Geekscape After Dark presents Not the Bradys XXX!

Welcome to Geekscape After Dark, where the porn is always safe for work and where I am a complete and utter failure for getting only two columns into this series and already finding myself struggling for something to say about a movie.

I had always planned for Hustler Video’s/X Play’s/Larry Flynt Publication’s (at least one of those is right) Not the Bradys XXX to be the subject of my second column because on paper it seemed like a slam dunk. An expensive pornographic satire of one of TV’s most wholesome and iconic sitcoms would seem ripe for critical examination, or at least amusing commentary, but instead I find it just sitting here like the proverbial elephant in the room, begging to be acknowledged but not over-analyzed. And like that elephant I find that watching Not the Bradys XXX for an extended period of time causes at least one part of your anatomy to feel somehow inadequate.

Yes, it’s the Brady Bunch.  The title says it’s not, but that’s just Hustler Video/X Play/Larry Flynt Publications getting cute on us (they’ll get more on us later). There’s a new trend in pornographic satires: Rather than coming up with amusing plays on words to indicate that their mainstream media adaptations are satirical, like “Mr. Holland’s Orgy” or “21 Hump Street” or “Cheeks & Thong’s Up in Stroke,” now they just put a “Not” or “This Ain’t” in front of titles like “Three’s Company” or “Bewitched,” allowing them to be exactly like those programs in every respect and even use the original program’s title on the cover and still not get sued. (Admittedly, this is pretty clever.) So every aspect of The Brady Bunch is pretty much perfectly replicated in Not the Bradys XXX except for the sex, which the pornographic version appears to have a wee bit more of.

Yup, it’s just another casual conversation with the… DUDE! THAT’S YOUR SISTER!!! 

Not the Bradys XXX plays like a pretty typical episode of Actually The Brady Bunch Rated G: Mike Brady (Mike Horner – What About Boob?, Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?) has financial trouble and the Brady Bunch (only not) bands together to raise money for their parents. Along the way, Mike and Carol (Alana Evans – Secret Suburban Sex Parties, Sex Survivor 1-6) worry that their children are growing up too fast and Marcia (Hillary Scott – Britney Rears 4: Britney Goes Gonzo, Female Gardener) debates the merits of entering the pornographic industry before getting hit in the nose with a football which then triggers a full-fledged psychotic break in which she has sex with her brother Greg (Benjamin Brat – Slant Eye for the Straight Guy 1, Heavy Handfuls 3). Or maybe that was a dream. Or maybe it was all a cunning scheme perpetrated by Marcia’s uncle/porn producer/doctor Lu Bricaté (Lu Bricaté, in a brilliant acting debut). One of the biggest problems with Not the Bradys XXX is that it eventually culminates in a twist ending that generates more mysteries than it solves. The upcoming sequel “Not the Bradys XXX: Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” may answer all of these burning questions (at least, I hope that’s what that burning sensation is…), but the first film, on its own, is strangely dissatisfying.

Certainly, it’s a beautiful production. The costume and production design are particularly well-crafted, giving the film a Technicolor “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” quality that can only be admired. Everything in general feels too good to be true: the sets, the clothes, the sex, the lack of clothes, etc. But the problem is that nothing feels REAL. The filmmaking, writing and directing are all appreciably aping the style of the classic late 60’s/early 70’s sitcom era, but unlike The Brady Bunch Movie, which used the retro style of the original show to contrast provide contrast for a less innocent but often more enlightened modern era, Not the Bradys XXX doesn’t seem confident in its timeline and tone, preventing us from becoming truly immersed in the world of the film. On one hand, the film feels like a “Lost Episode,” full of revelations about the characters and their world that were conspicuously absent from the original series. On the other, it feels like an awkward update that wants to have its cake, i.e. playing exactly like an episode of the Brady Bunch, and eat it too by insisting on including contradictory plot elements, usually involving sex for some reason.

Dating outside your ethnicity: Progressive.
Only letting the hired help see you together: Regressive.

Take Jan, for example: As in the original series, Mike and Carol are worried about her social skills. It’s okay, Alice (Lynn LeMay – Foreskin Gump, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Breast) insists. She just saw Jan’s new boyfriend going “up to her bedroom… to teach her skills.” We then cut to the backyard (which, judging from that last line, Alice apparently thinks is both upstairs and the location of Jan’s bed) where we find Jan (Aurora Snow – In & Out in Beverly Hills, Fast Times at Deep Crack High 2 & 5) making out with her boyfriend Ramone (Tee Reel – Evil Vault 1, The Whole Enchilada), who turns out to be a black guy. But as a modern, enlightened Brady, Jan overcomes racial divides that might have rocked the household in the original series and has hardcore sex with him outside by the swing set. Now the scene feels like it belongs in the swinging, progressive present, but before they can even tidy up afterwards Jan kicks him out because her “brothers and sisters might be coming.” Might? Jan seems willing to let “the help” see her interracial boyfriend, but not her actual family. To add further consternation, note that Tee Reel doesn’t even get a speaking role in the film. Progressive indeed…!

