My review was written in February 1984 after watching the show on a CBS Fox video cassette.
The fourth edition of "Playboy Video", the home video version of Hugh Hefner's cable and magazine, is a generally disappointing and ephemeral item.
Highlight, and the cassette's only collectible draw, is a 15-minute tribute to Dorothy Stratten, the murdered 1980 Playmate of the Year currently given the biopic treatment in Bob Fosse's "Star 80". Consistently upbeat segment, diametrically opposed to Fosse's morbid approach\, shows Stratten romping in the snow with her family, playfully horsing around with shutterbug Mario Casilli and presenting a lively personality not revealed in her small legacy of fiction film appearances.
Other segments on view are strictly ho-hum, typified by an unenlightening 10-minute interview with Willie Nelson, of interest only to the singer's fans. Given Playboy's well-earned rep for great interviews, such as the memorable 1960s encounters with Stanley Kubrick and the late Ayn Rand, it seems pointless to preserve on tape as lightweight a one as the Nelson talker.
A skit at the Comedy Store featuring Shirley Hemphill and six other comediennes is a flop about a prostitutes' strike, done in by weak material relying on the blue palette to evoke cheap laughs. Larry Grobel's sniggering interview of porn star Marilyn Chambers is a pointless puff piece and David Hagar's editing of strictly still photographs for a "Flashdancers" montage lifted from Playboy mad is an audience cheat -home video fans deserve live action material, not mere stills-to-tape transfers.
Amidst the Ribald Classic, cartoons, tv commercial takeoffs and other filler, September 1983 Playmate Barbara Edwards provides a pleasant narcissistic interlude that is the nude photo layout which remains the key to Playboy's video magazine format.
