Trinity Brown - Voyeur

3/27/13

"Trinity Brown" - 1986

Starring: Colleen Brennan, John Leslie, Kimberly Carson, Tamara Longley, Joey Silvera

Director: Robert McCallum

Run Time: 91 min

A car chase through the darkened streets leads cop Trinity Brown (Colleen Brennan) to shoot a thug in defense of her partner Zack Fredricks (John Leslie). In another part of town Frankie Carbone (Joey Silvera) and Angela Fortuna (Tamara Longley) dance then have sex in a well-lit bedroom scene, while mobster hubby Tony plays poker. Tony comes home early and is shot at about the same time that Carbone exit's the house. And so begins this excellent x-rated crime drama.

Robert McCallum takes a simple cop story and dresses up the search for Tony's killer with fully loaded sex scenes, that are wonderfully photographed and edited. "Trinity Brown" is a superb example of a well-crafted film that made director McCallum so well respected in the late 1970's to the mid-1980's.

It's hard-core in an x-rated sense but not too hard-boiled in the crime drama sense as a few shootings occur off camera, all the while, a knife wielding Carbone does not seem to pose much of a threat.

"Trinity Brown" hit's the mark with a number of sex scenes as the two cops suck and fuck their way to solving the case.

Colleen Brennan (aka Sharon Kelly) who made her career in 1970's sexploitation films before turning hard-core in 1982 does an excellent performance as Trinity Brown. This is perhaps one of her best, if not the best film of her hard-core career. She proves here what a good actress she is, and how fiery she is as a true blue sexpot. John Leslie does another fine performance, that just proves he can truly act, and could've crossed over into mainstream films. Tamara Longley does a surprisingly good performance as well. All in all, a very good film with a very good cast.

*****

"The Voyeur" - 1986

Starring: Robert Bullock, Jack Wrangler, Sheri St. Claire, Taija Rae

Director: Chuck Vincent

It's not everyday that you pick up an x-rated film that compares itself to Hitchcock. It is also not everyday that you actually watch an x-rated film that truly reminds you of Hitchcock. But that's exactly the case on both accounts with Chuck Vincent's "Voyeur".

The film centers on Julius Kurtz (Robert Bullock) a bitter ex-cop who is hired by lawyer Quentin Jones (Jack Wrangler) to spy on an attractive socialite Lauren Aldridge (Sheri St. Claire). It seems as if Aldridge is buying up the stock in a certain company, and Jones' boss wants to know what she's up to. Of course Kurtz slowly becomes obsessed with Aldridge, loses his wife (Taija Rae) as a result, and is stunned when he discovers who Jones' boss really is.

So, how is it Hitchcockian? Well, Kurtz clearly is a combination of the Jimmy Stewart characters from "Rear Window" - 1954 and "Vertigo" - 1958. At first he follows Aldridge in his car, and fans of "Vertigo" know what that means, prolonged sequences where the only audible noise is the musical score. Eventually, he figures out where she lives, and rents an apartment in the building across from hers. His leg isn't broken, and he is not in a wheel chair, but this is pretty much "Rear Window". Instead of watching her commit murder, he witnesses having sex with a maid and butler on the balcony, and then later having sex with a convict on a day pass on the same balcony. All the while, her husband/bodyguard stays in the background with a blank expression on his face. These sex scenes, of course, are filmed from Kurtz's point of view, and as a result they are highly erotic. In fact St. Claire is consistently depicted in this manner through the film, not just during the sex. So, Vincent creatively meshed together two of the best American films of all time, and did it for an x-rated film no less.

Unfortunately, he didn't have Hitchcock on-set with him to manipulate the actors into delivering the proper performances. While St. Claire and Wrangler need no improvement, Bullock and Rae sure could have used some help. Their non-sex scenes together are increasingly wooden particularly the penultimate one that ends with her crying; "I hate you. I don't love you anymore!" Bullock replies to this cold declaration by melodramatically punching their apartment's front door as if he were the lead singer of A-ha and hitting the door repeatedly would turn him from black and white to color (a reference to the music video "Take On Me"). You get the feeling that Bullock was handed the role of his career, and he just didn't quite have the acting chops to pull it off. Luckily, St. Claire was up for the challenge.

The plot is good, and Chuck Vincent is at a level beyond most modern x-rated filmmakers, and the eroticism enticing. "Voyeur" is one of the better films, only if Bullock and Rae could've done better with their roles. It may not be Vincent's masterpiece, but it is good enough of a film to be remembered by. Director Chuck Vincent died from AIDS complications in 1991.