Before he hit paydirt with his classic "Taboo" series of films, Kirdy Stevens made this half-hearted period movie, about a brothel set in San Francisco during the 1930s. Poor casting, editing and anachronisms stick out.
The mechanical XXX sex scenes are very poorly edited, tossed into the movie willy-nilly belying the fact that they're original footage, since they play more like paste-up excerpts. Inexplicably, there are two scenes of customers being introduced and going off with their assigned prostitutes, but "scene missing", all we see is them returning later to pay up.
Dyanne Thorne, a renowned softcore performer, has a NonSex role as Frenchie, the brothel madam. She does an endless impression of Mae West for this role, initially amusing with its familiar wisecracks but wearing out its welcome long before the final reel. Seemingly the show's highlight, this overdone turn backfires and drags the movie down.
Three prostitutes are cast with unattractive unknowns, limiting the appeal of the sex footage. Studs include busy talent like John Holmes, Rick Lutze and Turk Lyon, last named delivering a long-distance cum shot that is played three times in succession as a gag. Holmes has his big, flaccid dick on view for the rest of the cast to comment upon in familiar "How big!' reactions.
Male hairdos are strictly '70s, not '30s, with a couple of the actor styled a la Richard Simmons. Main set of the brothel waiting room plus the costumes are okay, but music is awful, mainly ragtime that was popular decades earlier. Nostalgia mocking radio programs plus an intended "comical" voice-over ending of a police raid all falls flat.
