forgettable Cindy Carver) and Leslie also f*cking her, much to the dismay of Joey. He visits the lavish home of a top porn director name Olav (played by Jon Martin) who agrees to mentor him in the fine art of porn filmmaking. We have to listen to ridiculous lectures by Jon on what makes porno tick, meant to be self-satire but sounding just like the industry bullshit that has become "conventional wisdom" over the next four decades (e.g., the necessity of incuding an extraneous lesbian scene and the need to whet the audience's appetite for a big "hot" final scene, promised but carefully withheld until last. Jon also invites him to a shoot, and Francois Papillon shows up, a good sport making fun of himself as an egotistical porn stud.
Central gimmick is a telescope through which Joey sees star Candie Evens dancing sexily in her window. He becomes fixated by the sight, which we've already seen during the opening credits as a "highlight"/foreshadowing.
Then Jamie Gillis visits with Melissa Melendez in tow, playing himself as the great porn star that Joey has researched, and wants his assistance too in shooting porn. Jamie seems out of it in this cameo, but says he'll send over some of his best work for Joey to watch. Joey watches a VHS tape and sure enough, there is Jamie in a threesome with Melendez and Candie Evens.
Joey is shocked to see his dream girl in porn, but for a happy ending, he gets to f*ck her himself.
As a navel-gazing, porn satire, this is just awful. I think it provides prima facie evidence of Vanderbilt & company flopping and exiting the porn biz.
