Good, the Bad and the Wicked, The Review

Running Time: 86 min.

Production Date: 4 / 25 / 1998

Director: Brad Armstrong

Cast: Missy, Shayla LaVeaux, Charlie, Stephanie Swift, Nici Sterling, Antonia, Brooke, Dolly Golden, Felecia, Kelsey (Heart), Mandi Frost, Roxanne Hall, Randi Rage, Ruby, Shay Sweet, Syren, and George Kaplan in a non-sex role

Initial Expectations: Most of Brad Armstrong’s all girl features have impressed me, and his artistic eye seems like it should really make this one work.

Initial Reaction: Disappointment.

Who Should Watch It : Anybody who likes porn with a lot of art direction

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody who just wants girls fucking without any artistic effort

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is normally clear and well balanced. The video starts out with some nice sepia tones for the opening credits, and moves into full color as the movie itself starts. The video has a soft feel to it, that’s about a step ahead of film when it’s treated right. It’s even right out to the edge of the screen, and nicely lit.

Music: The music has a kind of new age feel to it that fits, but not quite right. It’s often a little on the loud side, and occasionally the only audio.

Menus: As usual, Wicked has put some decent care into their menus, and they’ve given this DVD what I think might be the best menus I’ve seen in a long time. The main menu is fun and fits the western theme of the feature great. The chapter menu is pretty standard, and lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of the scene and a title for the scene.

The Feature: Missy’s the new cowpoke in town and not quite sure how things are around the town she rides into. George Kaplan tells her a few stories about the people and places in town, and then lets Missy head off to meet the people she’s there to see.

Things start out at the blacksmith shop. No, that doesn’t mean it’s a heavy interracial scene. Smith Charlie starts working over cowpoke Stephanie Swift as she leans against a hitching post. The softly kiss each other’s nipples before Stephanie helps Charlie out of her leathers so her tongue can go after Charlie’s pussy and ass. Charlie rips open the seat of Stephanie’s long johns to return the favor. Things get nicely energetic as Charlie works on Stephanie’s pussy and ass, but sadly end feeling unfinished. It’s a good start to a scene, it just feels like there’s more than a little yet to come.

Next, George Kaplan tells Missy a story about the stables in town and what happens when Brooke, Syren, Shayla LaVeaux, and Stephanie Swift all happened to be there at the same time. Cowgirl Shayla quickly pairs up with Indian Chief Syren, while Union soldier Stephanie goes to work on cowgirl Brooke. They switch around a bit in the middle, and also bring out the things that made the west so wild, namely strap-ons and baby blue vibrators. The girls work each other over with the toys, as well as their fingers, first in pairs and then in a line. It’s a little slow to get going, but picks up pretty decent once the toys come out. It also ends a little better than the previous scene. It doesn’t feel completely finished, but at least this time it feels close.

Down in the saloon, blonde Dolly Golden and brunettes Antonia and Randi Rage are known for doing darn near anything once the sun goes down. They slowly work each other over on the bar, and changing around who gets to be in the middle of the line-up before ending things with a kiss. I’ve always taken darn near anything to mean that things can get a little nasty, but this scene is anything but that. I don’t think I even saw one of the girls spank another, let alone go as far as rimming or probing an ass. It’s a soft scene that ends up even more disappointing than it would have been normally after the poor lead-in.

Nici Sterling and Roxanne Hall do their chores together in the next scene. Not wanting to do any more laundry than they have to, they help each other our of their clothes and down to their corsets, and take the time to clean each other off also. Nici tongues Roxanne’s bald beaver with some obvious enjoyment before letting Roxanne return the favor with her tongue and fingers. Nici finishes things off working Roxanne up to four fingers and kissing her. It’s another very pretty scene where the heat just doesn’t seem to come across like it should. It does, however, come to a decent ending.

