Bridgette Maier Triple Feature Review

Initial Thoughts
A couple months back on the DVD Maniacs forum there was some discussion of this DVD regarding mainly the poor quality of its central film, Tongue. Although ABA spokesman of sorts Jacy Catlin assured everyone that the transfer was made directly from a 16mm print to mini DV (which would be a first for ABA), there was talk of skipping the disc altogether on account of the poor quality. So I was going to until I was given a copy of it today so here's my impression...

The Films
1. Tongue
The most "important" film on this disc happens to be the first. Let me begin with a little background on this film and my interest in it. Somewhere long ago when I was about 15, I was reading something and this film came up as "the first X Rated blaxploitation film." I found a synopsis and it sounded terrific. I then looked for it in all the local bootleg outfits (VSOM, Tapes of Terror, Shocking Videos, even the olde ABA catalogue) and found nothing.
It remained at the top of my want list for a few years. Then quite randomly about one year ago, a guy I sometimes buy prints from sent me an email with a list of titles and among them was this film for just $75! Two weeks later I sat down in my living room and, after close to 5 years of searching, watched this strange little gem from glorious 16mm.
Tongue is definitely not your run of the mill LA triple-Xer. Even from its opening minutes its clear its director, credited only as "K.P.," is not the average smut maker and his/her film isn't going to be the average smut film. In fact, there is no real sex for the first 25 minutes.
Al Poe (who?) is Quasi, a morose and mute handyman who is seemingly abused and teased by everyone he encounters. His single asset: a 9 inch tongue. It seems that whenever his tongue makes an appearance, people want to screw him which sometimes works out for the better, but mostly for the worse. We open with a seemingly typical day in the life of Quasi as he sits alone in a park playing chess while his conscience or perhaps his insanity warns him of his impending doom.
He visits a doctor who immediately tries to abuse him and is then invited to his white neighbor Cherry's house to fix her electricity but becomes trapped in a hateful world of perverse sexuality, leading to his destruction just as his fate had promised.
Tongue is not nearly as depressing as it is just strange and, at times, downright surreal. The film reveals in heavy metaphors, mostly about racism. However, contrary to one's expectations, the film chooses to concentrate on Quasi's own bigotry rather than portraying him as the ultimate victim. It is even hinted that his inability to speak is the metaphorical result of his intolerance.
Set to a well spirited jazz and R & B score, Tongue has a professionalism about it rarely seen in Z Rated films. The photography is sumptuous, the editing tight, and the aforementioned score moody and impressive. Director "K.P." uses the film's urban LA setting as a means to comment on the loneliness of city life and isolation, but also examines the self deprecating nature of Quasi's behavior within his setting.
As we learn more about Quasi, his character becomes less sympathetic and more pitiful. When we finally learn the full extent of his actions, the audiences sympathies are almost turned against him and he sheds and pretentions as a victim. While the film might be a difficult viewing experience for some due to its lack of narrative continuity and sometimes out of nowhere jump-cutting, Tongue is as important of a piece of American black cinema as any and remains a poignant work sure to cause some thought and controversy.
Star Rating ****1/2 out of *****
2. How Sweet It Is
How Sweet It Is is brought to us by Mr. Sven Conrad, director of such classics as Pink Champage, Doing It, and Body Magic. Here however, he has nothing original to do or say and has assembled essentially a loop package of rather boring (although well shot) sex scenes all taking place in a room with colored lights. These are held together with overdubbed footage from Richard Robinson's delightful 1974 film Marriage & Other Four Letter Words which Conrad shot.
Here the footage is put to waste and the dubbing is atrocious. As this film is a loop package, there's no story, but rather a premiss of a married couple reading "sexy" want ads and letters in a paper. The unrelated colorful sex scenes come in from time to be the visual representations of the "stories" they're reading. The film is boring and downright annoying as it takes footage from an unrelated film, and a good one at that, and places it into a sub par piece of trash.
Star Rating *1/2 out of *****
3. Inside of Me
Rounding out the disc is another piece of tedium called Inside of Me. Made probably in c. 1974, this is easily the cheapest film here, being nothing more than a string of sex scenes all supposedly taking place in the LA Free Clinic. The final "joke" involves VD of course. Typical cheap porn.
Star Rating 0 out of *****

A/V Quality
To start off with, I'll say this: How Sweet It Is and Inside of Me are both next to unwatchable. Both are mastered off old VHS tapes with tracking lines galore and, in the case of How Sweet...bleeding color which makes the "colorful sex scenes" nothing more than a frequently blurry mess (not that being able to see them in their full glory could have saved that mess of a film).
Tongue is **surprise surprise** actually mastered directly off a print as Jacy said. That said, the print has godawful color and no blacks (no pun intended!)! Although it's fairly scratch and splice free, it's just bad looking. That said, I think the problem is still in the transfer not the source material. My print at least has very strong colors so I know color problems wasn't a general issue with all prints of the film. I would also say there's possible light leakage in ABA's telecine based on the film's trailer, which is also mastered of film, looking just as washed out. I really doubt that both trailer and film would suffer from exactly the same looking fading, but who knows. That said, I give ABA points for FINALLY masting a print for a DVD instead of going back to another old VHS. Still, my AV rating gets pulled down by the occasional presence of the ABA bug during Tongue.

Extras
Another ABA first! Good, RELATED extras! Here we not only find the original, and quite cool I must say, trailer for Tongue, but also its complete soundtrack. Mastered off a record, the music sounds fantastic and alone makes this DVD worth getting.

Cuts Warning
Compared to my print, Tongue is complete. The other two I cannot say one way or the other as I had never seen them before this DVD. I don't really care though.

Should You Buy It?
If you've heard the hype about Tongue and it's peaked your interest, then yes. For sure. The other two films are unremarkable and look terrible. While Tongue doesn't fare too great either, it looks better than just about any other ABA release I've ever seen and will have to suffice until some other better company puts together a nicer release. That said, regardless of what you think of the movies, the music alone makes this a must have.