Today on Spice Radio: American Desire (1981)

Today is Legends Day on Spice Radio’s YouPorn and Veronica Hart will be on the show with Christy and Ginger, so I’ll be on the show beforehand (around 2:30 Eastern, 11:30 Pacific) talking about American Desire, a 1981 film by Lasse Braun.

East Coast Represent!

This tale of a couple stuck in a rut was shot in New York City, Long Island and Connecticut and it’s fun to see brief shots of the city in all its grungy glory.  (A marquee advertised “Air Plane” and we see the Twin Towers in the background as cars drive out of the city.)

The movie opens with a flaccid Bob (R. Bolla) and Sheila (Veronica Hart) watching an old kung-fu movie on TV.  They’re both lamenting that their sex life has, er, petered out.  They still love each other, but their torrid love affair has made way for comfortable evenings watching TV and sharing snacks, and it’s not a place either are particularly happy with.  They pull off a couple in their mid-30s convincingly, even tho Veronica was around 25 when she shot this, it helps that she’s paired with an actor actually in his mid-30s, the 34 year old R. Bolla. He thinks out loud that “maybe one person isn’t enough… or maybe one person is too many.”

The next morning, Sheila leaves a note for Bob saying she’s running to see her Dad for some advice and then running errands in the City. He throws the note off their back porch into the reeds below.

Next up, we see Sheila’s Dad (Jack Teague) thinking in his backyard with a notebook on his knee as his young partner (Mai Lin) looks on from upstairs, asking if he’s getting any work done.  He mentions he could use some inspiration, so she comes down to give him some. What follows is a pretty realistically shot sex scene, where there’s a lot of kissing and foreplay going on.  He has a thumb up inside her as she plays with his cock.  When she moves down to blow him, Braun makes sure to keep Jack’s face in the shot, instead of just focusing on the penetration.

In the midst of their tryst, Sheila shows up at the sliding glass door overlooking the patio and seems put out that she can’t talk to her Dad, as opposed to being completely and utterly freaked out by the fact that she walked in on her Dad and his special lady friend going at it right as he’s sliding himself inside for the first time.  This reaction is a bit odd.

The scene continues with some brief missionary and then Jack pulls out as Mai jerks him off.  Jack’s hips keep bucking the whole time which is a nice touch and adds some sensuality to the scene.  Sheila just takes off, not bothering to talk to her Dad after all.

Sheila’s Day Out (nice red T-Bird convertible!) continues with a trip to her grandfather’s abandoned house. She finds the front door locked, but goes around the back and lets herself in, only to be startled by George (George Payne), an academic who is poking around the house looking to see “what original architecture is left” because he’s “completing  a dissertation on comparative American literature and [Sheila’s Dad? Granddad?] is the best in that field.”  (Doesn’t make any more sense in the movie either.)  Sheila offers to give George her Dad’s number.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Bob calls an escort service and is excited to see Mistress Candice show up in her street clothes.  He’s all hot to trot, moving in to feel her up and lift up her shirt to look at her rack and she pushes him off, asking where the bathroom is, so she can get ready. He shows her the door and waits.  She comes out in full leather dominatrix outfit with a cat o’nine tails and proceeds to tease the hell out of him.  It’s a fun scene that is pretty hot, but there’s no sex in it.  We do get to see her spectacular rack, but her nipples only see pleasure from her own tongue – Bob is denied.  She leaves him with blue balls.  The scene is played for laughs.  At one point, Bob goes in for a kiss and she backs off.  He complains that he just wants to give her a kiss, since she has such a pretty mouth — and we cut to a closeup and her dental work leaves, well, a little something to be desired.

Sheila drives home to find Bob sleeping in bed, but finds leather straps around the house. She’s pissed about his whores, and he’s pissed they’re not fucking each other. He mentions again “Maybe one person isn’t enough.” and he wants her permission to step out since he doesn’t want to lie to her.  (There’s a confused nobility there.)  She laments that men can just ring up and order sex like room service, where it takes women months to figure out who to seduce, to do the seducing, etc.  Bob says she just needs to fuck someone already, that she’s wasting valuable time.  It’s an interesting philosophical debate.

