Filmmaker Costello owns up freely (Statute of Limitations, baby) to this being a mafia-funded movie, but that's irrelevant as to its qualities, good or bad. Reissued on video by Something Weird on Vol. 125 of its Dragon Art Theatre series, it's merely a silly, sometimes amusing porn programmer.
Costello takes the lead role as a customs/immigration officer, making a drug bust of trafficker Timothy Bleary and his niece/mule Linda, latter introduced getting off a boat in a wheelchair.
Gimmick is that Costello is corrupt, easily taking a sexual bribe as he removes a vial containing cocaine from Linda's vagina and establishes that the wheelchair bit is phony. After sex, with a John Coltrane cut from his impulse! LP "Ballads" on the soundtrack, he agrees to give her back the coke, even steven.
Film's highpoint follows as we watch Bleary in an off moment, playing a sort of acoustic slide guitar, and warbling a dirty folk tune with lyrics like "They'll never bust me" and "I ain't got no twinkie", latter referring to the body part Linda uses for smuggling. It's a simultaneously charming and idiotic sequence, capturing the spirit of Costello's early cinema efforts.
Regular in Costello's troupe Mary Stuart pops up as a short-haired lesbian named Dolly who has sex with Linda, rewarding her for a job well done in corrupting the customs officer. There's no Tina in the film, presumably Linda having that name in some version of what is largely an ad lib script.
Costello uses his confrontational dialog mode in conversations with fellow cast members, putting them on the spot. This banter is almost amusing, but to beat a dead horse I vastly prefer his later "professional" screenplays for films like SUNNY and MORE THAN SISTERS.
Shaun calls private detective Dick Tracy and sics him on the druggies, not to arrest them but to take advantage of the free sex. Meanwhile, Levi Richards is humping a buxom but plain-Jane girl named Mary, but later she is called Jane -sloppy.
Accompanied alternately by sitar music or light flute-centered jazz, other pairings occur, as Timothy is intent on using the sexual distractions to set up a big drug shipment by boat. Dolly, Jane and Linda team up for a foursome with Richards, and film's non-ending consists of four minutes of padding in the form of "highlights" footage from scenes (both narrative and sexual) that have been shown before.
Telling moment here is a casual conversation in the bathroom of Shaun and Dick Tracy, discussing how pleasurable it was to be bribed and corrupted. This tongue-in-cheek treatment of the crime genre is the film's most obvious Freudian Slip, and certainly a subconscious recognition of some sheepishness about cranking out movies for the mob.
Costello takes the lead role as a customs/immigration officer, making a drug bust of trafficker Timothy Bleary and his niece/mule Linda, latter introduced getting off a boat in a wheelchair.
Gimmick is that Costello is corrupt, easily taking a sexual bribe as he removes a vial containing cocaine from Linda's vagina and establishes that the wheelchair bit is phony. After sex, with a John Coltrane cut from his impulse! LP "Ballads" on the soundtrack, he agrees to give her back the coke, even steven.
Film's highpoint follows as we watch Bleary in an off moment, playing a sort of acoustic slide guitar, and warbling a dirty folk tune with lyrics like "They'll never bust me" and "I ain't got no twinkie", latter referring to the body part Linda uses for smuggling. It's a simultaneously charming and idiotic sequence, capturing the spirit of Costello's early cinema efforts.
Regular in Costello's troupe Mary Stuart pops up as a short-haired lesbian named Dolly who has sex with Linda, rewarding her for a job well done in corrupting the customs officer. There's no Tina in the film, presumably Linda having that name in some version of what is largely an ad lib script.
Costello uses his confrontational dialog mode in conversations with fellow cast members, putting them on the spot. This banter is almost amusing, but to beat a dead horse I vastly prefer his later "professional" screenplays for films like SUNNY and MORE THAN SISTERS.
Shaun calls private detective Dick Tracy and sics him on the druggies, not to arrest them but to take advantage of the free sex. Meanwhile, Levi Richards is humping a buxom but plain-Jane girl named Mary, but later she is called Jane -sloppy.
Accompanied alternately by sitar music or light flute-centered jazz, other pairings occur, as Timothy is intent on using the sexual distractions to set up a big drug shipment by boat. Dolly, Jane and Linda team up for a foursome with Richards, and film's non-ending consists of four minutes of padding in the form of "highlights" footage from scenes (both narrative and sexual) that have been shown before.
Telling moment here is a casual conversation in the bathroom of Shaun and Dick Tracy, discussing how pleasurable it was to be bribed and corrupted. This tongue-in-cheek treatment of the crime genre is the film's most obvious Freudian Slip, and certainly a subconscious recognition of some sheepishness about cranking out movies for the mob.