Parted Lips

I'm starting to sound like a broken record but plowing through Joe Sarno's 1980s "wilderness years" as a disgruntled pornographer automatically elicits descriptive terms like "embarrassing" and "insulting". PARTED LIPS, credited to his pseudonym "Francis Healy", is one of the crummiest.

Synopsis on the Video-X-Pix DVD box is incorrect and, as usual, tries to superimpose a vaguely interesting plot line onto an all-sex filler video.

Central character is unfortunately the least interesting Sarno trouper Nina Preta, here credited sloppily as Nina Reta, sort of portraying Princess Tanya of the Eastern European country (fictional of course) Balukovia. An evil Baroness Natasha Yaleska (real blonde Annette Heinz) and her male stooges are hunting in Manhattan for Tanya.

Tanya's best friend Jane (Siobhan Hunter, who gets top billing just for being pretty) tries to help out, but thanks to Sarno's clumsy direction, zero continuity, scenes presented in random order and other not-so-niceties, the perils of Tanya go nowhere. By the time Heinz repeatedly flubs her lengthy video-ending speech, delivered to henchman Ivan (not Igor as the video box proclaims), I don't think even the most dedicated fan of "le bad cinema" will care.

With a very unflattering hairdo, Preta is worse than usual here -her name on a video box is a surefire sign of low quality. Hunter has zero characterization, merely employed like Preta and Heinz to deliver real sex and plenty of it.

The male cast is miserable, faking terrible Russian-style accents, and delivering erections and ejaculations for the least discriminating of fans. Sarno regular Michael Knight is on hand, but both Alan Adrian (as Igor) and my old buddy, the late "Sleazoid Express" journalist Bill Landis (billed as "Bob Spector") as Ivan look like young street wastrels more likely to be cast in a high school edition of "Oliver Twist" than porn outing -the femme cast literally towers over them. A non-sex role for a friend of Jane's named "Paul" (another short-short guy) goes uncredited -probably was the video's producer filling in.

Trademark Sarno-isms here are: the awkward blocking of the actors (who accidentally bump into each other in one putrid scene), including his favorite (left over from softcore days) "cast popping up vertically into the frame to start a scene"; made-up aphrodisiac as plot gimmick, in this case Tanya's unquenchable sexuality whenever her nipples are tweaked; actresses in sexy hose & garter belts, even keeping high heels on (Heinz) during sex; lesbian action at the drop of a hat; exaggerated moaning & groaning as pretend signs of arousal; and pointless random walking down the sidewalk shots in place of real transitions.

For the record, the title imagery, first shown repellently in a tight closeup still for the opening credits, recurs in gynecological detail throughout the film as a leitmotif. There's no script credit at all, understandably given horrendous dialog like nudge-nudge Knight's innuendo of presenting his "special recipe for beef stroganoff".

Also note: IMDb credits Jeanna Fine but she does not appear in this video and is not listed in the credits either.