Blow Job Betty

"Blow Job Betty" is a seemingly ordinary, above average VHS porn release, but its history and a couple of unique elements bathe it in mystery. Regal-looking leading lady Betty Jean Bradley was a one-shot porn actress, but lo and behold, a year later the filmmakers shot a sort of sequel "Blow Job Bonnie" and its leading lady Boonie Jo Bradley was also a one-shot!

Patti Rhodes and her husband Fred J. Lincoln are the filmmakers, with Patti directing the first film while Lincoln directed the sequel (Patti wrote both screenplays). We have the two finished movies to view and ponder, so what exactly took place here is left to one's imagination.

The movies take place in that fictional world of the porno business, very often the subject of a porno movie's story, yet always rendered fake on purpose by folks interested in painting a self-serving picture. First film "Betty" stars Alicyn Sterling as a prima donna of a leading lady, with the other characters on the shoot dealing with rivalries in a conventional show about problems in making a movie.

Even before I watched the sequel, I found the original "Betty" cryptic, set off by repeated showing during the movie of a clapperboard reading "Director -F. J. Lincoln", "Camera -Dino Llamas", Title -Wild at Heart and inscribed with shooting date of Oct. 22, 1991. Of course, Lincoln's wife Patti is the actual "Betty" director, and actual cameraman of both original and sequel is Ken Gibb. LLamas was a regular cameraman fot the Rhodes/Lincoln team, but his career ended in 1991. Furthermore, the actual porn movie "Wild at Heart" released in 1991 was directed by Henri Pachard for a different company, just confusing the issue.

One particular scene is very impressive: Alicyn Sterling is in bed making love to leading man Rocco Siffredi, when she interrupts the scene and complains that it's too ordinary and conventional, i.e., making love in a bed and she demands a rewrite before continuing with the shoot. This is a recurring note, as Derk Lane portrays the screenwriter who is constantly forced to do last-minute rewrites for director Randy West, causing him to neglect and annoy his wife played by Britt Morgan. (In-joke time: though the clapperboard reads "F. J. Lincoln" and we see Randy yell "Cut!" or "Roll 'em!" as the director, Randy's character name is R. J.)

In the show's one brilliant touch, the scene in question is re-shot, and Alicyn's bad behavior is vindicated for the viewer: instead of a bed, she and Rocco make love in front of an impressive water feature, with amazing lighting effects to produce a spectacular twilight romantic vista, with nude Alicyn glamorously styled, producing a very fine XXX scene.

Meanwhile, the enigmatic Betty Jean Bradley is a quite tall, beautiful blonde, immaculately styled and something of an ice queen -reciting her lines unemotionally, and true to the title delivering highly professional (if hardly earth-shaking) blow jobs. She has a great figure, and overall impresses. Why she was a one-shot is mysterious, given how so many starlets in porn are given about 100 or 200 quick assignments before being spit out of the XXX assembly line/meat grinder in favor of the next set of flavors of the month.

Patti's screenplay is nothing new, and the movie emerges as just cliches about the difficulties of getting a finished movie in the can, that familiar issue whether it's "Apocalypse Now", "Fitzcarraldo", "Dune" or just a porno quickie. I'm reviewing the sequel featuring Bonnie Jo Bradley (no relation) separately, and it only amplifies the mystery that began with Betty Jean here.