Missy heads over to Ruby’s barbershop for the next scene. As in any old barbershop, one of the standards is a close shave, which is just what Missy’s looking for. Ruby puts her at ease with a kiss before pulling away the drop cloth, opening Missy’s shirt, and working her way across Missy’s chest before letting Missy return the gesture. Ruby starts working on Missy’s holes next, before they get into the barber chair for a little sixty nining. Finally, Missy gives Ruby a nice close shave before leaving. It’s a pretty hot scene, and has a much better pace than the previous scenes. Ruby seems to be really into her shave, which also helps things a lot.

Sheriff Mandi Frost takes a couple liberties with prisoner Felecia in the penultimate scene. After playing with her through the bars, Sheriff Mandi apparently thinks Felecia’s been rehabilitated, and opens the door so she can prove she has something to offer to society again. They take turns tenderly working each other over with their tongue and fingers until Felecia looks to be finished. It’s another pretty average scene that’s slowly paced, but has some decent chemistry to help it work.

Finally, Missy settles a score with Kelsey and Shay Sweet. Shay starts out in the middle, but the girls nicely change things around so the person in the middle changes. Finally, Kelsey pulls out a pair of silver vibes that she works each of Shay and Missy’s holes over with. It’s a pretty good scene with some very good chemistry and energy. I think it was also the best scene in the feature.

Surprisingly, The Good, the Bad, and the Wicked falls under mediocre. It has a good idea, and is a great place for Brad Armstrong’s normally great art direction. Unfortunately, here the art direction seems to get in the way of the heat and often holds back the scenes. The story is also convoluted enough that I got the feeling that Mr. Armstrong wanted to do a wetsern movie but wasn’t sure exactly how or what he wanted to do with it. It starts out as a nice vignette styled piece, but then moves on like there’s a story we should be following that isn’t really there. The girls seem to enjoy themselves much of the time in the sex scenes, but the heat never really comes across as well as it should. Mr. Armstrong seems more concerned with the individual visuals than the overall sex, and because of it, the feature suffers. I think this was still fairly early in his directing, so I’m more than willing to chalk this one up as a learning experience. I also think that I was a little disappointed because I went into this feature with very high expectations. The Good, The Bad, and The Wicked is an alright porno, but nothing worth challenging anybody to meet you at noon in main street for.

Extras: Audio bios are included for Missy, Felecia, Ruby, Syren, Charlie, Nici Sterling, Shay Sweet, Stephanie Swift, Shayla LaVeaux, Kelsey Heart, and Brad Armstrong. Each bio includes a few photos of the star, a little personal information, and a link to the star’s scene. Trailers are included for The Kissing Game, Hell on Heels, Flashpoint, Dream Quest, Knockout, Pornogothic, Sex Safari, and Vengeance. There’s also several photo galleries and a behind the scenes featurette. Of course, there’s also the standard Wicked extras of a company profile, promotional material, the Wicked Web, Wicked Casino, Wicked’s Award Winners and Nominations, and a commercial for the Free Speech Coalition.

For each photo gallery you get about six seconds per nice looking photo. The main photo gallery and the behind the scenes gallery each lasts about two minutes. Star galleries are also included for the entire female cast, and run for a total of over thirty two minutes. Not every photo comes directly from the feature, but they all look to have been shot while the feature was being made.

Finally, there’s The Making of The Good, The Bad, and the Wicked, which lasts about seven minutes and features camera work by the great Red Ezra. This one’s nowhere close to the level of Wicked’s normal All Access behind the scenes featurettes. It takes George Kaplan’s lead-ins from the movie and then shows the scenes being filmed. There’s none of the fun banter that normally make Wicked’s behind the scenes features so great, or even interviews with the stars

Themes: Lesbian, rimming (female > female), spanking, group, toys, anal, and shaving

Raincoat Factor: High

Overall: Currently, most of Wicked’s DVDs can be found online for between $20 and $28 with most stores offering them for around $25. This seems way high for what you get here. The art direction is the only thing that measured up to my expectations from Brad Armstrong, with the sex and story lacking quite a bit from his usual high quality. The technical aspects are pretty average, and there isn’t much beyond the standard Wicked extras.

Note to Wicked: Although the feature didn’t impress me much, it was nice to see you putting a little extra effort into the DVD.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

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