Betrayed Teens

Another slice of New York sleaze from workhorse Shaun Costello (directing and acting under his usual alias of Russ Carlson), this has one of those hyperbolic come-on titles so beloved by both (s)exploitation and made for TV movies it couldn't possibly live up to. As long as it put bums on seats, I suppose.

At least there is a nominal teen in the shapely form of 14-year old (as various characters keep pointing out, NOT doing this feature any favors in these politically correct times) all American girl Linda Dunraven, played by appealing possibly Canadian fly by night starlet Amanda Blake from Bob Chinn's EROTIC ADVENTURES OF CANDY and LIPPS & McCAIN whose thick accent is strenuously explained as the product of a Paris education. She's the daughter of snooty socialites Arnold (Alan Marlow, the unforgettable womanizer forced to endure women's plight through reincarnation in the curvaceous body of Darby Lloyd Rains from Roberta Findlay's excellent ANGEL # 9) and Helen (Marlene Willoughby) whose appearance-obsessed world is rocked to its very foundation by Linda's alleged abduction by a gang of bikers. The distraught Helen calls upon private dick Murray Kaplan (David Joseph a/k/a Leo Lovemore, who was in Costello's hugely enjoyable LOVE BUS, which he helmed as "Oscar Tripe"), a precursor to Dan McCord and just as incompetent, who patiently listens to the woman recounting how she spied on her daughter fooling around with her boyfriend Bobby (Costello's customary supporting role) as a prelude to their own three-way with his secretary. While neither the actress portraying Linda nor especially Costello makes a credible teenager, they do wind up having the hottest action in this movie, underscored by a Mike Oldfield track from his Tubular Bells album the director would revisit for the Hillary Summers Broadway audition bit in his lavish 1981 sex through the ages epic PANDORA'S MIRROR.

As this is just a one hour movie, Kaplan traces the bikers in record time only to learn that Linda joined them out of her own free will, the ransom note solely concocted by her devious parents who were only concerned about what their friends might think of them. Their reputation soiled, the gang (led rather unfathomably by drippy Bobby) break into the Dunraven mansion and thoroughly force themselves upon mom and dad with a nugget of father-daughter incest and a reddening of Helen's posterior with the cat o'nine tails for good measure. While this does not bring the errant maiden back to her family, it does somehow rekindle the parents' passion for one another. Huh ?

Adhering to a mind-boggling logic of its own, this cheerful cheapie gets by on a happy go lucky attitude, aided in no small measure by the tongue in cheek performance of the inimitable Marlene Willoughby. Tall, slender and alluringly androgynous, looking like an Andy Warhol superstar with that unruly shock of teased black hair (imagine Holly Woodlawn if she had been born a girl), with the sassiest line delivery since Mae West, Willoughby added an intentional layer of camp to every one of her performances whether the material warranted it or not. She would eventually graduate from some of the most intense '70s roughies (DOMINATRIX WITHOUT MERCY, WATERPOWER) to '80s big budget class acts such as Cecil Howard's FOXTROT.