Chuck Vincent indulged his silly side with this adult spin on TV's Rowan & Martin's LAUGH-IN, the insanely popular skit show that had recently gone off the air following a fertile five year run. With its mix of absurd sight and sound gags, broad swipes at politics and current affairs, doused with a good dose of then risqué sexual innuendo, the series might be regarded as a primitive precursor to Saturday NIGHT LIVE. Going all the way, BANG BANG belongs as much in a time capsule as the "real world" cathode ray tube classic that lay at the base of so much movie mayhem like THE GROOVE TUBE and KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, primarily because of its impressive line-up of New York's adult superstars of the period. Each takes on several roles over the course of the film. While the humor in Vincent and Chris Covino's script is typically hit 'n' miss, enough solid laughs survive to mark out the movie as a minor success in both their fabulous fornication filmographies.
The classic phone sex mix-up involving C.J. Laing and Jeff Hurst gets thing off to a roaring start. Each mistaking the other for his/her lover, they climax simultaneously through a consistent stream of seemingly ad-libbed dirty talk, the scene's static single take (still something of a TV trademark at the time) merely emphasizing the performers' prowess in this respect. Single shot Jamie Blume scores titters as the hostess of a cookery show demonstrating the Bulgarian Blow Job courtesy of test subjects Jennifer Jordan and co-author Covino in a rare screen sex turn.
Hurst returns as a hilariously New Yawk accented Mother Goose, offering unique ghetto readings of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood. Goldilocks is a platinum-afro-ed black hooker played by seldom seen Brenda Basse from Fred Lincoln's supremely silly SOUPERMAN a/k/a POWERBONE to sidestep that pesky copyright conundrum. As the three dikes have gone out to buy more booze, the girl helps herself to their drinks and dildo's with the expected results upon their return. Goldie gives as good as she gets, wearing down Marlene Willoughby, Lynn Bishop from Walters and Wertheim's LITTLE ORPHAN SAMMY and sharp-featured Cecilia Gardner from Armand Weston's EXPOSE ME, LOVELY. Lil' Red's C.J. taking the short cut through lover's lane and bumping into zoot-suited "wolf" Wade Nichols, who dons grandma guise and wants to put his lollipop in her ice box in another "howler" !
"Dr. Sherman Schnauzer Psychiatrist" offers a letter perfect send-up of sponsored '60s soaps right down to the Hammond organ score with deliberately arch acting from Hurst in the title role, receiving a visit from old flame Rebecca Brooke who preferred his estranged brother in the past and has now turned frigid. Recalling her sexual history since childhood in lurid detail, she barely seems to notice the good doctor's valid attempts at making her bells ring ! Joe Sarno's sexploitation muse and Radley Metzger's former girlfriend, Rebecca only performs simulated sex, going the whole hardcore hog on but two occasions : Metzger's stylish S&M saga THE IMAGE and his Continental com-padre Max Pécas' frothy FELICIA.
The bluntly moniker-ed game show "What the F*ck Do You Do?" has a porn star panel trying to guess just that as contestants Annie Sprinkle and Erica Eaton are chomping at the bit to exhibit their "special abilities" through tutelage by host Lance Knight, toy boat guy from Metzger's minor MaARASCHINO CHERRY. Should they beat the panel, the station offers an all expenses paid one way bus trip to exotic Gary, Indiana !
Interspersed throughout the movie are commercials, a smutty puppet show (featuring horny cow 'n' bull team Muff 'n Puff) and Vincent's regular character actor Marlow Ferguson as inept sexologist Dr. Webster dispensing bad advice to the carnally clueless like C.J. as a dimwitted damsel who believes the dirty old man standby that swallowing semen will make your boobs grow bigger ! An out of the blue Jordan and Gardner wrestling match notwithstanding, most effective eroticism is generated by a series of skits featuring various people being quizzed about their innermost fantasies. Jordan dreams of being mauled by a group of anonymous faceless men and women, although Annie's terrific tits are hard to miss, a situation mirrored by Alan Marlow's dockside "rape" by a bunch of switchblade-wielding amazons. Blume finally bares all, briefly grazing on Knight's gonads but everything else shrouded in shadows, breaking away from the enforced effervescence as a seen it all, done it all chick whose always out of reach fantasy's finding true love with the perfect soul mate, her last line a textbook example of Vincent's other persona : the King of Corny, forever vying with the Clown Prince to gain the upper hand, at least as far as his picture-providing psyche was concerned.
