The Pussywillows (Bobby Hollander, 1985)

I don't know why it took me so long to get off my butt and review this erotic masterpiece. But here it is, the one everyone has been patiently waiting for, my review of Bobby Hollander's The Pussywillows! Yep, all you hardcore Pussywillow fanatics (or Pussywillowers, that's what you like to be called, right?) can rest easy, as I just watched The Pussywillows, and I, of course, plan on reviewing the shit out of it. I think the reason it took me so long to review it has a lot to do with the film's complex plot. Which, to the uninitiated, can be a tad impenetrable. In order to prevent this from happening to me, I decided to penetrate the film multiple times from a multitude of different angles. After awhile, I kinda lost count how many times I penetrated this film. But if you were to corner me in an alleyway, I would have to say that I must have penetrated The Pussywillows at least nine times. Now, you're probably thinking to yourself: Wow, nine times! That's a lot of penetrating... your eyes must be exhausted. It's funny you should mention my eyes being tired, as my right peeper was itchy and dry during my last viewing of the film. Anyway, it turns out that nine, or close to nine, is the perfect amount of times to penetrate this film, as its so-called "complex plot" started to finally make sense to me.

Let's see if I can breakdown the film's "complex plot" in less than twenty words. Okay, here it goes: 'An all-girl jazz rock septette show up a television studio to shoot a music video for a sleazy producer.' What's that? You say I managed to do it in nineteen? Well, whatta ya know? I guess the film's "complex plot" isn't that complex after all.

I think the thing that threw me the most, especially during viewings one through eight, was the fact I had no idea who played who.
  

Dressed in their street clothes when they arrive (two in short shorts, three in cut-off jean shorts and two in short skirts), I had a difficult time pairing the Pussywillows who enters the studio (they look like they had just walked off the set of a Roger Corman movie circa 1976)  with the new wave-tinged Pussywillows they would eventually become.

Now, you wouldn't think a little hairspray wouldn't make that much difference, so much so, that you couldn't recognize them. But that's just the thing, they didn't use "a little hairspray," these chicks were dipped upside down in a giant vat of the stuff; the members of Vanity 6 would have looked at them and said: Whoa, ladies, take it down a notch... you look like a bunch of gaudy tramps.

When Bobby Hollander's The Pussywillows ("A Bobby Hollander Feature Video") opens, we actually see the finished product; a bold move, if you ask me. What I mean is, the music video the band spend the bulk of the film working on is shown at the beginning. A lot of films use this technique (reverse chronology, I think it's called), but I didn't expect it from The Pussywillows. And that's just the thing, The Pussywillows is full of surprises.

Almost experimental at times, The Pussywillows ("Music that looks as good as it sounds," reads the tag line) is a film that doesn't play by rules. Some times appearing as if it was shot using a wall-mounted security camera, other times it had a more polished feel to it (i.e. shots were in focus), the film seems like its toying with our preconceived notion of what cinema means.

After a five minute sneak preview of the finished music video, we're shown the moment when the band arrive at the office of Ray Hardin (Ray Wells), a slimy piece of shit who fancies himself as the next Quincy Jones, but in reality, he's more like Kim Fowley, the notorious manager for The Runaways.

Chaos reigns almost immediately, as the seven member band stand around in short shorts and equally short skirts. It's a good thing the direction of this particular scene is so piss poor, as the sight of so much legginess would have been too much for me. This, by the way, is one of the scenes that looks like it was shot with a wall-mounted security camera. While that doesn't sound appealing at all, it does give the film a documentary feel.

Promising to turn them into the next Go-Gos (or Banarama), Ray, while gesturing pompously towards the gold records that cover his wall, tells the women that they could go far in this business... with the right cooperation.

Just as the ladies are about to leave Ray's office, Cheri Janvier, the band's baritone sax player, asks how long it will take for them to "make it." Clearly irritated by her question, Ray reiterates that  it's ultimately up to them whether they succeed or not.

While I thought Cheri's question was dumb, Ray's irritation was mostly due to the fact he couldn't wait have sexual intercourse with Andrea (Jessica Longe), the band's bass player.

Now, there are many theories floating around on the film's many fan sites and forums as to why he chose her out of all The Pussywillows, but I think he chose her simply because she was the one he found to be the most attractive.

As Ray and Andrea are going at it in his office (I liked the way Ray used Andrea's long, Atlanta-reared legs for thrusting leverage), we see the other members skanking up the joint something fierce in their newly acquired new wave hooker clothes.

And the one skanking it up the most is Susan Hart, the band's trumpet player, who does a sexy, cunt-heavy dance routine in a pair of camouflage/animal print stockings.

It's during Ray and Andrea's post-coital awkwardness that we get a brief glimpse into the inner workings of the band. And I have to say, after listening to Susan Hart, Cheri Janvier, Robin Cannes, the band's drummer, and Miss Sweden Kaj, the band's keyboard player (she uses an Emulator) talk about their new outfits for just a few minutes, there's no way their dialogue was scripted. It must have been improvised, as you can't plan that kind of clumsiness.

That being said, expressing thoughts using words is not what the band is about. No, The Pussywillows are about looking hot and junk. And while Susan Hart is definitely the biggest skank, no one can touch Misty Regan when it comes to pure, unadulterated sexiness. Playing Misty, the band's guitar player, Miss Regan, who looks like a new wave princess with punk and goth overtones, grabs the movie by the throat and never let's go.

In terms of excelling at being a fake musician, I have to give major props to Cheri Janvier for her semi-convincing sax playing. Wearing a pinkish body stocking, the sight of the bubble-butted Cheri blowing on her sax is one of the film's most indelible images.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Robin Cannes, who has to be one of the most rhythmically challenged women ever. Whoever thought it was a good idea to cast her as the band's drummer needs to have their head examined. On the bright side, her lack of rhythm didn't seem to have an effect on her ability to ride Marc Wallice's cock all the way to Fucktown, population: 1 Excellent orgasm.

What's weird about Susan Hart, besides the fact that wishes she could play her trumpet with her pussy, is that none of the music in the film features the trumpet. Nevertheless, the music heard throughout The Pussywillows is, believe or not, pretty good. My favourite being, of course, the ZZ Top parody, which features Misty Regan in a fake beard and fishnet stockings.

To help us get that disturbing image out of her heads, we're given a lesbian scene between Misty and Cheri, followed by a three-way that introduces Ray Wells' cock to the Misty/Cheri mix. Shot mainly from above, the protracted scene where Ray pounds Misty's perfectly coiffed vagina is hands down the film's hottest. Oh, and, by the way, did anyone else think Misty Regan looked like a grown up version of the punk girl from the Art of Noise video for "Close (To The Edit)"? I would ask the people on the Pussywillows fan sites and forums, but those things, I'm sad to say, don't really exist.