Thursday, December 17, 2020

Taboo American Style 1: The Ruthless Beginning (1985)

 

Back to classic adult cinema with a big budget Henri Pachard's production, so big that it was released in four parts. 

This first part is mostly a spiced up soap opera written without a credit by the excellent Rick Marx about two families: The Sutherland who are upper class and the Chinaski who are middle class.

Gloria Leonard

The matriarch controls her family and doesn't want any of her kids circling around the Chinaski's kids since they are socially inferior, of course we know that advice like this never works on the contrary. 

Paul Thomas

Nina (Raven) and Lisa (Taija Rae) are best friends and even worst for Emily, Lisa frequent the Sutherland's boy but the mother control the son so she can put an end to that story (at least she think she does).

Taija Rae

So everyone does whatever they want to do until the mother catch her daughter in the bed with the Chinaski's son and, of course, she will play it holier than thou going right at Jack Chinaski's house to make him aware of the situation and threaten him since Jack is the Sutherland handy man.

Robert Kerman

Now if there is something we know it's that those holier than thou people are hypocrite do as I say not as I do people which means that Emily have her secret... a relation with Jack on the side! A relation that will be her Waterloo when Nina will catch them and tell her father to change the balance of power in the family.

Raven

With her mother out of the portrait Nina will easily manipulate her weak father using her sexuality and this is where the first episode stop.

Personally I've always found that film (if we count the four episodes) superior to Kirdy Stevens' Taboo. The casting and the acting is perfect, I have always said that Taija Rae should have been a star in the mainstream cinema industry but we all know how ridiculous Hollywood was, is and will always been. Don't expect wall to wall sex, which is fine with me considering that I was never a fan of endless sex scenes, but if you want a good story that make sense and take its time to develop this is for you. Also we get an incest theme without that BS step brother / mother / daughter / brother non-sense who are used today as if it was a big forbidden word that would bring the police state to shut down the industry...

Tom Byron

Sadly the DVDs are quite bad, no surprise here since it's VCA and they don't really give a fuck so go for a rent (there is no extras on the discs so you won't missed anything) or you can watch it free if you have a Gamelink Unlimited account. 

Part two coming tomorrow...

2 comments:

  1. Super late, but these are from someone named "Fat Dog" rather than VCA at least as far as the current DVD/streaming versions. VCA has many faults, but these aren't among them! (I find their transfers pretty good though usually cut.)

    My understanding is the "step" situation is due to credit card processors. Which tickles me to imagine them having a meeting in a corporation over it.

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    1. Old habits are hard to loose... at least I didn't blame Caballero for them.

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