Scorched

Not too many happy couples working together behind the cameras in the porn industry. There was Edwin Brown a/k/a Durell and Sandra Winters who made IRRESISTIBLE and EVERY WOMAN HAS A FANTASY. Kirdy Stevens and his lady love Helene Terrie were responsible for the initial installments of the long-running TABOO series. Taking things a step further, Frank and Ona Zee (the latter an award-winning performer in movies like Sam Weston's STARLET and Michael Zen's SECRET GARDEN) formed their own video production company through which they instigated a couple of very popular series (the informative SEX ACADEMY features and LEARNING THE ROPES which dealt with bondage and discipline for a loving couples audience) and one (SEX FOR HIRE, halted after just two installments) that should have been, next to their more "prestigious" feature presentations, usually with a noir-ish slant. Therein lies the rub. To be done properly, this type of material needs a more substantial budget than the one the Zee's allocated to even their top of the line efforts, so most of these endeavors fell kind of flat. Exceptions were RAZOR'S EDGE and DEADLY SIN which benefited from strong central performances by Jeanna Fine and the underrated Sahara Sands respectively. SCORCHED manages to match these fine flicks.

In a story-line "borrowed" from MILDRED PIERCE, night club owner Ona Zee (terrific in a – sadly – non-sex role) is found at the crime scene after the murder of her fiancé Sean Rider and her wild child daughter Melissa Monet. A crime of passion or is Zee perhaps taking the blame for someone else ? In flashback footage, she reveals her past to detective E.Z. Ryder. Seems that Monet, a much overlooked performer by the way, was always causing trouble for mom, faking a pregnancy by her rich married lover Steve Drake just so she could get him to part with a stack of cash or making the hired help (maid Crystal Gold and butler Tony Martino) perform sexually for her masturbatory benefit. By contrast, her other daughter Kirsty Waay was as loving and supporting a spawn as any self-sacrificing noir mater could hope for. What has really happened here ?

The story works fine, not taxing the performers too much even though several of them, the women especially, seem quite capable. Not much star power on display here, so it was a chance for some underestimated talent to strut their stuff. Waay, at the beginning of an interesting career that somehow never really fulfilled its initial promise, and Monet shine as the contrasting offspring and each provides the kind of sex that makes good on this movie's title. Monet's hot with the ever dependable Drake. Waay has a totally sensuous Sapphic slurp with ravishing Rayveness and does a high voltage number with Alec Metro, but it's super-busty Gold who'll score with solo strokers in her scalding kitchen scene with a chomping at the bit Martino. That's above average for story and sex. Wish I could say the same for production. The video has a cold and flat look similar to early '80s shot on Betacam offerings but quite unacceptable for a feature of this vintage. Still, to quote Meat Loaf, 2 out of 3 ain't bad !