Paul Thomas's production team made this Janine vehicle for Vivid Video with cameramen Ralph Parfait and Guillermo Brown kicked upstairs to creative roles: director and screenwriter respectively. It has a certain quirky charm, and exciting premise, but peters out in the final reel, leaving the viewer unsatisfied. Nice try though, and the reward was that the movie completed in August 1997 was not released until two years later.
Janine stars as a successful model, whose manager Herschel Savage is pressuring her to expand her career (unspecified) to earn big bucks, but she resists. As bad luck would have it, she is attacked on the sidewalk while roller blading and left unconscious, possibly raped. A lovely fellow roller blader (Alyssa Love) finds her and discovers Janine's head injury has resulted in amnesia, and takes her to a police station for help.
Meanwhile, we've seen Herschel's true colors, as he sweet talks Janine's shy housemaid (the beautiful Dee) and has her dress up in a fetish maid costume owned by Janine for photo shoots, and has her try some role playing with him, resulting in XXX action. Yes, he's promised her a movie career, just like his bullshit with client Janine.
Examined by Dr. Johnson (Randi Rage in an unusual lesbian role) to check for possible rape, Janine orgasms during the gloved hands intrusive exam, during which lady Johnson takes advantage of her. This is followed up by yet another lesbian scene for Janine (shooting strictly girl/girl sex for Vivid at the time) when she goes home with Alyssa. Highlight of the movie is a spotlight turned on Alyssa Love, who is featured solo as dancer in both opening and closing credits sequences, and does an experimental performance art dance for Janine that is quite impressive.
Love has the bright idea that Janine's tattoos (she only has a couple here, not the overdone look she later sported in her career nearly a decade later) could be a clue to her identity, and sure enough, a visit to a famous tattoo parlor has Janine immediately recognized by a redhead dominatrix there who knows her well, played by Chandler in a very showy role. Chandler goes domme to submissive Janine in a very kinky scene, but ultimately Janine escapes her clutches, still not cognizant of who she used to be before her injury.
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT:
The tattoo parlor notifies Savage that missing person Janine has been found, and the key plot twist in the script has him creating a new stage name for her (Anal Annie) and booking Janine for a porn shoot. Rather than protecting his number one client he's throwing her to the wolves, as fans (at the time) were painfully aware that Janine doesn't f*ck boys on screen, and likewise the character she's playing (who the script hints is a porn fetish star, not a XXX performer), so when she's suddenly thrust into shooting an anal scene with Derek Lane as (what else?) a pizza delivery boy -Janine is really in trouble!
The sex scenes and acting has been just fine up to this point, but director Parfait rushes through the finale, tying up the story's loose ends and saving the day just in time, as Janine comes to her senses. No anal action via a condomed Derek cock occurs -whew! And an interesting if gimmicky story of betrayal and gaslighting ends abruptly.
Wannabe screenwriter Guillermo Brown didn't learn his lesson, later writing an Adam & Eve picture for superstar Carmen Luvana titled "Carmen Inked", again with a tattoo gimmick theme. Director Parfait is still going strong after a 30-plus year career as cameraman, no longer directing.
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