mike@projection-booth.com mike@projection-booth.com

March 30, 2022

Episode 565: Blonde Ambition (1981)

Special Guests: John Amero, Larry Revene, LaRue Watts, Kurt Mann
Guest Co-Hosts: Heather Drain, April Hall

Released in 1981, Blonde Ambition was years in the making. Written by and directed by Lem and John Amero, the film stars Suzy Mandel and Dory Devin as Sugar and Candy Kane, sisters who have a song and dance act in a podunk town. One fateful evening they encounter the dashing Stephen Carlisle III (Eric Edwards), a prince of sorts who carries not a glass slipper but a valuable jewel -- and, wouldn’t you know it, a duplicate of a worthless replica owned by the Kane sisters. It goes without saying that wackiness ensues.

Interviews include director John Amero, actor Kurt Mann, writer and production designer LaRue Watts, and frequent Amero collaborator Larry Revene.

April Hall of The Rialto Report and Heather Drain join Mike to discuss this amazing musical.

Listen/Download Now:

Bonus Interview with Eric Edwards:

Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Blonde Ambition on DVD
Buy American Exxxtasy: My 30-Year Search for a Happy Ending by John Amero
Read the Kurt Mann story

Music:
"Two little girls from Little Rock" - Marilyn Monroe & Jane Russell

Watch:

3 comments:

  1. Hi Mike, Kurt here...Listened, loved it. Very nostalgic. FIY: An amusing bit John left out. When he and Lem went to London they also met with Diana Dors to play Lady Barrington. In case you're too young to remember, she was Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe in the 1950's. She liked the idea but wanted too much money and insisted that her younger husband play Stephan. Too bad because I would have loved to meet her. Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! Was such a pleasure to talk with you!

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  2. Greetings, Mike. I am Steve "Pudgy" De Rose. You may vaguely remember me from a long-ago Cinema Wasteland exposition when you were in Cleveland as part of a book tour. You had a book reading at a
    bookstore in eastern Cleveland (from which I checked-in on Foursquare); and a bunch of us wound up at a nearby bar afterward.
    Anyhow, I have been listening to the Projection Booth podcasts for a
    while now. I listened to the one about "Blonde Ambition" (1981). It was
    very good.
    I did not have "Blonde Ambition" until I began presenting at Exit
    Chicago
    bar [R.I.P.?] in 2010. I can't distinctly remember from where I got it, but I think it was from Joe Rubin directly, when he was still in Chicago, and working at Odd Obsession Video.
    You were pondering what other porn movies had good music on their
    soundtracks. A few were mentioned, but there are a few I think deserve
    annotation.
    "Driller" (1984) has a Michael Jackson impersonator. Its music sounds
    sufficiently separate enough from the _Thriller_ album that it has been
    available all this time. I have this on a DVD-R; its video resolution
    is fuzzy. I heard supposedly Hugh Gallagher ("Draculina" magazine) was involved with this. Roger Watkins was the production manager on the shoot. It might have been initially released direct-to-video, but
    somebody at VCA learned about and saw it, and thought it might be
    interesting to the people who had seen "New Wave Hookers". So it was
    blown up to 35mm and played in theaters.
    "Teenage Fantasies" (1974) and its sequel "Beach Blanket Bango" (1975), directed by James Bryan, have recreations of 1950s & early 1960s pop records on the soundtrack. "Teenage Fantasies" was originally shot soft, but has hardcore inserts by its original performers. It was the first explicit movie I ever saw, and I did not expect it to be explicit.
    It likely does not really count, but I feel obliged to state that the
    previously-mentioned Roger Watkins is responsible for the stunning "Her Name Was Lisa" (1979), which likely deserves a deeper exploration by you. What truly stunned me was that a couple of years ago, Vinegar Syndrome put this movie on its World-Wide Web streaming site. I hope people were able to harvest it. I thought there was no way it would ever again be available because of all the unlicensed and copyrighted music which R. Watkins put on the soundtrack. It was supposedly a handful of vinyl records from his personal collection.

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