George shows up at Sheila’s Dad’s house to drop off some of his writing, and instead finds himself being seduced by Mai.  She makes her move and drops to her knees.  George asks a sensible question – what happens if your old man walks in?  And she assures him that Dad Welles would be fine with it.  Mai has long nails which she uses to great effect on George’s shaft.  He gives himself over to it and grabs her head and starts guiding her strokes.

Cut to Dad and Sheila in the T-Bird on their way home.

Mai and George have moved to the bedroom and George goes down on her, then she rides him cowgirl and in a really spectacular move, launches herself off his cock and right onto his face in one leap.

Sheila approaches the house and hears the ruckus and sees George nailing Mai on the bed.  Her Dad approaches and she apologizes to him, since she gave George the address, and Dad, in full on creeper, says it’s more than fine and asks is she would like to join them.  She shakes him off and runs away.

There’s a drum beat playing on the soundtrack in synch with George’s pounding and it crescendos with his cumming on her belly.  Sheila’s Dad appears in the doorway, all grins.  Mai makes the introductions, George is horrified at the social faux pas, but Sheila’s Dad will have none of it.  “Nonsense!  If you made Mai Lin happy, then I’m happy!” and then Mai kisses George.  Kinda weird, kinda funny.

Bob is driving down the country roads in his (NJ plated – represent!)  Jeep when he comes across hitchhiker Lysa Thatcher who is looking for a place to camp out.  As they drive, she lights up a joint and he asks for a toke “I’m not an old man, you know!” and they head to a friend’s place where he has a barn/farmohouse that she can camp out in.

Meanwhile, Sheila is getting dressed up in a fancy hat and red lipstick.

At the barn, Lysa infantilizes herself further by riding on a very small wooden rocking horse. We see a shot of her between his legs, Mrs. Robinson style, and she mentions how much she loves his boots, and she crawls over to lick them, her ass cheeks hanging out of her cut-offs.  (Take *that* Daisy Duke!)  She works her way up his body and stands as he kisses her and moves his hands all over her.  She brushes him off and starts setting up her bunk, bending at the waist and driving us a little wild.  She finds a cat o’nine-tails and chain collar and asks if Bob knows about those things.  She hads him the cat o’nine tails, and he can’t possibly whip her.  She opens her shirt revealing her breasts and she asks to be hit, like a Daddy hits his little girl.    He starts to hit her a little harder and there’s a cut, so I assume the modern scissors have robbed us of a little more play… but at her urging, he gets his fingers all up in her (“Fuck it!  Fuck it with your fingers!”) and he brings her to orgasm.

And finally Bob gets his blowjob… and what a BJ it is.  He’s slapping her with his cock until finally they’re fucking doggie style, with her tits pressed into the bedsprings which we see from underneath.  Bob says “See what happens when you hitchhike!?” and she jerks him off onto her tongue.  So far, best scene in the movie.

Sheila heads back to Grandfather Welles’ house and a stranger (Roy Stuart) appears outside.  Without her knowing, he follows her into the house and confronts her.  He asks “Do you like my house?” and she says she can’t stay, that her husband is waiting for her, and he shoves his gloved hand into her crotch.  She protests as he starts to remove her jacket.  He asks “Don’t you like sex?” and she’s getting more upset.  “Tell me how you want to stay!” and she keeps saying no, and he rips open her shirt and throws her on the floor.  He rips open her bra and she’s yelling “Don’t touch me!” and he yells “Quiet!”  and as he is playing with her pussy thru her underwear, she gives up a little.  (Not one of the best messages, I suppose…)

He works a fingered finger into her doggie style and she squirms away.  She’s trying to get her clothes back on and run away.  She threatens to scream, and he tells her to scream “Who can hear you?” and she runs upstairs, but he’s too fast for her.

