Black humor is difficult to execute, as proved by Alfred Sole's foray into XXX territory, DEEP SLEEP. It's porn so poorly made the highlight for me was when a yellow (rarely seen color) Dodge Challenger showed up on screen.
Sole and his d.p. Joseph Friedman both signed the film with their actual names, each man 40 years later quite successful in TV. That's about the only thing I can give them credit for, but it is extremely rare for early XXX practitioners to not use an alias (cast of DEEP SLEEP has the usual phony credits).
Supposed comedy premise has our hero Uncle Harry Black (flatly played by Joseph Rose, a Jason Miller lookalike circa THE EXORCIST) unable to achieve an erection -he's tried pills but unluckily for him the Pfizer scientists were not to invent Viagra for another 25 years or so.
Opening has Uncle Harry coming home (in said Dodge Challenger) to find niece Kim Pope (wearing an awful wig) in bed with a guy who, like Harry, can't get it up. Pope unwisely criticizes each man for his impotence, so Uncle shoots both lovers, with exploding blood-pack overdone gore effects. Was Sole warming up for his short-lived horror movie career, which included a minor classic ALICE, SWEET ALICE? Perhaps, since in the '70s both porn and horror were the top entry points for aspiring filmmakers into show biz.
At this early point the film literally falls apart, entering the WTF? territory of botched cinema rather early in its game. IMDb lists a theatrical running time of 72 minutes, but the current Gourmet Video DVD lasts a scant 58 minutes -either way it's an hour of bad road.
We cut from the blood-everywhere crime scene to Uncle Harry attending Pope's funeral, nary a word said about him killing her or any other logical transition -for Mr. limp dick life merely goes on. Poorly edited opus (72 vs. 58 means the extant print used for video transfer may be at fault) has Uncle baring the breasts of Pope the corpse for some incipient necrophilia in her coffin, but the cutaway makes this merely a tease. Given the film's title, I would infer that the whole point of the film was removed by excising a "humping the dead Pope" scene.
Uncle goes to Dr. Harvey, who's busy fingering his busty nurse (later she's seen masturbating). The quack sends him to a maharishi (hammy guest star "P.J. Flyer" whoever that is, in a non-sex role) who specializes in helping folk with sexual dysfunctions.
There's lesbian sex at the maharishi's cult and Marc (credited as Mark) Stevens shows up to get a blow job and deliver a money shot. After more filler film climaxes with a confusing flashback montage involving Pope.
The only thing guaranteed about this junker is that the beautiful woman featured on the Gourmet video box cover never shows up in the movie. That's virtually a point of pride for this lowliest of porn companies.
As a huge Kim Pope fan I was extremely disappointed with her misuse here, as Sole seems to go out of his way to make one of the most beautiful actresses of both softcore and hardcore look bad. The rest of the cast is terrible (Harry Reems never shows up, but could very well have been in some excised footage).
For the record, after seeing VANISHING POINT I bought a 1972 blue Dodge Challenger, and in all these years since never saw a canary yellow one like the DEEP SLEEP vehicle out on the streets or at a drive-in. Yet a yellow Challenger does appear in the opening credits montage of "NCIS" on TV -what a coincidence.
