Wendy's Naughty Night

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This Nick Mallard film runs a lot longer than most of his work and it at least attempts to try and tell some sort of a story. The film is based around Wendy () who tells some sexual tales, which leads to another insane Millard ending.

WENDY'S NAUGHTY NIGHT is a fairly forgettable film outside of some of the cast members. Kathy Hilton and Linda York turn up at the end of the movie and they take part in a hardcore sequence, which from what I've read, was rare for them to do as they mostly stayed into softcore.

Another thing that keeps the film moving is Boyd. I thought she was good in the role, although it really didn't have her do anything special. She was at least a nice image on the screen to take you through the overlong film. At 89-minutes the film is way too long and especially when you consider that most of the director's films are under a hour.

A lot of the sex scenes appear to have been loops or shot for another movie so perhaps they were just added to turn it into a hardcore picture.

Coming toward the end of Nick Millard's porno career, WENDY'S NAUGHTY NIGHT exemplifies why he gave up the ghost of being an erotic director. Hardcore had arrived and he was too bored to adapt to its pre-eminence in the marketplace.

This hodge-podge of a film, running a way-way overlong 90 minutes (59 was the norm for a Nick feature), is frankly a mess. It can only be enjoyed (or endured) by fans of Nick's particular oft-appearing fetishes & techniques: lovely female nipples, patent-leather boots, black stockings or patterned hose plus garter belt, shoe/foot fetishism, lesbian sex, softcore tease, harsh lighting, gaudy pastel color schemes.

The single improvement here is Nick's dropping (thank God!) of the annoying female narrator who drives one up the wall reciting his nonsensical purple prose in voice over on dozens of his films.

Instead, WENDY'S (not to be confused with the hamburger chain, which maintains a far higher level of consistency in its product) has three talkie sequences, all poorly done with bad sound editing, uneven sound levels, bored/flat readings by star Eve Orlon & co. Though Nick began his career doing talkies a decade earlier with NUDES ON CREDIT he apparently forgot the technique due to relying on MOS shoots ever since, and it shows here.

Film appears to have been conceived (to borrow that odd term from the recent trailer for the James Cameron production SANCTUM, "conceived in 3-D") as a softcore film. Opening scene has Eve Orlon as Wendy humping her creepy boy friend and red-monochrome closeup shots are inserted in the action to make it XXX.

Orlon was a popular hard porn actress, but she does not participate in any insertion shots at all in WENDY'S. Later in the film there are several hardcore sex sequences, but they are merely shot like loops, thrown into the film with Orlon merely watching as a voyeur, the oldest trick in the book.

Flimsy plot is introduced in a direct sound conversation, positing Wendy as a student living off her rich parents (she even absurdly drives a Jaguar), and supporting her would-be writer of a boy friend Steve (familiar porn face John Paul Jones). He's instantly dislikable, cheating on her with an attractive blonde girl early in the film.

She visits her shrink and explains in the second direct sound sequence that she prefers lesbian sex, illustrated by a lengthy flashback of her with beautiful blonde Barbara (unidentified actress) doing what comes naturally. Plus shoe-in-crotch action, a Nick fetish.

Driving around town she finds two sets of couples making love, one strictly hardcore with an arousing bout of fellatio in closeup and the other (turning into a threesome when a second gal arrives) essentially softcore with simulated fellatio and a hand job that results in XXX ejaculation.

When she finally arrives home after a hard day of voyeurism (title's reference to "NAUGHTY NIGHT" is pure bunk, as all the action takes place in daytime) she gives Steve a greasy (courtesy of cold cream) hand job which gets him erect, but the subsequent riding him sex scene is a dry hump -no insertion shown.

Film's long-awaited 3-minute finale is the telling scene. In typical Nick Freudian Slip fashion, she expresses terminal boredom, leading to an impromptu game of Russian Roulette replete with ineffective momentary cheapo gore effect. Finis.

That ending pretty much summed up Nick's attitude as a filmmaker -he was very bored shooting the same movie over & over, ground out like sausage. Unlike his peers he never had a hit (no INGA like Sarno or VIXEN like Russ Meyer), and like so many softcore directors thought of hardcore as mere stag loops and wasn't interested in grinding out hundreds of XXX junkers. So he killed off his porn career, re-emerging as an incompetent horror director several years later just in time for a generation or two (or three) of empty-headed fans to appreciate his incompetence.

Since the sex scenes plod along, way overextended, film's soundtrack takes dominance, as Nick adds to his familiar harpsichord jazz some atonal 3rd Stream/Free Jazz tracks which usefully keep the audience awake. There are some diverting sexual moments (would that they had been edited down properly as in a "real" sex film), notably the hand job scenes and the closeup blow job by an unidentified bit player.

Orlon was a decent actress, having given OK performances in such roles as the teacher in LOVE AFTER SCHOOL, but under Nick's direction she is dull, dull, dull. This could have been a showcase for her, but that would have required an actual script and a bona fide movie director on set.

In my opinion this film has merit for 2 reasons. While most of the film sucks and is quite boring, there is a scene towards the end featuring Kathy Hilton. And while she mainly is soft core, with a little dabbing into hard core, this is the first film in which led to a male ejaculation, as Kathy puts her hand to good use.

About halfway through the scene Kathy is joined by another woman: Linda York. Best known for soft core work, Linda assists Kathy, using her hand as a stimulator. I am fairly well versed in early 70's porn, but Linda York doing hard core was a surprise to me. A little research and I found out that she has done several hard core scenes. Who knew?

As such, the combo of the two actresses working together to get their male co-star off, resonated with me. As for the rest of the film...there was no rest of the film.