Blue Magic (1981)

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride !  One of the intimate industry’s genuine gentlemen, Larry Revene ranks as the second most successful photographer turned fornication filmmaker, following in the admittedly giant footsteps of the late great Gary Graver a/k/a “Robert McCallum” whose mutually beneficial partnership with now also departed producer Ted Paramore a/k/a “Harold Lime” yielded several of adult’s most awesome achievements like The Ecstasy Girls and Amanda by Night.  Drawing a parallel between two highly esteemed professionals, Revene paid his dues as a debuting DoP for such early lustmongering luminaries as “Cecil” Howard Winters (Heat Wave), Gerard Damiano (Joint Venture) and the rightfully revered Radley Metzger, for whom he shot both Barbara Broadcast and Maraschino Cherry, before striking up a similarly fruitful relationship with Chuck Vincent.  Starting with 1978’s landmark Jack ‘n’ Jill, Larry would lense all of Chuck’s projects both XXX and R-rated until the latter’s untimely death from an AIDS-related illness in 1991.  In return, Vincent offered unconditional as well as unwavering friendship, nurturing his protégé’s tentative talents to full bloom.  A Jack of all trades since the dawn of theatrically screened dirty movies, Chuck tirelessly contributed to other people’s erotic endeavors – whether as cameraman, editor or art director – in addition to his own creative output, leaving him with a wealth of useful contacts and acquaintances to exploit, which in turn enabled him to establish his profitable production and distribution company Platinum Pictures in the early ’80s.  Downside, if one can call it that, was that Vincent proved perhaps a touch too hands on in his cashflow capacity with Larry’s fledgling filmmaking efforts coming out virtual carbon copies of his own past successes.

Comparable to Chuck, Larry has often been accused of being entirely too polite for pornography, a consummate craftsman for sure but lacking the dirty mind that could make his sex scenes sizzle.  Closer scrutiny reveals that in either case such reputation was unwarranted.  While Vincent could get down ‘n’ dirty with the best of them (just check out Games Women Play or his solo flight as “Harley Mansfield” on Joy for irrefutable proof), Revene’s forte would turn out to be sensuality, an elusive ingredient sorely lacking from most porn.  In fact, as a cinematographer he had practically pioneered the use of softer and infinitely more flattering lighting for an atmospheric alternative to the spotlit genital close-ups that were de rigueur.  His turn at the helm trumpeted the arrival of a true eroticist, sensitive to the flick of a tongue or a furtive carress to help create a mood that makes the breathing grow heavier.  His last good skinflick, 1987’s Deep Throat II, is rife with such encounters, performed and photographed with almost choreographed elegance, especially star Krista Lane’s haunting solo to the mirror image of her wanton grandma (played by the same actress, predictably nabbing her both AVN‘s and the XRCO‘s Best Actress awards) or her steamy Sapphic seduction of squeaky-voiced psychologist Sheena Horne.  Previously, his overall best film, 1982’s Wanda Whips Wall Street – as accomplished a combo of plot and porn as you’re likely to unearth – had featured by far the most joyous of a great many collaborations between genre giants Veronica Hart and Jamie Gillis, a gorgeous al fresco coupling as spontaneous as it was sophisticated.  Ironically however, Larry’s most sustained stab at sensuality occured on a strange little movie remaining casually overlooked to this very day…

