Teenage Massage Parlor

Yes, this one alternatively titled Massage Parlour, I saw with my mate back at the start of 2000. He commented on the crappy moustache, from the young Sonny Bono, Murray Langston sounding guy, who after reading an advertisement, decides to spends his whole day at this Massage Parlour, (get it on Heavenly Drive) where the broads gives much more than massages. The film (let's not call it a film, please) adds inventive and interesting touches, some semi erotic to the peace. Another older, 50's+ short guy who's also come (in two respects) to this fine establishment, is a body builder, and loves a workout, where you'll see in this film (scratch that last word) the hot dark haired, masseur should be paying him. Guess what he calls his trapeze muscle. The other one, working on Sonny, I mean really working, is a sort of Edy William's type, where the red headed maid, throws in a couple of envious scowls and smiles, and loves to tell customer's "Time's up". I wish I didn't have to say this, but this is actually a very entertaining 45 minute romp, thanks to those touches I mentioned, in this product of base standard. The last killer frame is like one great punchline. You can only laugh at just how pathetic this movie really is, and take joy in knowing how you could write something better. Those Groucho Marx moments with Sonny are truly classic, the bits that'll fly out at you, when recalling this piece of, I don't know, there's a thousand words I can use to finish that sentence. I hope Massage Parlours are really like this, when I go and visit. .25/10

Teenage Massage Parlor (1976)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Porn film from director Ray Dennis Steckler takes place in, as the title suggests, a massage parlor where the teenage girls are doing more than just rubbing backs. Considering Steckler wrote this and considering it's a porn from the 70's, needless to say there's really not too much plot going on here and in fact I'd say there's zero. Pretty much we get several couples messing around in a variety of positions and this lasts the entire 54-minute running time. As I continue to go through all the films of Steckler it's becoming clear that he never wanted to do a "normal" film and instead he'd work inside various genres and do things his own way. That's certainly true here as well as his other porn movies because they're just weird and campy to say the least. This includes several scenes that are just downright funny including one where one of the teenage workers wants to play hot dog so she uses the man's "part" and puts it in a hot dog bun and then we get the ketchup and relish. As with other porn films from Steckler, he really doesn't even try to make them erotic and for the most part the sex scenes are poorly shot. Once again it appears he's mainly interested in the money shots as many of the oral scenes start just at the time the guy is finishing. For the most part this is one of the more entertaining films I've seen from the director since it actually moves pretty quickly and there's some campy charm in the performances and dialogue.

I used to be a fan of RDS, when I used to see his INCREDIBLY STRANGE one good movie on TV a lot back in the '60s. Lately I've been watching many of his tedious loop carriers where he strung a few stag films together and had a girl pretend to be a voyeur on roller skates, and assumed that was the bottom of his barrel. TEENAGE MASSAGE PARLOR proved me wrong.

I recall that Steckler began his wayward career doing Don Glut style backyard short films - kids kidding around. This isn't a bad way to start: Sam Raimi and his pals (Bruce Campbell and Bob Tapert) began the same way back at college. TEENAGE resembles the spirit of that sort of amateurism, but applied sloppily to pornographic content, and the result is a mess.

As inevitable narrator Carolyn Brandt tells us, there's a photo studio in the building where Helga's massage parlor is located. Movie consists of random (random in both its shooting and editing) footage set in both places. Two guys working as photographers upstairs are mainly humping. The sex footage at both places is totally idiotic, not erotic and the entire film is so bad it must have caused non-stop walkouts when grinding away theatrically back in the '70s.

An older guy fancying himself as a muscle-man provides a disastrous subplot -his footage is mainly soft-core fortunately. A very busty mulatto girl named Ginger Lafayette is perhaps a highlight in mixed combo action, sort of go-to footage amidst the dross. A creepy guy with fake mustache sort of doing a Groucho impression with cigar is beneath the level of amateurism one associates with well-meaning actual amateurs.

Typical of when this was made, emphasis is put on 16-year-old Babsy auditioning for a massage parlor job. The fact that she's (the character I mean) underage doing explicit sex is normal, as only the age of the actress mattered in those days. What I consider kiddie porn (and that's meant to be derogatory) is apparently legal as long as it's old -go figure.

By the end of the less than an hour show, you have to conclude that this is not a movie, but rather just some crappy footage slapped together, and part of RDS's sorry legacy.