After Hours Cinema | Buy at Amazon | Review
by Crites
After a standard rasher of trailers, disc one of the deluxe double-DVD Rene Bond Roughie Triple Feature package rolls right into RENDEZVOUS IN HELL, directed by Jimmy De Knight. A vintage red Maverick pulls up at a gas station, and at gunpoint some grease monkey is forced to... shammie his hands? A whole lotta confusing shit happens involving a white convertible, a gunshot, and a bunch of people running around, and the next thing we know the Maverick is tearing ass through the streets of Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, holed up in some shotgun shack, a couple of trashy dames are waiting for another pair of trashy dames. When they arrive trash talk ensues, and it's told that the ladies' four ambitious and able-bodied boyfriends are even now out knocking over a gas station. Instead of holding up a bank, or anything that would net them more than $96.00. "Welcome to Hell," says one of the broads, and she ain't kidding.
With nothing else to do but read magazines, the chicks soon start getting it on with each other. And for the record, none of these gals are top-quality felines. Even Ms. Bond's looking a little sloppy here. So it goes without saying that the cat-licking is none too arousing. (On an odd aside, one of the girls kind of looks like the little sister from SQUIRM.)
Much hairy bush-gnawing later, the gals' old men come home and, having apparently blundered their feeble heist, proceed to beat hell out of the broads with their belts. Or at least pretend to – there's not a lot of fight in anybody here.
A make-up makeout follows, during which the radio announces that during a recent gas station hold-up an attendant was critically wounded. It turns out the guys in the white convertible were cops who gave chase, but the suspects got away.
Thinking fast, the guys decide to party. One girl breaks out the booze (well, she's told to, anyway) while another breaks out the boobs. And the jelly roll. Soon they all get undressed and couple up for some Pillsbury porking. A gooey cumshot or two follows, and you can practically smell the romance.
Over the radio it is announced that the gas station attendant has just died. That tears it for the black dude, who jumps up and tries to split. But one of the white cats pops him before he can reach the door, and his girl gets shot as well for daring to object. Well, at least that evens things out a bit. For dramatic effect the camera sweeps upward to zoom in on... the stage rafters?
Rene and her fellow retire to a back bedroom to get it on in private. But as they get down to it they're interrupted by the fat bitch, who is apparently also crazy as she stabs them both to death without explanation.
One of the other "gangsters" runs in and guns the girl down, then returns to the living room to watch the last surviving couple have white trash motel sex in front of him. Hell, he even moves in for a piece himself.
After that, they all just sit around waiting for the sirens.
The second feature on disc one, THE PARTNERSHIP, begins with a sweet black Cadillac picking up young Ms. Tucker in a suburban neighborhood. The Caddy is driven by Mr. Charlie Logan, who is collecting his secretary in order that she might accompany him to a business meeting.
Cut to some garish fuck pad where some pretty young thing on a combination of drugs and a pretty older dame are lounging on the couch. Big Bill comes in, hungover, shortly before Logan and Tucker arrive. Bill can only stand the briefest of business talks, and brushes off Logan so that he can retreat to sleep it off. The older broad, Lil, takes charge, leading Logan into another room and proceeding to lay into him.
Out in the living room a new broad, Bridgit (Rene Bond), comes in and starts feeling up Ms. Tucker. When the prudish secretary resists, Bill's male assistant steps in to occupy Bridgit's attentions. The stoned-looking girl meanwhile goes into Bill's room and starts playing with him. Everybody starts going at it, with lots of bushy oral foreplay. Everybody except for Ms. Tucker that is, who's content to play solitaire in the living room.
But after we're treated to a pearl necklace shot, Tucker suddenly gets the hot pants. "I'm tired of playing the old maid!" she declares, stripping down and climbing into bed with Lil and her boss. Jumping right up on Logan's Johnson, Ms. Tucker rides him until he spews all over her ass.
