One of the bigger names in the classic porn scene (probably occupying a tier just below genre all-stars like Gerard Damiano and Anthony Spinelli), Carter Stevens has cranked out a number of decent potboilers over his long and varied career - everything from the bubblegum gloss of TINSELTOWN to the kinky weirdness of Avon fetish vehicles like HOUSE OF SIN and WICKED SCHOOLGIRLS (not to mention his even stranger '90s work in fetish videos). It's easy to forget, then, that like a lot of prominent pornographers, his career started on a lower rung - with desultory, threadbare exercises like THE COLLEGIATES and HOT OVEN. HIGHWAY HOOKERS is another such film - thoroughly pro forma porn with little in the way of art or interest.
Resembling almost to a T what most lay people's conception of "classic porn" probably is, HOOKERS follows the young female secretaries of the Mother's Truckers towing agency, who, after discovering their business and its elderly proprietress are in dire financial straits, decide to tilt the playing field in her favor by distracting competing companies' (male) tow truck drivers with carnal come-ons. That's it as far as plot goes, cueing a series of repetitious sex scenes before the money comes through and the gals save the day. (Is that a spoiler?)
Like a lot of Stevens' early work, this is barely above the level of a one-day wonder (probably 2-4 days at most). Trading out that genre's usual 16mm for 35, what Stevens gains in professionalism he quickly squanders on some of the saddest, most threadbare sets this side of a housing renovation. Every room in the film has about two pieces of décor, set out against endless, brightly-colored monochromatic expanses of wall that just scream soundstage. Again, if you ask John or Jane Q. Public to describe a classic porn film, this would probably match perfectly, and while it's not the greatest aesthetic deficit to overcome (dime store surrealists like Rinse Dream and Gregory Dark have worked wonders on stagey backdrops), it remains sad and drab in comparison to the work an early Damiano was able to conjure on presumably comparable budgets.
As for the sex, like most early Stevens pics, it's perfunctory but enthusiastically shot. Genre stalwart Eric Edwards makes a couple appearances sporting an unfortunate mustache, while frequent two-for-one combo Bree Anthony and Tony Richards are here as well, delivering what is probably some of the film's best action (there's something to be said for couples' chemistry) in a fairly early screen appearance for the both of them. Always an enthusiastic sex director, Stevens digs in with his camera in many of these scenes, providing explicit gynecological angles that should delight fans.
It's clear from these early flicks (where it's all they have going for them) that Stevens was engaged with this element of the action, and it's nice to at least see a director deliver enthusiastic porn, even if his film isn't interested in anything else. Thankfully, Stevens would begin to venture into more ambitious (and slightly higher-budgeted) territory the following year with ROLLERBABIES (while still slumming it with snoozers like TEENAGE TWINS), so it's nice to see he was eventually able to bring his artistic ambitions in line with his erotic ones. Nevertheless, HIGHWAY HOOKERS marks a point where he still hadn't reached that level of development. It may be of interest to some as a career footnote, but is largely for fans only.
