Love You to Death Review

Distributor: Alpha Blue Archives Edition Details: Standard DVD Movie Specs: Genres: Classic, Feature Film Also known as: Cozy Cool, Hit Miss, Lovers Weepers, Love Me To Death Run Time: 70 minutes Rated: X Release Year: 1971 Director: Lowell Pickett Written by: Dustin Holmquist, Edna Perkins, Lowell Pickett Cast: Michael Clarke, James Haynie (as James Hayne and James Haynie), Maria Arnold, William Weeks, Allister Satana, Mark Haber, Vinnie Hardin, George S. McDonald (as George McDonald), Bill Ellison, Joey Silvera (as Gary Nelson), Kathy Conn, David Peleg, Mary Rexroth, Roxanne Thune, Edsel Ford Fong, Charles Goodwin, Sashi Hughes, Stanley Kernel Cobb (as Stanley Cobb), Felicia Craig, Charlene Webb, Lowell Pickett (as Auteur Ego), Dale Alvarez, Marlon Atkins, Ulysses Baxter, Wade Brown, Noel Edwards, Carlos R. Garcia, Tyler Reynolds, Veronica Taylor Release Specs: Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1

...Love You To Death is an interesting adult film. It was made by Lowell Pickett and Leo Productions who tried to create plotted adult films for couples before plotted adult films for couples was chic. ...Love You To Death is an interesting adult film which tries to be both a low budget mafia story and a adult film all in one. Unfortunately, much of what one would want to see for the mafia story is skipped over by narration.

The story is of the Marino family and the Vespucci family, who are both operating in San Francisco. Silvio Marino wants to quiet the bloodshed and made a deal with the Vespucci's to divide the city. His death leaves his son Cozy (Michael Clark) in control of the Marino family. Cozy tries to take over the city while his second in command Mike (Vinnie Hardin) works with the Vespucci's to try to take out Cozy. Irma (Maria Arnold) is a hitwoman who is contracted to take out Cozy. The story is told by reporter Clark Kent Rogers (James Haynie) to his colleague Bill “Bright Eyes” (William Weeks) at a bar.

Ultimately the film suffers while trying to tell Cozy's story, Irma's story, and the reporter's story in such a short period of time. Unfortunately, much of what one would want to see for the mafia story is skipped over by narration. The film utilizes a reporter Clark Kent Rogers who is telling the story we are witnessing to a colleague “Bright Eyes” in a bar while getting more and more inebriated. While this device surely saved Pickett money while making the film, the mafia story suffers as a result.

The acting in the film isn't very good. Pickett seems to have tried to hide this by chopping up most of the non-sex portions so many of them are reduced to small shots coupled with shots of Rogers telling his story. Pickett uses some very inventive camera angles within the film. The music crescendos sometimes over the dialog. The physical fight scenes could have used some work often looking awkward and very much resemble the ones that Bob Chinn would later choreograph for the Johnny Wadd films.

The sex scenes are a mixed bag, some far better than others. Some of the scenes have music and others do not. Some of the sex scene audio was clearly dubbed in later. The first scene comes out odd. It looks like it was shot as a softcore scene and the hardcore was added later with inserts of the gynecological close-ups. Whether it was a problem with editing or the scene was shot this way I am not sure, but the scene suffers as a result. The second scene isn't as bad as the first scene with the gynecological close-ups however it jumps as if footage has been cut from it. The orgy suffers heavily from how it was shot and edited. There is way too much going on and almost all the shots are very close making for a jumbled collage of anonymous bodies but not much more. Maria Arnold is the focus of most of the sex scenes within the film and is great sexually but Pickett would have done well to have had a little more variety for the females who have sex on the screen.

Hidden in ...Love You To Death is a decent story that is unfortunately hindered by the film's issues. The limitations of Pickett's budget show throughout the film. For 1971, ...Love You To Death was a very ambitious effort though boasting more plot and non-sex portions than often seen at that time.

This release from Alpha Blue Archives is, unfortunately, disappointing. ...Love You To Death is presented in the full screen aspect ratio of approximately 1.33:1. The transfer is rather poor coming from a low grade video master. The master used for this disc appears to be a beat-up VHS tape. There are frequent glitches in the video. The picture has the fuzziness of a multiple generation copy. There are tracking issues, sometimes also with color issues, from time to time. There are constant tracking lines at the bottom of the screen. The color is washed out. There are many scenes that are way to white and there is one section where the screen is almost completely white. The very bottom of the screen is also missing at one point. The screen goes completely black at one point. There are some jumps as if some footage was cut. There is print damage evident. Sadly, as most people will have figured out by now, the transfer is in very bad shape an will disappoint.

...Love You To Death was originally made by Lowell Pickett under the name Cozy Cool. It was later released under a variety of names. ...Love You To Death is one of the variety of names, Cozy Cool was later released under. The ...Love You To Death version has been re-edited to include a scene with the reporter, Clark Kent Rogers, at the end. According to Pickett, he was only involved in the film while it was Cozy Cool and not with the changes in this re-edited version.

...Love You to Death is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural track. The track is acceptable but far from good. There is background hiss throughout. There are some occasional loud electronic noises. The sound also cuts out at one point. However, through all this, the dialog is understandable.

Alpha Blue Archives hasn't included any extras on this release, which is too bad since Lowell Pickett is still alive. Some extras on what is different about this edit, if anything beyond that one scene, and what went into the production would have been nice.

...Love You To Death is an interesting adult film. It was made by Lowell Pickett and Leo Productions who tried to create plotted adult films for couples before plotted adult films for couples was chic. An obvious amount of work went into the film but it suffers from multiple problems. Alpha Blue Archives has done a poor job with this release with a substandard transfer and no extras.

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