Still nude, all three run into Bill's room and pile onto the bed for a goopy free-for-all. Much zits on ass later the film climaxes with a montage of money shots and orgy highlights.
Disc two's feature film is THE HEIST. A doughy Goldie (Rene Bond) and her John Joey have just called a girlfriend of hers to come over and join them in the sack. See, Goldie doesn't like it in the mouth, and her friend Gloria "doesn't like it in the cunt," so between the three of them there's a semi-swinging time on the horizon.
But that ain't Gloria knocking at the hotel room door just now; two burly goons, Sam and Charlie, have tailed Joey to Chicago from Los Angeles to collect the cash he owes their boss, Big Mike. Joey's got some of the money on him, but he's a little short. The muscle boys give him a week to pay it back, with interest, and instead of taking it out of his ass they're gonna take it out of Goldie's. And Gloria's, who couldn't have picked a worse time to walk into the room. A sloppy, softcore four-way follows.
Joey walks the streets, desperately scheming away, but the most he can manage is a petty liquor store knock-off. Advice from a goon says, "You were big in the porno movie business one time. All you've got to do is shoot a couple of reels and you've got the bread." That's a little more complicated than what Joey-boy was planning, but he doesn't really have much choice, seeing as how he's got less than two days to tally up.
Setting up the hotel bedroom as a makeshift studio, Joey calls down for one of the hotel's stenographers. Who, of course, is more than eager to break into Joey's world of "Hollywood." And after eight rums on the rocks, she does. (Now there's a fun drinking game: how many drinks does it take until you're a porn star?)
Joey's got her naked and spreadeagled on the bed in the very next scene. "You sure are a fine producer," she exclaims as he goes down on her for the camera. The sex is extremely unremarkable, by the way, with close-ups of the faces taking the place of penetration.
Meanwhile, Sam and Charlie are still banging away at Goldie and Gloria, but it's pretty much the same deal and we really don't care about that. Except for the fact that they get a call from Big Mike, telling them to pay a visit to his daughter Candy there in Chicago after they've taken care of business.
Next thing we know the work is complete, and Joey hands over the reel of film to Big Mike's boys. They airmail the thing to L.A. so Big Mike can begin distribution right away, then swing by to see the boss' daughter. And who should they find but Candy, who just couldn't be more excited about the beginning of her new career...
A special footnote to this flick: although there's no real sex or action to speak of (sure, there's some cunnilingus, but eating pussy does not a porn classic make), and the sound is terrible, man o' man, what a mutton chop-o'rama!
Also on this disc is a truly massive trailer vault, providing greasy glimpses of the extensive 8mm MADNESS, STOREFRONT FEATURE, and GRINDHOUSE DIRECTOR SERIES lines of re-releases.
Grainy, poorly-dubbed, washed-out, sleazy, cheap sex action at it's lowest. Yeah, these are rough all right – rough on your sense of arousal, that is. Whoever put this together really reached down, back and deep for these soiled nuggets. I guess in an archival sense that's all right, but I don't think most of the target demographic is watching this in order to take notes on 20th Century stag, do you? Christ, each of these reminds me of the kind of bad porno you'd pass around as a kid, knowing that while it really wasn't that good, well, it was the only one you had.
Apparently Rene Bond had something of a following, thanks to the number of films in which she appeared. Not being a particularly big fan myself I haven't seen many of these outings, but the films presented here simply cannot be some of her best. She is just not in fine form here, looking like she's headed straight down the slippery slope to the sticky stool at the end of a dive bar. All the liner notes have to say on the subject of her end is, "Reports of her early death appear to be true."
One of the things the liner notes also mention a couple of times is that this set of "saved' films belongs to the "found in the trash, but don't call it garbage" family. Given the quality of the material and its place in the pornography kingdom, I'm very comfortable with keeping it in the garbage family.
Additional bonus materials include a full color set of liner notes and a fold-out mini-poster of the DVD cover.
