The Secrets of Bonnie and Clyde

Paul Thomas and Vivid Video attempted to milk the title for a couple more portions of gelt with a two-part Reboot sort of followup, but the results are poor. Other than the sex scenes, it's a total embarrassment.

Gimmick is to watch a film crew led by director Steven St. Croix shooting an erotic "Bonnie and Clyde" feature, and the behind-the-scenes behavior of the cast and crew mirroring those of the fictional characters. Raven Touchstone's scripts are poor, not up to her usual quality, and the enervating pace and direction by Thomas go nowhere. There's no action (i.e., as in a Western or gangster movie) at all, just sex and bickering.

Instead of Randy West and Ashlyn Gere who played the title roles in the original 2-part "B & C" film by PT, two players are upgraded to these parts, the team of Raquel Darrian and Derrick Lane. As a real-life couple they have sex bareback, with condoms popping up in other scenes.

Premise of this shoot is that Clyde Barrow is impotent, an element more subtly handled (remember the saxophone & Faye Dunaway?) in the Arthur Penn/Warren Beatty edition. Buck Adams overacts miserably as the film's producer who is ridiculously anxious that his better half Darrian will cheat on him and that is the sum total of the plot of the "real-life" story of the cast and crew.

Tara Monroe steals her scenes thanks to a huge chest and a freshness lacking in the other actresses, Raquel included, thanks to the "used up" aspect that cranking out endless porn scenes causes. Isis Nile as Derrick's harpy of a girlfriend is left out of the opening credits billing, typical sloppiness.

Costuming is given precedence over all else, as sort of period sexy lingerie indicates we're in the movie or at least in the makeup or wardrobe area, while modern lingerie (sans garter belts) appears for the off-screen, off-set sex footage. Asia Carrera has a lesbian scene, and her hubby Bud Lee can be seen lurking on the set briefly as he was the actual Vivid producer for this project.

This film (and I believe that it was shot on film) suffers from the mid-90s tendency of adult film producers to try to make more money by shooting a film and releasing it in two parts, on two different VHS tapes. So it ends without resolving all its issues. And to be fair to the writers, they really did try to give this one an interesting plot. Ostensibly, it's set behind the scenes on a pornographic remake of "Bonnie and Clyde" -- referenced by stating that Clyde Barrow was "impotent" -- with Racquel playing the part of an actress playing Bonnie, who's having relationship problems with a jealous husband and being tempted by her "Clyde."

Darrian, easily one of the most beautiful women to ever work in adult films, gives a pair of excellent scenes here, of which the better is her lesbian three-way with then-rookie Asia Carerra and Tara Monroe. (Amusingly, in her interview for "True Hollywood Story: Savannah", Darrian claims that she's not even remotely interested in women. She was clearly a much better actor than anyone has ever given her credit for being.) But the real winner in this film is the three-way between Monroe, Nichole London and some guy. (I could look up which guy it was, but it's not really important.)