Living Venus (1961) User Reviews

Harvey and Herschell: A Team That Can Be Beat

[Lang Jr · 5/10 · 18 May 2009]

I have to admit, this review is based on the 36 minute clip (about half) of "Living Venus" now showing in the Something Weird section of Comcast / On Demand. I can't give you the presumably missing juicy details, but what I can tell you is that it's not too bad; acting is decent and the story is OK. This is a curio I wanted to see as much for Harvey Corman (his first film) as for H. G. Lewis (pre-gornography). Kerwin stars as a magazine editor a la Hugh Hefner who launches a monthly stag rag called "Pagan". He discovers "living Venus" D'Hondt in a restaurant and recruits Korman to snap the cheesecake photos. They both pursue D'Hondt, but Kerwin succeeds, and he quickly pimps D'Hondt out to enlist advertisers. Ending is predictable. Korman worked better with Tim Conway.

Herschell Gordon Lewis's not-that-bad first time out

[marcslope · 6/10 · 17 January 2021]

Cheap sexploitation, wallowing in its sleaze and punctuated by several not very relevant naked-lady sequences, this below-B epic has opportunist William Kerwin leaving his gig at a respectable wedding magazine to found a Playboy-like sex rag, aided by ace photographer Harvey Korman (!), and turning waitress Danica D'Hondt into a supermodel, who also turns improbably into a hopeless alcoholic when Kerwin rejects her. The main mystery in Gordon's and David Friedman's screenplay is what she, or his weepy prior fiancee, or anybody would see in him: He's ambitious, uncaring, shallow, and impatient, with a catchphrase of snapping his fingers and exhorting, "I guarantee it!" He also has a faithful secretary, Janette Leahy, who goes through over a bottle of scotch a day, which is supposed to be funny. Kerwin can't bring this rotter any charm, but Korman amiably plays an amiable shlub, and D'Hondt, despite her character's impossible character arc, is actually touching. Sleazy as it is, Lewis got sleazier, Still, as an indicator of what dirty old men and lewd young schoolboys thought was hot 60 years ago, it's interesting.