The Catwoman (1988) / Curse of the Catwoman (1991)

Reviews of narrative based adult films are always interesting in that it's inevitable the long cliché descriptor “porno with a plot” is bound to come up. What's interesting is exactly how that term is used. More often than it, it seems as if there's a condescending nature to describing an adult film focused on telling a story as such, almost as if an adult film has no business trying to be “legitimate” and should always be of a plotless, all sex nature. While it's true that a good chuck of the adult video product does consist of sex only content, especially in the current internet dominated marketplace, XXX films with an emphasis on narrative were what ushered in the golden age of the genre or the so called “porno chic” era. After home video took over in the 80's, there were still a handful of filmmakers determined to give their work much more to offer, one of which was John Leslie. After making the transition from actor to director in the late 80's, Leslie became responsible for some of the finest plot based films in the adult medium. Much like Stephen Sayadian and Gregory Dark, Leslie's storylines were often bizarre and outlandish, crossing over at times into surreal, horror-esque territory, with one of his earliest efforts, The Catwoman, and its companion Curse of the Catwoman being two shining examples of Leslie's narrative eccentricities.

Leslie himself plays a big part in The Catwoman in one of his last roles as a performer. Leslie is Chris, a Svengali of sorts who, after a chance encounter with Jennifer (Kathleen Gentry), a photographer frustrated with her unreliable boyfriend Steffan (Joey Silvera), convinces Jennifer that she's no ordinary woman, but in fact a cat who's inner animal is begging to be untamed. Although skeptical, Jennifer puts herself under Chris' tutelage as he introduces her to his realm of the cats as the man-eater in her becomes unleashed. For an adult film, The Catwoman is uniquely ambiguous in that it never really answers the question as to whether or not it's supposed to be taken literally or metaphorically with there being many things about the film that leads to both options being equally plausible. If Leslie intended the later, the film is successful just based on how clever the writing is, using the idea of having an inner animal to tell the story of a frustrated woman getting one over on her deadbeat boyfriend. The film also plays around with the idea of the dating world being a jungle, even having its own terminology, hilariously referring to overtly zealous men in bars as “hyenas”. On the other hand, given Leslie's knack for the strange, it wouldn't be a stretch to take the film at face value with Gentry and Leslie's characters literally being half-cat given some of the make-up seen late in the film worn by the inhabitants of Leslie's “cat lair”.

With Curse of the Catwoman, Leslie takes whatever ambiguity the first film had and dispenses with it entirely in favor of a story fully rooted in the fantastique. Raquel (Selena Steele), the estranged sister of Veronica (Raven) arrives at her sisters house after learning that she and her sister are descendants of cat people and their destinies dictates one will eventually become the leader of the cats. Along with Veronica's two cat packmates Michael (Rocco Siffredi) and Tanya (Patrica Kennedy), Raquel is inducted into the ways of the cat, though a power struggle ensues when Veronica places the title of supreme cat on herself. Rivaling Laying the Ghost (1991) which was shot around the same time in terms of head-scratching oddness, Curse of the Catwoman is one of Leslie's most berserk efforts with it being pretty blatant that the characters are indeed werecats. A live panther even makes a few brief appearances and Leslie has the cast maneuver and acting like actual cats, making the already peculiar performances all the more unconventional. Though Leslie expands the mythology of the first film a bit, Curse is a fairly insular film, with a good chunk of the film taking place in a nightclub where the cats congregate (the hyena's from the first film return as well with their own “pit” in the nightclub) or in the bizarre house of the main cats looking as if it's in the middle of renovation, though both sets are highly stylized making Curse one of Leslie's sharpest looking films.

Like most of Leslie's features from this period, both films feature excellent scores from Bill Heid, Leslie's main musical collaborator. For these two films, which both feature the same soundtrack, Heid eschews the usual jazz/blues flavored scores he provided for Leslie in favor of eerie synths and pulsating tribal drums used to great effect. The original film even features an infectious snythpop styled theme song for the closing credits. Curse also happens to feature the legendary Jamie Gillis, one of Leslie's best friends, during the films memorable opening scenes. Gillis also acted as the films assistant director, a job he would hold for several other Leslie films. 1991 was a pretty fruitful year for offbeat adult fare. Along with Curse and Leslie's previously mentioned Laying the Ghost, 1991 was the year that Stephen Sayadian (AKA Rinse Dream) returned to the medium with the second and third Nightdreams films and Party Doll a Go-Go!, the later sharing several cast members with Curse including Raven, Patricia Kennedy as well as Tom Byron and Randy Spears. 1991 was also the year that Gregory Dark delivered New Wave Hookers 2, the sequel to his groundbreaking classic (starring Gillis), which also happens to feature Kennedy. Much like those films, Leslie's Catwoman features are indicative of a type of off-center adult filmmaking that only a few select directors seemed interested in exploring. Both essential titles in the Leslie cannon. 

