Games Women Play

This feature by Chuck Vincent plays like a real movie, albeit with explicit sex integral to its structure. With top players, he creates believable characters and directs their interactions with a light touch.

I was surprised to see Veronica Hart in a major role, as she is credited merely as "Randee Styles". Leadgoes to Merle Michaels, married to a philanderer ably played by Jack Wrangler.

As the cast's intertwining sexual relations and rivalries unfold, gossip starts to be spread concerning Hart's character Alice Walker, who everyone knew back in school, but has only recently popped up in Manhattan. Film ends quite stylishly with the false rumors about her all laid to rest in a party scene, tying up the story crisply within a 72 minute running time.

Another leading member of Vincent's movie troupe Kelly Nichols is impressive as a good-time girl, who shows up at a poker game to get gang-banged (for a fee) by players Ron Jeremy, Ron Hudd and Eric Ryan. Wrangler's role as a competitive ad exec is right out of the TV series "Mad Men", but preceding it by a couple of decades.

Chuck Vincent had quite a reputation in the 1970's and '80's as one of those directors whose filmmaking was going to help make the adult movie a legitimate and respected genre. From what I saw of his work he was a bit overrated. His films were ambitious, but were sometimes marred by technical flaws, bad lighting being a particular bugaboo. Such is the case with 'Games Women Play.' This looks at the love lives of several female characters at least employs some of the classier women working in the adult field at the time including Lesllie Bovee, Kelly Nichols, Veronica Hart and Merle Michaels.

Vincent gave up hardcore work in the early '80's and made some alleged comedies, often with some personnel from his former films. Many of these were execrable and I thought his so-called pornographic work had much more integrity. Vincent died relatively young in 1991.