Reissued on Vol. 59 of Something Weird's Dragon Art Theatre series, LISA MEETS MR. BIG is one of the few titles therein that I saw theatrically in first-run way back when, in an East Coast booking. It's strictly for fans of Shaun Costello's early improvised "anything goes" porn efforts. I prefer his attempts at real films, notably MORE THAN SISTERS.
It's styled as a comedy of manners, not a good format for ad libbing, and frequently the cast is not merely at a loss for words (producing longueurs), but actively tripped up by the too-loose approach.
Premise is interracial sex, with Sharon Mitchell miscast as a virginal (!) bride, astounded at the first sight of her hubby's member on their wedding night (!). Pardon my use of exclamation marks, but modest notions of believability are not Costello's strong suit.
This was made before Mitchell became MISS Sharon Mitchell and became identified with the b&d genre, later to emerge as perhaps porn's brainiest and most socially conscious grad. However, even early in her career the notion of pleading the virgin's "please don't hurt me" cliché is hard to swallow. Also difficult to ingest is black porn wannabe Gilbert Palmitier's decent sized (not as big as Ron Jeremy, for example) package, but like the icon of the "Big Dick" sub-genre John Holmes, he is in desperate need of Viagra, not to be invented for another two decades.
Marlene Willoughby probably takes acting honors, by default, in her role as best pal of Mitchell's mom, throwing around banter on the level of "have you seen the latest Bunuel film" (that would be PHANTOM OF LIBERTY, a movie whose structure would definitely appeal to Costello). I enjoyed the performance of Renee Duval as Mitchell's fellatio-prone mom, but unlike Mitch she failed to carve out a XXX career.
Some very lame upstairs/downstairs action is introduced in the form of the stuffy butler (Costello regular Ashley Moore) and a very horny maid (enthusiastic though not pretty Susaye London). Their antics are strictly dullsville filler, until they have an impromptu threesome with Willoughby during the inevitable orgy sequence.
Central interracial gimmick is quite unfunny, with the single joke that when Palmitier shows up to be introduced to family & friends everyone at first mistakes him for a menial ("we don't want what your selling") a total dud. His winning over the naysayers sexually is hampered by his inability to achieve an erection -in a "real" porn movie he would be replaced, but these quickies were evidently made on an "all footage is usable" 1 to 1 shooting ratio. Opening wedding night scene in the bathroom has the boom mic looming large in the bottom right of the frame as an example of this policy.
Oddest element for me, as I've studied the history of incest in the movies extensively, is the cavalier approach at the orgy where Lisa (Miss Mitchell) suggests sex with her daddy Alan Marlow, and he acquiesces after the briefest of token protests. Just another example of the perils of Shaun's improv approach - it was only 3 years later that Kirdy Stevens, hardly as talented a director as Costello, hit pay dirt with the most enduring series of porn films TABOO, exploiting in melodramatic form, with actual scripts, the interesting incest theme.
It's been 33 years so my recollection of the theatrical version of LISA is understandably gone with the wind, but I'm pretty sure it was longer, likely an additional reel, than the extant SWV DVD-R version.
