Bud Lee's mystery feature "Guilty As Sin" for Adam & Eve Productions is a well- made video, with hot performances by talent I have enjoyed in more gonzo assignments but nice to see acting for a change. Big surprise was watching the highly informative (and lengthy at 42 minutes) Behind The Scenes bonus, which without any comment included several performers and snippets of their sex scenes who were entirely left on the cutting room floor.
That is an unusual aspect of these DVD versions with their extras, in that the interviews and footage gives no notion of what happened and why entire scenes/characters/subplots were removed. I will discuss these at the end of this review.
Nominal star Asia Carrera is actually just audience bait here, as this superstar wife of director Lee portrays an unnamed police detective working in tandem with unnamed partner Randy Spears on a murder case. Feature opens very stylishly with these two stars seen only as torsos in the frame as each one interrogates a prime suspect, Spears grilling Lesley Zen and Asia separately handling Steve Hatcher. Both suspects are permitted to smoke a cigarette, giving the video a period feel seen 14 years later.
Zen and Hatcher are both ex-cons, hired by the rich couple Kelsey Heart and Dillon Day to work at their mansion -she as Heart's assistant and he as a driver. We later find out that the murder victim was Mark Davis, the parole officer who got them their jobs there, and is up to no good (preying on ex-cons).
Lee's direction is concise and structurally sound, en route to a quickie solution at the end of the mystery, typical of the "let's wrap it up" nature of so much porn where the final sex scene is a signal that the story better end soon (as viewers are unfortunately watching primarily to see explicit sex).
Kelsey is a long-time favorite of mine, who made a great impression, via her spectacular nipples, with Mandingo for example in gonzo format. She is excellent as the mysterious lady of the house, and interacts well with Zen (including the expected lesbian scene), who is our stir-hardened heroine. Another gonzo favorite, the voluptuous Black actress Kitten, is also impressive in her supporting role as the housekeeper humped by Davis. In noir tradition, storyline emphasizes both Zen and Hatcher as victims of tough breaks, not actual criminal types.
Video runs 95 minutes, typical of an Adam & Even back circa 2002, but three full sex scenes are documented with brief snippets in the BTS with players missing in action. Zen has sex with her boyfriend Trevor Zen (took her stage name and new to the business when this was shot in Summer 2002). Trevor is interviewed at length and full of praise for director Lee and hopeful of his future in porn, so his being omitted entirely from the finished feature is surprising.
Similarly a brand-new actress Mariella (telling us this is just her fourth sex shoot ever) is shown humping "Scott", who proves to be Scott Nails but without his trademark huge back/shoulder tattoo, at the beginning of his career, too. She is interviewed, saying she will only do boy/girl with Scott at present, but both of them are missing from the final movie. The oriental actress Lucy Lee is prominently featured in the BTS. Her sex scene is with Steve Hatcher. Presumably, had all three missing XXX scenes with the missing talent been included in the final product it would have approached 2-1/2 hours in length, probably considered way too long in this VHS era.
Repeated references in the BTS also identify the project's shooting title as "Crimes of Sin", changed to the more evocative "Guilty As Sin" for release.
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