SEX ON CAPITOL HILL: GRINDHOUSE DOUBLE FEATURE

The tireless perverts at After Hours Cinema are back with another double-helping of 70s smut, this time in the form of THE PRESIDENTIAL PEEPERS and ALL THE SENATOR'S GIRLS.

THE PRESIDENTIAL PEEPERS hails from 1975 and is notable as being the last known screen performance from the alluring Tina Russell (THE FILTHIEST SHOW IN TOWN).

"Watergate was only the tip of the iceberg", an earnest voiceover states as the film opens. An off-screen agent then opens a briefcase to reveal a "Top Secret" file inside - a file that promises to reveal what really happened behind the scenes during the Watergate scandal ...

The voiceover continues as we home in on Capitol Hill after the brief opening titles. We meet the President (Richard M Nixon), who is popular with his people but behind closed doors is clearly disturbed by the lack of decency in American society.

Next we see the President addressing his public, advising that he is sending his two female aides Rosemary (Gretchen Mann) and Haldebug (Tina Russell) undercover to discover whether pornography really exists.

They soon learn that it certainly does exist, as the President observes through a keyhole while his pair of lovelies get fucked.

Back in his office, the President meets with his female assistants once more and is introduced to a Chinese aide (Mei Ling) who has been sent to help with this dilemma (don't ask, it's all nonsense). Whatever, this scene acts simply as a flimsy springboard into another set piece of hairy copulation with the President watching: "This is disgusting ... vile ... definitely pornographic".

While the Chinese aide flies back to her native country to discuss how best to eradicate the growing international problem of pornography, Haldebug finds a more direct way of researching the subject - visiting the home of one pornographer who poses as a T-shirt salesman, Henry (Marc Stevens).

Following a spot of dildo play, Haldebug is rodgered good-and-proper by Henry before returning to the President's office and telling him she knows where he can find some real live pornographers...

The film continues in this manner, fusing non-erotic sex scenes that are so badly edited that many don't even include money shots, with painfully lengthy speeches from the President that ramble on in seemingly improvised fashion.

Sweaty, hirsute sex scenes abound in PEEPERS, set to quirky comical music while Nixon - who looks and sounds vaguely like the real Nixon - overacts dreadfully as the wide-eyed voyeur who deduces that pornography is the nation's biggest foe ... and enlists the bungling FBI to deal with it in slapstick manner.

PEEPERS is not a good film, even by no-budget 1970s porno standards. In terms of sex, there's hardly anything that sticks in the mind (one scene of cum-swapping stands out, to be fair). Stevens looks like he's having fun, but Russell looks disappointingly emaciated and ghostly white.

Elsewhere the film is badly framed, ugly to look at and in the mid-section seems to morph into a completely different film: a montage of clumsily compiled porno loops from varying sources. Bizarre.

When the story finally gets vaguely back on track, we get more Russell in the form of an interracial anal threesome and the President spying on little Tina receiving a facial from Stevens. But by this point it's hard to care. And ultimately, as game as Russell is, it's a crying shame that the far sexier Mann is so underused.

Helen Madigan and Ugly George also feature.

1977'S ALL THE SENATOR'S GIRLS starts with Senator Frank Parsons (the wonderfully named Glenn Swallow) meeting and greeting his adoring public while newspaper headlines reveal how he won his position in the polls by taking on the thorny issue of smut. Regardless of this, a solemn voiceover still asks "how did he get this far?".

Well, this is what the film reveals in the space of 58 minutes. We're then taken back to the beginning of Frank's rise in prominence, where he's woken at home early one morning by the telephone ringing. Even his sexy brunette wife Lois (Beverly Hutton) beside him - sporting the most perfectly defined tan lines ever - can't shake Frank's commitment to his campaign; he spurns her naked advances and makes haste to the office where he's needed.

While Lois pleasures herself in his absence with the help of a dildo and a female friend, he goes to the office and talks business over the telephone while his secretary performs fellatio on him (this leads to another badly lit facial). Ironically, the conversation he's having at the time is determining an angle for his political campaign: to stamp out pornography.