He lays her down on the bedroom floor, removes his gloves, opens his pants and lifts her head to his cock, and she blows him as she rubs her pussy for a second before he’s fucking her missionary.

As with these non-consensual scenes, it’s tough to really use them to get yourself off.

Construction worker Dave Ruby comes in the house and notices her clothes on the dining room floor and heads off to investigate.  Sheila comes downstairs naked and runs into him.  He asks if she’s all right, and she says “Never better.” and then makes moves on him.  He resists, “I’m a married man!  I’ve got a wife and two kids!” and she starts to go down on him.  The sexual prey becomes the predator?  As she blows him, he just keeps repeating that he can’t believe this is happening.  She takes him down to the root (not a difficult task, it seems) and she rips his T-Shirt off him.  He awkwardly falls to the floor, with his face landing in her lap.  There’s a way too brief long shot of him with his face buried in her bush while her head is going up and down a mile a minute on his cock.   Then, Rapist Roy comes back in for seconds and shoves his dick in her mouth.  There’s some brief continuity issues with positions, and then Dave shoves himself up her ass.  She pulls him out and jerks him off all over her pussy and belly, then Roy cums all over her face.  She’s a mess when its over.

Bob returns home with Lysa  in tow and Sheila is waiting for him on the bed.  Her experience at her grandfather’s house as sexually awakened her, and she tells him she did it, as if she was the cat who ate the canary. She chalked it up to acting out. So, maybe it wasn’t a rape, but a fantasy fulfillment?  She recounts the tale of her rape with breathless excitement as Bob attacks her, repeating the things she is describing.  (We see that Lysa Thatcher is overhearing the story.)  Bob is dominating a little bit as he demands to be told what happened.  Lysa drops trou and starts to play with herself outside their bedroom as she listens to Bob and Sheila fuck.  “Is this how he did it?  I gotta know!  It’s driving me crazy!”

They switch to missionary as she tells the Ballad of the Construction Worker,  “he was rough, but I wanted it rough! … I did it, and I don’t want to stop.  I don’t want to stop!” and she rides him reverse cowgirl.  Bob says he’s going to cum and she says no, that she wants to taste it. So she bounces off him and onto the bed where she jerks him climax, licking up every drop.

As music starts to play, Sheila find Lysa on the chair and they begin to make out.  They move to the bedroom where they can scissor each other. The girls make eye contact which is very hot; then as they 69, Bob appears, and he and Sheila share Lysa’s tail end and Sheila blows him like crazy.  Bob fucks Sheila a bit more and then the girls share a blow job to its conclusion.

Fun fact: Roy Stuart also wrote the music for the movie.

Wow wow wow wow wow.

I had never seen this movie, but since Veronica Hart was going to be on the show, I thought I should review a movie that featured her in a leading role, and boy, was this it!

She doesn’t get naked until more than halfway through the movie, but once she does, she’s an unstoppable force of nature.  She devours R. Bolla and Lysa Thatcher at the end.

The movie’s title is odd, “American Desire” as I am having a hard time defining the desire — is it merely sexual, or is it the desire to settle down and share your life with someone else?  Bob and Sheila start the movie as a couple and end the movie as a couple, and ostensibly, the shenanigans that happen in the middle are supposed to strengthen their resolve as a couple, even if it doesn’t involve monogamy.

It’s left a bit ambiguous (or perhaps I am just projecting) if Rapist Roy (and the construction worker) was a pre-arrangement or not.  I think I have trouble if it was a real rape, since it falls back on the trope that “all girls want it” and that’s not the greatest message to send, I think… nor does it work that well dramatically.  If it was pre-arranged, then it gives Sheila some power and we don’t have to watch that scene between the fingers covering our eyes.

I don’t remember Lasse Braun as an filmmaker, tho I do remember it being a big deal when he came back with a three picture for Sin City.  I didn’t get the historical significance at the time, tho Wikipedia does an OK job of filling in the gaps, as does rotten.com

Fun fact – modern day director Axel Braun is Lasse’s son.