Porn Valley Dispatch

Burn the fuckers!
said director Jennifer James, turning her slick big budget couples
flick "The Phantom of the Porn Stage" (an adult-biz takeoff on, you know, that Kiss movie) into a critique of the flesh industry. Slip into something non-flammable and join me for an on-set report after the gap.- G. Ponante

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Going to a feature set is fun because there
s usually places to sit and the lunch is good. The waiting around also increases with the budget, which is the downside. Often enough on a down and dirty gonzo set the sex scene is over before one has unpacked his camera, and that is because it happened in a van in a Trader Joe
s parking lot.

"The Phantom of the Porn Set" features a lot of kissing, as would befit a tale being primed for sale to hotel networks and Playboy. The story is that sleazeball porn producer Manny Constantine catches his girlfriend, Susan, in bed with another man and attempts to burn them both alive. Constantine succeeds in killing his girlfriend but her paramour flees, horribly disfigured.

That the tryst was going on on a porn set, a place where traditionally all bets are off, means nothing to venal Constantine, played by Don Hollywood.

I asked Hollywood—who endures regular press blitzes due to the juxtaposition of his other life as Ron Miller, L.A. criminal defense attorney—if he feels he might be typecast as a sleazeball.

When you
re a lawyer, it
s an occupational hazard,
he said, pointing out that he has 32 suits that are color-coordinated with 32 different pairs of boots.

Meanwhile, costar Steven St. Croix—who recently showed his sensitive side in "Pirates", curling into a fetal position and bawling like John and Yoko—had no problem with the tender loving care he had to show co-star Harmony Rose, who played the doomed Susan.

It
s about feelings,
he said darkly, warning the official photographer that he only had one condom left so the stills needed to count (a sizeable but not overwhelming portion of the adult industry proudly shoots
condom-only
material).

After a catered lunch in what used to be the carding room of the former wool factory now used mostly as a filming location, the LAFD Fire Marshal asked me, probably because I look like a well-lubed porn star, how many months these shoots usually took. I told him that this was a big budget endeavor so the photography would probably be four or five days.

A 30-year veteran with the fire department, he had only supervised pyro on mainstream productions
like that Chinese movie with the bombs.
He added,
I
m a virgin to all this.

Don
t let them hear you say that,
I said, darkly.

Lately I believe I
ve turned a corner and adopted an air of world-weariness about the porn industry, failing to delight in its squirty joys. But then I remembered about burning the set down.

I will admit that I turn my bullshit detector down now and then, so I didn
t question Jennifer Jamesian functionaries when they continued repeating
We
re going to burn a soundstage down!
over the past few weeks. Plus it
s rude, don
t you think, for me to ask,
Rilly?
after every declarative statement.

But I
d come expecting to see a soundstage burned down when all that had ever been planned was to ignite a propane firebar and shoot a ball of flame in the direction of Stephen St. Croix. It was fun to watch, but there was no inferno. I was therefore glad that I
m not so jaded that I can
t still be utterly duped by publicists.

St. Croix
s character remains in hiding until Constantine, lured by a cheap rental on a stage people believe is
haunted,
returns to the scene of his crime. More sex, and not wackiness, ensues.

I snapped a picture of resolute Virginian Harmony Rose (I found her on a site called waterbondage.com) smoking.
This will make people learn to love smoking again,
I said.

I hope it doesn
t,
she said, concerned for you.

- "The Phantom of the Porn Stage" will be released by the end of the year. Harmony Rose is hot like fire.

· "The Phantom of the Porn Stage" Gallery (gramponante.com)
· Jennifer James Films (jenniferjamesfilms.com)

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Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive