Soft Porn Sunday: Shannon Tweed & Andrew Stevens

Shannon Tweed got married this time last week. Took her long enough. I was surprised, initially, to find out that she married Gene Simmons, before remembering that I'd already read that somewhere, and then having an "oh yeah..." moment. Well done, rock god and erotic thriller actress. Hope you're happy together.

I saw a lot of Shannon Tweed around the age of 15. Channel 5 bought a lot of mainstream erotica to show on Friday nights and, although some of it was cheesy pap, there were quite a lot of American erotic thrillers scattered through the schedules, and I quickly managed to learn that anything billed as "erotic thriller" had some semblance of a plot, whereas "erotic drama" mostly had sex in it. Since the plots were awful, I preferred the latter. Tweed starred in both types, and was prevalent in any film that had a bit of skin in it. To be honest, I always preferred "the other Shannon" - Whirry - but some of these films were good too. I remember taping a few.

I don't have a lot of clips with Shannon Tweed in my collection - which goes to show exactly how non-obsessive I am - so I had to scour the internet for some. And I found this:

Appearance: Illicit Dreams (1994)
Characters: Moira Davis & Nick Richardson

I vaguely - very vaguely - remember this one from my past. The fact that it's both directed by and starring Andrew Stevens raises a few eyebrows - an effort to get to have it off with Shannon Tweed? - but the plot is certainly unique. It's daft, but at least a little bit creative. Moira (Tweed) - who is married to Daniel (Joseph Cortese) - discovers over time that she has a telekinetic link to Nick (Stevens). They meet, fall in love, and screw. This movie, oddly enough, also stars Rochelle Swanson, in a minor role. I know that name, even if you may not... but I'll save her for later.

This is your standard sex scene between Moira and Nick. But I'm choosing it because it's a little different from her other sex scenes. A lot of them - like this one - mostly involve odd contortions, unlikely face pulling, and music from strangled saxophones that makes me want to tear my eyeballs out and stuff my ears with them. This one's actually quite romantic, insofar as soft porn scenes go.

Okay, to start off with, aesthetically neither character is much to look at. Shannon Tweed has an OK body, but it's not really made much of in this scene. Nick has a ridiculous beard though - even worse than mine. I mean, really. Shave, Stevens! In fact, even though I'm aware of how unattractive my beard may be, his knocks him down the Glist several thousand places. It's really off-putting, and it makes me wonder if Moira would even go near him without that psychic link. Gah!

Movement-wise, though, it's okay. Pleasantly, it starts off with a nice kiss, which is always good to see, as it emphasises the "OMGZ love" bit. It mixes to them lying on the bed, looking at each other with lustful eyes for a while, and then there's a few seconds of Nick delicately running his hands over Moira's thighs. (Awww, cute!) There's a bit with him kissing up her neck and then licking her ear - which is surprisingly arousing, considering all you can see is her face and his back (but then again, I spent the last four days making a girl orgasm by doing that, so maybe I'm biased), and after that we get OH GOD GET THAT BEARD OFF THE SCREEN Moira riding Nick; implied more than seen, perhaps, as what we get is some head shots of Nick, and no more than head and shoulders of Moira (what, no boobs?). Tweed's making the motions though...

...and then it's over, suddenly. Quite a nice shot of them spooning, while the camera zooms out.

Okay, well, the bad points first. It's not likely to get me off. Hell, I doubt it could get anyone off. It's not very explicit, and there really isn't much movement (and although Tweed can do movement, it looks a bit forced). It's a romantic sex scene... without much romance. There's effort, but it just doesn't look like they're that into each other. They're making the noises (or she is, anyway) and some of the faces are okay (except for Nick's, with that awful beard!), but they don't really fit with the music, either. Which is bland. Unobtrusive, sure, but bland.

However, having seen numerous other sex scenes from this period with this actress, bland unobtrusive music is a bit of a blessing, considering I have great respect for saxophonists and don't like to hear them sounding as if they're being kicked repetitively. And yes, it's not the best of scenes by any standard, but at least the cinematography is good. It's shot well enough and the camera work is neither annoying nor non-existent. In fact, the worst thing about this scene is that it's a bit out of place. It shouldn't really be in soft porn; it's more suited to mainstream cinema drama - since it's short and inoffensive enough to be so.

So I suppose it's a good enough effort to convey romantic sex via film. It falls short of actually doing so, of course, but for what it is, it clearly tries hard, and it does manage to avoid some of the softcore clichés that these films fall into. You can watch it here, if you're interested, if the beard doesn't offend you that much. Just remember that Shannon Tweed's done some better things than this. They're just not that easy to find.