All the Brady kids are, to varying degrees, highly sexually experienced in this film, which is an unexpected creative decision. Instead of making a movie in which an innocent family learns the values of sexual liberation, Not the Bradys XXX portrays the Brady Bunch as an innocent family of sex-crazed nymphomaniacs who learn that they can make lots of money by exploiting their bodies. Cindy (Leah Luv – Booty & The Geek, A Bustful of Dollars), for example, learns from a helpful trespasser and apparent propane enthusiast (Kurt Lockwood – star of The Boobsville Hot Chocolate Shop and the director of Lords of Doggie Style Town) that he would pay more money to have sex with her than to have her wash his car. She’s intrigued by the idea, and has hardcore sex with him. She’s pretty safe about it, too – she even takes the rubber bands out of her braces and everything. (On a side note, Leah Luv’s braces seem to go through a lot wear and tear in her movies. I wonder if her orthodontist approves.)

Leah Luv’s braces become the instrument of irony, forcing her
to throw away her rubbers in order to have safe sex.

So Cindy becomes a prostitute albeit a reasonably well paid one while Marcia, Bobby (Mikey Butders – The Bush Administration, L.A. Kink, and who shares a birthday with me… Yay!) and Greg all focus on careers in pornography. Bobby gets a job right away, giving hope to legions of audience members who want to believe that it’s easier for men to break into pornography than women (perhaps falsely). This has the added bonus of giving him the opportunity to sleep with Greg’s girlfriend Katie on camera (Jasmine Byrne – Slipping Into Darkness, Grin and Bare-It), making it totally okay because it’s only acting.

Meanwhile, Marcia lets her uncle/doctor/porn producer Lu take Polaroids of her half naked and then spends the rest of the film at war with her inhibitions over having sexual intercourse for audiences in, as Uncle Lu insists, Transylvania and Tangiers. Greg tries to get a job helping Sam the Butcher (Ron Jeremy – City Lickers, I Know Who You Did Last Summer), not realizing that he’s actually applying for the same pornographic acting job that Bobby just got. Sam the Butcher assures Greg that if any part of Bobby should get cut off in a horrible on-the-job accident, Greg will be next in line. This, of course, doesn’t bode too well for Bobby, who might want to read the script before he commits to his next project.

Ron Jeremy advises his younger co-stars to “Go long.”

Greg and Marcia finally film themselves having sex on camera for the good of the family, and they seem like consummate professionals… or at least professional about consummating. But their forbidden union is not to last, because as soon as Greg finally achieves closure Marcia starts yelling out, “Greg no! This is wrong! Etc.” She wakes up in bed surrounded by her family (and Sam the Meat Man for some reason), where she is told that she just had a horrible nightmare. (No one questions why she was screaming for Greg to “stop” because what her brother was doing to her is “wrong.” I’m guessing it’s a common nightmare in the Brady house.) Considering the fact that Marcia got hit in the nose by a football just minutes before committing wholeheartedly to vague incest, the audience is probably thinking “Oh, I get it. Sleeping with her brother was just a dream.” That way the audience members who were interested in the kinda-sorta creepy stuff could have their inter-Brady coitus while audience members who find the whole affair to be in poor taste can write it off as an intriguingly Freudian dream. But then Uncle Lu shows up as Marcia’s doctor and blows the entire plotline to hell.

The film ends (SPOILER ALERT!) when Marcia sees her doctor, also played by Lu Bricaté, and recognizes him only as “Uncle Lu.” This is all the information we get (the credits roll right afterwards) but it successfully calls the entire narrative into question. Who is the real Lu Bricaté? Is he a kindly doctor whom our hallucinating heroine somehow projected into her own little sexual hell? If so, what is he doing to his patient that makes her envision him as a purveyor of pornography and sin? Or is Lu Bricaté really a porn producer whose Machiavellian schemes have finally culminated in infiltrating the Brady house to play doctor with Marcia, in confidence game worthy of even the great David Mamet?

“And you were there… And you were there…
And, wow Greg, you don’t even want to know what you were doing…”

Since the former theory has a particularly unsettling “Fire Walk With Me” quality which I don’t think the filmmakers were going for, I’m inclined to believe that director Will Ryder (Not Bewitched XXX, This Ain’t the Partridge Family XXX) was instead pulling a “House of Games” on the audience. Looking back, several plot points only make sense if Lu Bricaté was the ingenious but malevolent puppet master behind the proceedings with Katie, his loyal employee, porn star, cheerleader, Greg’s girlfriend and the captain of the debate team (making her a very busy girl), by his side.