Blue Magic proved a problematic project for the usually laidback Larry, not in the least because of supposed star Candida Royalle wreaking all kinds of havoc he could not possibly predict.  Already an established adult actress as well as an outspoken feminist, which would serve her well when founding uncatered audience gap-bridging Femme Productions a few years down the line, she had congenially collaborated on Revene’s earlier romps Sizzle and Fascination.  She had found an attentive ear when voicing the desire to write her first screenplay, expressing her views on womanhood in general and female sexuality in particular, playing out for contrast against an early 20th century timeframe, an era when women were traditionally seen though rarely heard.  His interest piqued, Larry put the wheels in motion, blindly trusting Royalle to keep up her creative end of the bargain.  As the date of shooting grew near, cast and crew readily assembled, he still had little more substantial than a few pages of scribbled synopsis to work from.  When badgered, the inexperienced authoress claimed total ignorance to the demands of scripting, believing her work already done !  Some poor uncredited shlub needed to be drafted in at the eleventh hour to save the day.  Considering some of the snide lines of dialogue, most of these spoken by Jack Wrangler at the top of his game as private eye catalyst Matthew Getty, it’s not unlikely that the ever supportive Vincent stepped in to accomplish this thankless task.  This was hardly the end of Larry’s ordeal however.  In addition to “writing” and portraying the central character of 200 year old witch Natalie Woodhurst, Candida also brought her Swedish boyfriend Per Sjöstedt on board to produce.  Boasting some pedigree in porn as the son of Nils Sture Sjöstedt who had funded Joe Sarno’s Marie Forsa films, Per was to become another permanent part of the Vincent entourage as a dependable production manager on his massively underrated This Lady is a Tramp, the disappointing sequel Jack ‘n’ Jill 2 and solid cable favorites Preppies and New York’s Finest.  As far as his main squeeze was concerned though, she had him jumping through hoops, flaming ones at that !  It soon dawned on Revene that Sjöstedt’s limited leeway largely consisted of doing Royalle’s bidding.

Parading around the palatial premises like a legend in her own mind yielded another unforeseen side effect by the time Larry came to shoot (with valuable assistance from his trainee Steve Kaman a/k/a “Sven Nuvo” who subsequently garnered a solid reputation working mostly for Chris Covino a/k/a “John Christopher” on Babe and Blue Jeans) Candida’s big sex scene as she magically materializes amidst a crowd of orgiastic revellers to lure the detective to his doom.  Technically bisexual but mostly gay, crossover star Wrangler would prove an iffy prospect under the most relaxed of working conditions.  This not being the case here, he turned out totally limp and therefore unable to perform with the insufferable diva.  Even his well-documented customary pup tent, allowing him some privacy from the stress of the shoot to rouse himself to attention, failed to do the trick and his fleeting fuck of the admittedly ravishing Royalle looks suspiciously faked.  Fraught with peril from day one, it’s a tribute to the talents of all others involved that Blue Magic comes out looking as good as it does.  Much of the credit should go to unsung art director Eddie Heath, another old pal of Vincent’s since they joined forces on Hand in Hand’s 1972 gay sleeper American Cream, made by “Rob Simple” a/k/a Brussels born Broadway playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie.  It seems redundant to point out at this stage, yet newcomers might be unaware, that Vincent was an out and proud homosexual predominantly producing straight sex films.  As a result, most of his crew was of the same persuasion, Revene being a rare exception.  Cementing a cliché, absolutely no one does art direction better than a gay guy, as Heath proved time and again, not just on Chuck’s shows but on Ron “Henri Pachard” Sullivan’s Outlaw Ladies and outrageous Devil in Miss Jones Part II as well.  His work here’s a complete marvel, swathing the cast in era-appropriate layers of cotton and corsetry and cluttering each set with contemporary bric-à-brac.

I have no idea who came across the pristinely preserved property that doubles as the narrative’s capital Woodhurst Castle but its discovery counts as a singular stroke of incredibly good fortune on a project in dire need of such.  Another would be the concise but excellent cast (well, most of it anyway…) Revene managed to round up.  The son of renowned TV producer Robert Stillman who sired the small screen Western sagas Bonanza and Rawhide, Wrangler had an extensive background in theater to fall back on, serving him well as he has to impart much of the movie’s somewhat clumsily constructed plot exposition.  As Matthew Getty of the Brown & Getty detective agency, he has cleverly infiltrated the stringently selective social club where the mysterious owner of the castle recruits guests for regular gatherings none of the participants can recall anything about afterwards.  Records reveal that the last surviving member of the Woodhurst family would now have to be well over two centuries old !  Socialites arrive at the mansion one by one, save for the sole married couple among them, Bart and Sarah, played by George Payne (another gay crossover still new to the genre at the time) and Samantha Fox who naturally enough share the film’s first fuck and exhibit believable spousal chemistry.  The gradual peeling away of Sam’s elaborate costume, not to mention the careful unlacing of her booties, should suffice to send lovers of period finery into a tizzy.

