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I'm a latter-day convert to Nick Millard's porn oeuvre, but MINK is something of a train wreck. The master of cinematic fetish has turned in a disappointing self-satire.

I never saw his films theatrically, as I was a Cleveland-resident film buff in the late '60s through the '70s, and his marginal efforts didn't get local bookings. To put things in perspective, a Russ Meyer hit like VIXEN grossed on the order of 100 times the usual takings for a Millard one-day wonder, and the fact that he was making basically silent films didn't impress the local film exchanges. Unlike his contemporary Joe Sarno, drive-ins had no use for his stuff either, and let's face it, he wasn't "underground enough" to qualify for the Cinema 16 midnight movie packages that spotlighted Andy Warhol, the Kuchar Brothers and Curt McDowell.

MINK is about a pair of siblings, defying their rich Hollywood dad and making an underground movie "of the streets". Too-heavy narration (a Nick trademark, executed miserably this time with mainly a male voice instead of the seductive femme voice-over) states the date of production as October 27, 1969, and the format is lifted from the international hit from Sweden, I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW). That Vilgot Sjoman film had yet to be cleared for U.S. release by the Supreme Court but I'm sure Nick saw it in Europe where he frequently shot movies of his own.

Donna is recording ambient sound as a femme version of Ben Burtt (!), randomly but aiming at collecting sexy tracks. She interviews all sorts of people on the street, asking inane questions a la Lena Nyman in CURIOUS: "What are your views on America today?", and the answers are even dumber. It's meant to be amusing but comes off as retarded. Nick very sloppily presents these segments out of sync, typical of the haphazard construction throughout MINK. It is evident he was just grinding out product with this one.

Brother Philip is shooting random footage, but like sis, aiming at sexy stuff, ultimately capturing lesbo action that is Nick's forte in cinema. Unfortunately absent are the trademark patent leather boots and other fetish paraphernalia that Nick's fans dote upon. Closest to this would be the attractive Donna masturbating with a vibrator in a nearly hardcore segment, but generally the sex footage in MINK is dull and mechanical.

After a boring hour of this filler a "five years later" epilogue has now glamorously coiffed Donna strolling along the beach in her mink coat as the voice-over informs us of her selling out by marrying a French director, hence the film's ironic title. Pretty cynical.

Nick found a video outlet 30 years after his theatrical career peaked, via Seduction Cinema, a New Jersey distributor on his wavelength, an indie company churning out lesbian-themed porn for a Maxim magazine generation of timid fans, usually starring Misty Mundae (for closet pedophiles) or Darian Caine (the original Megan Fox for the goth set). The coming attraction for HOW I GOT MY MINK got my attention, and now several years later its arrival on a Seduction triple feature DVD is a literal anticlimax. It is one of Nick's worst porn effusions, embarrassing compared to such quality fetish material as ROXANNA or L'AMOUR DE FEMME.

The self-described "film historian" (i.e., moron with website) who gets paid to shill these videos in DVD booklets foolishly takes the bait (Vadim anyone?) and interprets MINK as a story mocking Jane & Peter Fonda, rebelling against papa Henry. That reading is idiotic, when in fact MINK is a transparent lament by filmmaker Nick about his own situation: a second generation film industry brat on the fringes of Hollywood, who was an Ed Emshwiller/Bruce Conner wannabe in the experimental/underground film movement of the '60s, but ended up being a destitute man's Roberta Findlay. Like Roberta, his ambitions soon petered out, and he made a living anonymously cranking out quickie porn, ultimately failing in the third act of his career by creating terrible horror features. The current inversion in our culture, where bad is good, has given him belated notoriety.