Harry Hard, Detective

Casting is paramount in the field of porn, as evidenced by the dull thud when HARRY HARD, DETECTIVE lands in your DVD player. Something Weird reactivated it on Vol. 83 of its Dragon Art Theatre series, but it's D.O.A.

Reb Sawitz plays the title role, sort of. This ugly guy can't read a line of dialog to save his soul, even in voice-over, of which there is a plenitude (no doubt due to his mangling his lines in the first place). An attractive female cast can't save the day, especially given the idiotic storyline and truly terrible verbiage.

He's hired by Hazel (porn fave Suzanne Fields, unrecognizable in a stupid looking blonde wig) who is receiving death threats by phone. A a murder mystery ensues with key suspects a nurse (beautiful Maria Arnold), wimpy doctor Howard Alexander, and swishy butler Victor Alexander (a mainstay of doing mysterious Peter Lorre-style non-sex roles in porn films).

He's among the clunkiest private dicks to ever come down the pike, and the only thing he accomplishes during the course of this forgettable cheapie is to deliver money shots on cue. I guess that's why he was hired, but it's not enough.

Both Arnold's and Fields' talents are wasted here. But what is really annoying, once you get used to the black hole in nearly every scene that is Butch, is the lame attempt at humor, including Butch's "yiddishe mamma" voicing over witticisms from time to time. I guess Charles Ludlam could remake this trash as one of his satirical theatrical send-ups, but I wouldn't wish for him to see the original in the first place. Better he take a stab at Curt McDowell's THUNDERCRACK! Production values are meager, but that could be forgiven had the project been re-cast as to the central role, and perhaps been rewritten by Robert Towne.