Characters are conveniently defined by temperament.  The aptly named Maria (Merle Michaels) is a pious virgin, reigned in and not just in the corsetary sense, while the studious and softspoken Jenny (Veronica Hart) provides the contrasting voice of reason.  Adversely asked to act, Ron Hudd’s credibly cast as the priggishly wooden Richard, compensating his utter lack of thespian prowess with studly grandeur.  Perhaps the biggest surprise comes courtesy of Patty Boyd (or “Josie Jones” whenever employed by either Chuck or Larry), who barely registers a footnote in anyone’s account of adult history, commanding the screen with unprecedented assurance as the ebullient Loretta.  One of Shaun Costello’s many fortunate finds while prowling private soirées, she played the title role as “Patty Barnett” in his Fire in Francesca (a take on Otto Preminger’s Laura and a low budget dry run for his Fiona on Fire) and would remain regularly featured throughout his creative career, appearing as the slutty servant (now billed as “Sara Cruz”) on 1981’s Beauty.  Most fans probably remember her as the novice hippie chick from Armand Weston’s Take Off but this proved an uncharacteristically innocent character as opposed to the memorable bad girl she portrayed in Roberta Findlay’s uneven though sporadically effective From Holly With Love.

The plot such as it is rapidly degenerates into an almost perfunctory scavenger hunt for a bottle of aphrodisiac as Candida sits cackling in her paraphernalia-strewn basement supposedly orchestrating the orgy upstairs, emptyheadedly employing elements from Voodoo and Wicca with precious little regard for their actual meaning.  Surprisingly, the saving grace is the sex, near constant after a slow start, with an already seasoned cast commendably chomping at the bit to get into each other’s drawers.  Hart and Hudd share a scorching library liaison, only topped by the diminutive Merle’s tantalizing transformation into dominatrix whipping Hudd and Payne (soon to express a taste for these things…) into shape in the startling stable sequence.  Fox looks positively flushed when Hart gets under her skirts, a rare opportunity to witness these two pillars of porn doing a scene together, beautifully building towards an unrushed climax.  Boyd’s threesome with Michaels and Wrangler, set to the strains of an antique Victrola no less, provides playful eye candy and even the daisy chain group grope does not disappoint, at least until Royalle pops up for its underwhelming last call.  Like those who went before, Matthew’s mind draws a blank the next day though his inexplicably missing cuff link alerts him to foul play afoot.  Taken as a whole, the movie may ultimately be too compromised to qualify among Revene’s finer filmmaking endeavors yet still ranks as a sleeper worthy of rediscovery for those who can appreciate the mood inherent to its languid approach to encroaching eroticism over the narrative complexity audiences have grown accustomed to from his better (known…) efforts such as his nowadays heavily scissored bite the hand that feeds classic Raw Talent.

Directed by Larry Revene. Written by Candida Royalle. Produced by Per Sjöstedt for Lunarex Ltd. Photographed by Revene and Steven Kaman (as Sven Nuvo). Edited by James Macreading. Starring Jack Wrangler (Matthew Getty), Candida Royalle (Natalie Woodhurst), Samantha Fox (Sarah), Veronica Hart (Jenny), Merle Michaels (Maria), George Payne (Bart), Ron Hudd (Richard), Patty Boyd (as Josie Jones) (Loretta), Josh Andrews (Andrew the Butler) & Skeets Stoddard (Mr. Brown). Running time : 74 minutes.

Veronica Hart raising a glass to the monumentally underrated Patty Boyd

By Dries Vermeulen