In 1984 Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Cotton Club’ hit the big screens and brought tales of gangsters and the roaring 20s back to the public conciousness…Well; in 1985 ‘Trashy Lady’ would hit the market, clearly looking to try and mop up some of those people who got a little *too* enthused by the 20’s aesthetic.
The film stars Harry Reems as ‘Dutch’ a local mobster just trying to keep the day to day turf control at the top of his agenda…But he has a problem, after playing the old ‘Carefree horndog’ routine one time too many, his old lady has hit the bricks looking for a better life, leaving Dutch one vacancy for a dishy sidepiece! Enter Catherine (Ginger Lynn) an out of towner looking to set up shop in Dutches terratory. And after a brief chat (and a rename to ‘Kitty’ because Dutch prefers it) Kitty is The new Mrs. Dutch.
But therein lies another problem, Kitty is a ‘Lady’ and as such, she doesnt drink or smoke and only has VERY limited sexual experience. So! Dutch drafts in ‘Rita’ (Amber Lynn) the partner of the infamous Louie, a mobster currently serving time. Rita is notoriously a ‘Trashy Lady’ and Dutch wants her to teach Kitty how to be equally Trashy, but when word hits Louie that Ritas been travelling to Dutches apartment every day and staying there ALL day, Louie decides he doesnt want Dutch embarrassing him and a hits put out.
And this films actually a pretty open and shut case. as far as it being an adult feature goes, it does what it does fairly well. Theres a good mixture of sex scenes, the composition of the shots is handled proficiently the direction isnt exactly “strong” but more than gets the job done and isnt afraid to experiment a little bit.
The edits tight, I feel like they get the plot to sex scene ratio pretty bang on, the pacings pretty solid, at an hour and 25 it zips along pretty nicely…
My only issue with it really is the charactarization. The cast are kind of forced into putting on strong silly accents and the dialogues literally almost all filler, just stuff to get you to the next scene. And while I can handle a little bit of that kind of stuff outside of ‘parody’ terratory. When the film is largely trying to come across as fairly ‘straight laced’ it made the bad accents feel VERY cringey.
I feel like had it ‘committed’ more and just been a full on parody of ‘The Cotton Club’ and other 20’s and 30s set features…I probably would have gotten on with it a bit better. As it stands, the script feels very one note and rushed, it doesnt really embrace the era on a story level (its all visuals really) and as such It just ends up coming across as a bit awkward, like the cast arnt entirely sure if they’re supposed to be playing it straight, comedically or knowingly dry. As such, everyone has a swing at one of the styles and it just ends up a bit messy as a result.
OH! and theres also some moments where the sets look VERY flimsey. theres a scene in a bar near the beginning where one of the cast leans on whats (supposed) to be a metal railing…and it bends…so the guy has to gently hover on it for most of the scene.
A lot of the 20’s penthouse suites are clearly just 3 wall 80s bedroom sets with wall lights mounted on them and vintage furnature and items haphazardly thrown around. and I noticed AT LEAST two instances where they’d clearly bought 80s catalogue furnature and (badly) painted them with 20s art deco stylings to make them look older than they are. But they didnt have enough money for paint, because it looks like they only did one coat on most of the ‘upcycles’
That combined with the fact that there isnt really anything ‘new’ or interesting on show with this film really kind of holds it back from going to the next level…As it stands, this is just a pretty sturdy mid-level feature that meets its brief, nothing more, nothing less. Which is simultaineously its biggest asset, and its biggest problem.
I kind of wished theyd gone the extra mile, as theres definitely potential for a fun movie here…but as it stands…I was just kind of left feeling ‘Meh’.
TYTD Reviews 