The following day Frank is invited on corrupt businessman Gaylord Wheeler's (Rod Harris) yacht, the S.S. Waterbed, for a discussion on how to further his campaign. Frank takes along a couple of female aides and his wife, who soon get friendly with their fellow girl passengers in the onboard bar.

For a short while Frank's attention remains on getting his work done, but of course it's not long before he's pumping away at oddly unattractive assistant Sue (Valerie Parker). Meanwhile, below deck, fatty Gaylord and Frank's right-hand-man Dick Coxe (Alan Sterling) get in on the fun with a dark-haired babe. While they stuff the filly's every hole, the remaining girls turn lesbian in their quarters.

It all ends, as films of this era often did, with the predictable orgy. This is shown as an often soft-focus succession of sweaty visages and pasty flesh grinding away, with a fair bit of bum-fucking thrown in for good measure. Perhaps the only novelty factor is witnessing the grotesquely obese Harris sweatily hump away at the likes of the beautiful Hutton.

GIRLS is passable entertainment, although at the same token it's instantly forgettable. Aside from the stunning Hutton, none of the performers are memorable and the sex is strictly by-the-numbers. The storyline is, of course, neither here nor there - an afterthought, in fact.

Both films are presented in anamorphic 1.78:1. PEEPERS looks particularly rough, baring worn colours on it's extremely scratched print. Mastered from an original 16mm negative, it's a battered print that's used - but for a "lost" film from over thirty years ago, we should be thankful to see it at all. Likewise, GIRLS is faded and riddled with vertical lines throughout. We wouldn't have these films any other way ...

The English mono audio tracks provided for each film are reasonably clear and clean, with only minor background noise on occasion. PEEPERS fairs slightly better than GIRLS here, with a more consistent track. Also it should be noted that GIRLS is presented in an "enhanced" version with some soundtrack music substituted, presumably for copyright reasons.

A colourful animated main menu page kicks the disc off. Although neither feature has a scene-selection menu, both films have the following chapters: PEEPERS (11 chapters); GIRLS (10 chapters).

As is now the norm with these "grindhouse" multi-features, After Hours Cinema have included their "Grind It!" option on the main menu page. This allows you to watch both films in a single double-bill style, complete with trailers in the interval. Failing that, you can choose to view each film individually.

The only extras on the disc are trailers for (deep breath) 8MM MADNESS, A TOUCH OF GENIE, BEYOND THE BUSTY STAGS, BUSTY SUPERSTARS OF THE 1970S, CHIC 69, COLLEGE COED CORRUPTION, DARIAN CAINE EXPOSED, DEVIATE SEX THRILLS, EURO TRASH COLLECTION, EXTREME SLEAZE COLLECTION, FILTH ON 42ND STREET, FORCED ENTRY, GRINDHOUSE HONEYMOON, GRINDHOUSE HOSTAGE, GRINDHOUSE OCCULT COLLECTION, GRINDHOUSE TRASH COLLECTION, GRINDHOUSE TRASH 2 COLLECTION, GRINDHOUSE TRASH 3 COLLECTION, GRINDHOUSE VIRGIN COLLECTION, GUNILLA, DIARY OF A NYMPH COLLECTION, PLAYGIRLS OF MUNICH, PRESIDENTIAL PEEPERS, SEX ON 42ND STREET, SEX ON SUNSET STRIP, SEX ON WHEELS COLLECTION, SEX SLAVES OF THE SS, SEX STARLETS OF THE 70S, SEXORCISM, SEXUAL FREEDOM IN DENMARK, WEIRDOS AND ODDBALLS COLLECTION and WEST GERMAN GRINDHOUSE. Phew!

Also included in this generous package is a nice fold-out 6-page colour booklet with worthy liner notes from the ever-reliable Michael J Bowen.

Plenty of pasty flesh and hairy hardcore shenanigans are to be had in this nicely priced double-bill offering. The films aren't prime examples of 70s porn by any stretch, but they will no doubt lure in the curious ... if only for the ample performance of Russell in PEEPERS.

Review by Stuart Willis