Using the facts given to us in the film, we can infer the following: Lu Bricaté, in an attempt to lure the Brady Bunch (and Marcia in particular) into the pornographic industry because of their wholesome yet erotic appeal, burns down Mike Brady’s office, sending him spiraling into potential bankruptcy. He then places a prominent classified ad for his modeling agency emphasizing the ease of the work and convenient proximity to the Brady’s house in the newspaper to which the Brady’s subscribe. Although he lures Bobby successfully with the dangling carrot of sex with his brother’s girlfriend, Marcia needs more convincing. Lu eases Marcia into the idea by taking some half naked Polaroids of her. Marcia then leaves, but not before “conveniently” “bumping into” Katie, who uses this opportunity to sneak the naked pictures into Marcia’s pants pocket. She then uses her debate team skills to convince Marcia of the more admirable qualities of pornography and shows her the film set, where Sam the Meat Man – already planted inside the house as Alice’s lover – is “performing” with a girl Marcia’s age, all in an effort to throw her into an easily exploited sensory overload.

The entire plot of Not the Bradys XXX hinges on this Blink-and-You’ll-Miss-It moment.

When next confronted with Sam, Marcia has trouble reconciling the Meat Man she thought she knew with the porn star she now knows him to be. Confused and desperately seeking something to latch onto, she begins seriously considering a pornographic career and starts practicing on one of the dozen brightly colored sexual aides Lu had one of his special agents place in her bedroom (I’m guessing Sam, who disappears into the house not long beforehand with a mysterious “package” for Alice).  Meanwhile, Lu uses his loyal army of porn stars to turn the rest of the Brady kids to the porn side. Peter (James Deen – Evilution 1, The Last Whore House on the Left) is seduced by both Veronique Vega (Bikini Pick Ups, 100% Prime Grade A Meat 1) and Paulina James (Beyond the Call of Booty 1, Sexed Up Superheroines 1), who notably play themselves, while Cindy is “turned” by Kurt Lockwood, as himself, working undercover as a propane enthusiast and pro bono economic adviser. We all know that Jan is sleeping with Ramone, who seems innocent enough, but we later learn that Ramone is also Katie’s brother, and since looks suspiciously like the porn star Tee Reel he’s obviously in on it too.

Mike and Carole are alerted to the sexual aides that Alice finds/steals from the girls’ bedroom, and are then exposed to the naked Polaroid (that Marcia didn’t even know was in her pocket) when they find it in the laundry. Clearly, Lu is easing the kids’ parents into the idea of seeing their children naked in multimedia. Finally, Katie “confides” in Greg, the last great piece of the Brady puzzle, and her “honesty” convinces him that pornographers are trustworthy people and that the industry is morally sound. The killing blow is struck when Bobby (the first to be indoctrinated) throws a football in Marcia’s face, knocking her already addled psyche into a state of shock, complete with a retro wavy lines effect on the screen. At her most vulnerable, Marcia finally gives in to the mounting pressure and not only agrees to sleep with Greg on camera but in fact becomes the sexual aggressor. When the effects of the head injury wear off, Marcia begins rebelling against the emotional programming imprinted by Uncle Lu. Greg then cleverly gets Marcia to swallow a sedative and she wakes up to her comforting family… and the mysterious Uncle Lu, masquerading as a doctor (a widely recognized symbol of authority). Whether Lu is Mike’s brother or Carol’s, his certainly are some dastardly deeds.

The film ends there, but if I know Will Ryder (and let’s pretend for a moment that I actually do) then I suspect that a director’s cut exists in which the final scene continues: Lu Bricaté explains his elaborate plan while keeping Marcia at bay in a cruel but ingenious deathtrap sprung by her own brainwashed Brady brood. This would then set the stage for the sequel, in which Marcia Brady must take the law into her own hands in an effort to save her precious Bunch from the charismatic and sadistic monster that is Lu Bricaté, Master of the Porn-eign Legion. (Actually, the sequel to Not the Bradys XXX – Not the Bradys XXX: Marcia, Marcia, Marcia – is out now. I haven’t seen it yet, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s exactly like what I’m picturing in my head.)

So if you’ve always wanted to see The Brady Bunch with (more) sex scenes and a labyrinthine plotline, Not the Bradys XXX is the way to go. It’s available in a well-produced and special features-laden DVD (Ron Jeremy has some great anecdotes from the golden age of pornography in the Behind the Scenes feature) from Hustler, X Play and/or Larry Flynt Publications (the box is a little vague about that), and I heartily recommend watching it. I just don’t recommend thinking about it as much as I have.

Three teenaged daughters, only two beds. The Brady Bunch’s obsessive-compulsive need
for symmetry rears its uglier head.

RAWHIDE
WHO’S NAILIN’ PAYLIN?