Sin in the City

A few moments of nostalgia value is all that SIN IN THE CITY has to offer. This hastily made Barry Mahon effort is a lame slice of non-life.

For the umpteenth time, rube girls arrive in Gotham by bus at Port Authority, anxious to give the Big Apple a whirl. They're students from some boarding school (must have flunked repeatedly, they look 10 years too old) out for a single night on the town, vowing to be completely uninhibited. Sounds like porn.

Mostly shot MOS with some voice-over narration, this all-filler outing has them heading to Greenwich Village to dance topless atop a bar, three decades before "Coyote Ugly" time. Invited to a swinging party, they spend the rest of the film smoking pot and getting naked downtown, or when the snootiest of the bunch complains, heading to the UES to mingle at a swappers' party where all the guys wear tuxedos and the women are in evening gowns. Yeah, right.

I enjoy watching Gigi Darlene, Uta Erickson, Joanna Cunningham and Darlene Bennett go topless as much as the next guy, but the setting here is dull and stupid. Only highlight comes in the first reel when we're treated to a montage of Greenwich Village cafe/bar/club signs, recalling mostly long-gone (and forgotten) haunts: Cafe Wha? (I think it moved to its present spot in the '80s), Googie's, La Groceria, Four Winds, Night Owl Cafe, Miteras, Cafe Basement, Gaslight Cafe, Pizza Plaza, Duke's, The Dugout, The Gold Bug and Cafe Feenjon.

Acting in the direct-sound segments is quite poor, and overall not much of interest happens. More nostalgia occurs as a topless girl sits mesmerized by the wavering patterns of a lava lamp, while we listen to Mahon library music from one of his Lucky Kargo adventures. That's Entertainment, minimalist division.