Takin' It All Off

As with most of these boobie movies, a little is never enough and seriousness is looked down upon. This little gem is good for what it is, a whole bunch of chicks getting nekkid for little to no reason, and the usual stereotypes are in full swing. The only bad mark that this flick has is the constant and annoying use of its title song.

Believe me, after 20 minutes of hearing it, you'll want to shoot someone. But put the TV on mute and you will have a good time.

My review was written in April 1988 after watching the movie on Vestron video cassette.

This sequel to the 1984 pic "Takin' It Off' is a softcore strip show, nothing more and nothing less. Its main draw is the starring role accorded Candie Evans (credited under the moniker Jean Poremba), erstwhile hardcore porn actress making the transition to mainstream fare.

Excuse fo a plot has Sharona Bonne's erotic exposure dance class strapped for funds (landlord John Alderman is threatening to boot them out) so they decide to put on a striptease show. Auditions are for real-life club owner Bob Corley and plot device stresses a newcomer (Evans) who is reluctant to strip.

Hypnotism is used to get her going, but a post-hypnotic suggestion results in Evans stripping whenever the theme song from the original "Takin' It Off" pic is played (she strips eight times to pad out the running time here). Star of that pic, Kitten Natividad, shows up to help out the show and silly footage from the first film is reprised as flashbacks.

It's all harmless nonsense, with lots of fullnudity and cornpone jokes. Evans proves she can carry a picture without relying on explicit sex and costar Sarona Bonner is a real beauty. Pic is dedicated to John Alderman, who died last year after two decades of softcore adult film roles.

With a title like TAKIN' IT ALL OFF, you know this isn't going to be one for the arthouse crowd, right? But just in case you weren't sure, you get that amazing opening sequence where Kitten wiggles her amazing bod down a long staircase and right up to the camera, before climbing into her chauffeur-driven limo and playing with her huge boobs in the back seat. Then we get an unfunny sequence with an old drunk guy holding a conversation with a toy telephone, after that my attention wandered slightly, and it was a good ten minutes before Kitten was back on the scene, and what a scene it was! Yes fans, it's Miss Natividad in the shower, and you can guess where the camera is focused. I can't imagine any heterosexual guy NOT getting hot under the collar as she soaps and massages those fleshy twin peaks. It's a long sequence too, so be prepared. Sadly, after that, there's a lot of boring plot to sit through, and to be blunt, whenever Kitten's not on the screen this film is ghastly, so I'll cut to the chase and tell you that she has some memorable scenes near the end - and that low-cut black leotard is something you've GOT to see! Her final strip, to that stupid "swamp water liquor alligator gumbo" hillbilly song, is another show-stopper, and those bazooms seem to take on a life of their own in that black basque...we just don't see entertainers like this any more! Sadly Kitten went past her prime not long after this film came out, so this is pretty much the last decent movie she made where she looks hot and cute simultaneously, and I recommend picking it up if you spot it anywhere, but don't pay more than five, you'll kick yourself!

This is a buffet of nude women. Plenty of T&A and sexual second meanings. Just as good as the first movie: Takin' It Off.

The mid-to-late 1980s marked the heyday of the Mom-and-Pop video store. Americans had brought VCRs in record numbers and the "4 Titles For the Price 3" special was the standard way we rented VHS cassettes for the weekend. It took a year or more for top Hollywood movies to come to video (the "A" titles) and to fill up that four title special customers would look on the back shelves for the single copies of older movies and more obscure stuff (the "B" titles). Drive-ins were closing, but the hack producers of drive-in fare started producing movies that went direct-to-video. Most of the DTV B-titles were crap, exploitation pics shot in a garage with a hand-held mike for chickenfeed budgets. Not restricted by the MPAA ratings code, a way to distinguish a DTV title on the shelf was to feature T&A, and as this was the era of gratuitous nudity flicks, the onslaught of 80s nudie cuties was on.

Exploitation director Ed Hansen and John Carpenter regular Buck Flower wrote "Takin' It Off" and its sequel "Taken It All Off" and churned out what was probably the best of this kind of movie. A school for strippers is losing money and the owner Becky Lebeau, played by Mr. Skin nude scene queen Michelle Bauer, decides to save her school from the greedy landlord played by John Alderman. It's the umpteenth remake of the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney formula of "putting on a show" to save the (farm, orphanage, church, community center, stripper school). They manage to snag stripping queen Betty Bigones (Russ Myer regular Kitten Natividad) to perform with them, but a monkey wrench is thrown into the plan when new student Allison (80s porn queen Candie Evans under her real name Jean Poremba) can't bring herself to take her clothes off and hypnosis is used as a last ditch effort to save the day.

There's lots of bad 80s hair and hideous 80s fashions. The acting is largely beyond horrible. Kitten Natividad recites many of her lines like a child in a big paper costume in a school play, but Buck Flower himself is a hoot as Allison's hillbilly father; and Candie Evans must have been game to try something that didn't involve her getting smothered by some guy, because she is surprisingly good in her role. Hansen's direction is competent and the jokes in the script aren't bad. There's LOTS of full-frontal female nudity, and only one scene with male nudity and that's one male backside in a tender shower love scene. Some of the stripping is amateurish, but that's okay, and Kitten Natividad shows she's a good performer and dancer who loved what she did. The title song is annoying, but a few others ("Louisiana Lovers", "I Just Want You" performed by someone named Little Joe Shaver) on the soundtrack aren't. The movie is padded with extra nudity to get close to 90 minutes, but that's what a Mom-and-Pop video store customer would have rented Takin' It All Off for.

Kitten Natividad was 40 when this movie was made and her face was starting to age, but her body here is still in good shape. Sadly she hit the wall soon after. Candie Evans married one of the American Gladiators, started a family and left showbiz entirely in 1988. Their beautiful bodies are preserved on VHS tape. Takin' It All Off must have been a hugely successful rental as used copies pop up on ebay all the time. Hansen died in 2005, so it's up to Buck Flower or whoever owns the rights to Takin It All Off to put it out on DVD. They should be encouraged, because there aren't a lot of comedies made with gratuitous female nudity anymore, and that's ashame.