Goin' Down Slow (1988)

The actor-to-director transition is always a curious thing for the obvious interest in seeing how experience in the former field translates to the later. In the adult film industry, it's a common practice for veteran performers to make their way behind the camera after an extensive career as performers and one of the very first to do so was John Leslie. A gifted actor, musician, painter, all around renaissance man, Leslie was already a living legend by the time he sat in the directors chair, having appeared in several golden age or “porno chic” titles like Fiona on Fire (1978), Dracula Sucks (1978) and Insatiable (1981) among many others and quickly became recognized for his charm and legitimate acting talent. By all accounts, Leslie was loved and respected by virtually everyone in the industry all the way up to his passing in 2010. As Leslie himself opined in the documentary After Porn Ends (2012), near the end of the 80's he was becoming weary of being a performer and while standing in line at the airport waiting to travel to Europe for work, he made the decision to focus solely on directing. Leslie's debut feature as a director was Nightshift Nurses (1988), a light comedic affair but it was his second feature Goin' Down Slow that really solidified him as a director and set in motion one of the hottest directorial streaks imaginable.

Martin Collins, a writer who pens an advice column under the nom de plume “Madame Rona” discovers through his very own column that his wife Ellen is having an affair. When confronting her about it, the argument turns physical, resulting in Ellen being knocked to the ground and struck on the head by a falling statue, killing her. After trying to pass it off as a home invasion, Martin is thrown for a loop when Ron Stevens, a photographer working for the same magazine, is found at the scene of the crime and charged with the murder. Despite seemingly being in the clear, Martin's troubles are just beginning when more stones are overturned that eventually involve his boss George Anton (Leslie) and lonely neighbor Miss Palmer.

Misleadingly advertised as a whodunit, Goin' Down Slow is the type of film that features all the essential components of a murder mystery yet scrambles the order typical mystery films normally sequence them. By having all the seemingly crucial questions answered within the first half hour, the films focus quickly shifts to other revelations made about the lives of everyone involved in the case which is where the film really becomes interesting. It's a fine line to walk which Leslie does brilliantly, and what's especially incredible is how there is essentially no real protagonist, with the majority of characters being unlikable for the most part, giving the film a downbeat, drastically different type of tone when compared to most adult features. Above all else, the film is incredibly clever, particularly the way Leslie weaves Collins' job into the murder plot. Of course, the nature of Collins' column also gives Leslie the opening to smoothly segue into some of the sex scenes and surprisingly there are long stretches of the film where there are none, Leslie seemingly becoming so focused on the narrative it's as if he forgets the demands of the the medium he's working in. It's another example of just how air tight the plot of the film really is, only becoming more engrossing as it goes along, especially late in the film where Leslie himself gets to shine as Collins' boss and the reemergence of a character introduced in the beginning of the film making way for a rather ingenious twist.

Produced and distributed by VCA who would be Leslie's distributor until 1994, Goin' Down Slow features the participation of many that would go on to become regular players for Leslie, Joey Silvera especially who plays the role of Ron Stevens, would be given fairly prominent and memorable roles by Leslie in subsequent films like The Catwoman (1989), The Chameleon (1989), Laying the Ghost (1991), Dog Walker (1994) and Fresh Meat: A Ghost Story (1995). Kathleen Gentry who plays Collins' secretary would go on to play the titular role in the aforementioned Catwoman and Tom Byron and Peter North who both appear in a sequence inspired by Collins' “Madame Rona” column appear in several future Leslie titles, Byron even co-headlining The Chameleon. Perhaps the most important contribution however would be that of composer Bill Heid, who's jazz/blues score added greatly to the films noirish atmosphere. Heid would become Leslie's right hand man when it came to the soundtracks for his films with the two developing an incredibly fruitful and rewarding director/composer relationship on par with the likes of Lynch/Badalamenti or Ferrara/Delia with Heid's scores, mostly in the jazz/blues realm, always being one of the strongest aspects of Leslie's work. Although made early in his directorial career, Goin' Down Slow is a remarkably assured film proving Leslie's directorial chops and the man would only get better, and at times progressively stranger, from here on out.