“Barely Legal 75” (And They Don’t Look A Day Over 20!)

October 3, 2007
GPONATE2

In that Jenny Hendrix admits in the behind the scenes featurette that she's 21, we wonder if Hustler flirted with the idea of calling this movie "Barely Drinking Age". But as we shall see, it is less important that this movie be fair and accurate than it is that the movie be. For "Barely Legal 75" comes chock fuil of everything that's good and everything that's ridiculous about porn. Read more after the gap.

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Barely Legal 75

Studio: Hustler
Director: Erica McLean
Cast: Jenny Hendrix, Faye Runaway, Alexandra, McKenzee Miles, Alexis Love, Aurora,

Review by Gram Ponante

Let's say every fourth in a porn series, such as "Barely Legal" or (make up hilarious porn series title for inevitable studio audience whooping sitcom joke here) is brilliant. This would tend to devalue the intervening three and capsize the line. So it's probably good that "Barely Legal 75" is important just because it is rather than because it's great. More than any other series in porn, "Barely Legal" underlines the fact that all porn is good - just don't expect your brain to melt.

This 75th installment comes eight years after the late Clive McLean founded the series, and #75 was filmed by his widow, Erica, at their home in stark, scrubby, and altitudinous Sunland, CA. In addition to the video there is a bonus documentary about the series.

Perhaps symbolic of the movie's importance, the theme is a flashback. A group of girls get together around the pool to dish about their "first time". A plot bomb goes off almost immediately, as Jenny Hendrix talks about how her dad invites a local swain over to sunbathe nude at the family pool. "He's really hot," Hendrix extemporizes, adding, "and so's my dad."

Hendrix has explained that she walked down to the pool that day ready to go swimming, only to find her naked neighbor. Quickly she is undressed, stripping off her bikini top and bottom, though she is wearing panties underneath. If she was ready to go swimming, why is she wearing panties?

Even asking a question like this is so beside the point as to be meaningless. The point is that she becomes naked immediately. We shouldn't worry about how the dad should be jailed, or why the neighbor is sunbathing with an erection.

Next up is the bite-sized Alexis Love, who instead of relating her encounter with a greasemonkey, says "greasy monkey guy". Her partner looks positively ancient by comparison. Is this how we all look? (I am 22.)

The chipper, moon-faced and juicy Aurora is next, telling a tale of fucking "the help" at her parents' ranch. She has to be wearing Memphis Monroe's castoff clothing, including the Daisy Dukes. In fact, Aurora fully embodies the Daisy Duke spirit. In this thoughtful journalist's opinion, too many of the wrong people wear Daisy Dukes these days.

Regardless, an inexplicable tinny guitar soundtrack plays through this scene.

Hendrix is the ringleader, so she points to various of the girls around the pool for their stories. Until McKenzee Miles comes up, she has pointed to people and said, "You." I was on the set that day, and it is easy to remember why Hendrix knew some names but not others - because it's not as if everyone got together for a barbecue in the back field. Some people hung out in one building on the McLeans' property and others were around the pool or in another building. Again, does it matter that these women would never get together for a pool party in real life? No it does not.

McKenzee is supposed to be the wild one. She has a standard sex scene with Otto Bauer. While she is not wild, she appears just a little more substantive than Alexis Love, but not by much. We can use her ribs as a xylophone.

Like so many porn movies, the best material in "Barely Legal 75" is in the behind the scenes feature. Here McKenzee sits on a toilet while getting her hair done (it is an established fact that all the makeup and hair people in the porn industry should really be in front of the camera) and talks about how chocolate soy milk makes one's boobs grow, and how all one has to do to get to first base with her is to tell her she's pretty. It's a great interview, and it is revealing that the real people are more interesting than their characters.

In the next scene, tattooed imp Faye Runaway, the smallest of all the cast, is paired with the massive Lee Stone. Were Stone not such a gentleman, we would fear for Runaway's safety. My sister, my daughter.

Finally, Alexandra, the only Girls Only performer, leads the group in a lesbian orgy by the pool. Alexandra is tall and tasty, and it is a shame the girls have a monopoly on her.

A documentary disc accompanies this movie, which is well worth the purchase price, not only for the scenes, which are not surprising and therefore just as they should be, but also for the behind the scenes featurette, which is a great documentary on its own, all the women comfortable in the presence of Erica McLean.