"Ladies Night"  (4.5/5)

Betty has a big intimacy problem.  Her man is constantly watching football.  He watches it every single night and day of the week and doesn’t pay her an ounce of the attention she so desperately yearns.  Sexually frustrated and fed up being affectionately ignored, Betty decides to call her two girlfriends Angie and Irene for a little soft touch action and after a stimulating and sensual ménage-a-trois in the shower room, each one confesses the lack of passion with their sports obsessed husbands.  The revelation spurs Irene to speak about her ventures to a ladies club where men offer their entire attention span to the women.  From the waiters to the lounge singer and the bartender to the valet, fit, ready and eager to please men cater to all their female customers’ whims and desires while also dancing in their skin tight underwear on stage.  Thus, the ladies night was born.

Perhaps one of the better films I’ve come across in my lifetime, “Ladies Night” is an absolute gem from Harry Lewis, who was one half of the fictional duo, the Lewis Brothers.  Harry Lewis' "Ladies Night" is one of the filmmaker's last adult films just after the turn of the decade in 1980.  With an appetizing female cast and formidable male co-stars, Harry Lewis crafted a sizzling course of x-rated delicacy with tight, sweaty bodies in full heat and splayed in compromising positions wrapped together in a story that takes place in a single night.  On this one sultry evening of events, Lewis is able to cram, without feeling cramped, much into the storyboard layout and is able to tell how each of the three ladies come to fulfill their primal needs in the most carnal of ways.

This was my first audience with porn legend Annette Haven, portraying the sexually neglected Betty, and Haven lives up to to her name; she's a safe place I would love to crawl up inside and explore.  Her slender physique and long almond hair compliment her well rounded, perky chest and hippy apple bottom.  Lewis gets a great angle of her backside when Haven and Paul Thomas go one-on-one after Thomas performs what could be considered a terrible rendition of vocal melodies that somehow sweep Betty off her feet and into a randomly set couch backstage.  Even though Haven is headlined, her two co-stars rival her beauty by bringing their own unique skill sets to the table.  "Oui, Girls" Lisa De Leeuw was relatively new the adult industry scene at the time, starting her career in 1979, but the fan favorite has massive jugs, a striking high cheekbone face, wild curves, and hair and bush that match fireball hues and that concluded De Leeuw was built for porn and Lewis exploited every inch of her assets, especially when she's bent over the pool table and Blair Harris hits his two-ball into her middle pocket.  As if the powerhouse pair wasn't enough, Nicole Black rounds out the trio.  Harry Lewis, again, worked his magic and brought out much of Black's new to the industry innocence.  The leggy olive skinned girl from the Nation's Capital exercised great lust for the camera, working well with a bleached blonde Jesse White to expose her smutty naivity.  The three girls' shower room lesbian caressing was so soft and so sensual, the moment felt very uncharacteristic of a porn, but fit the natural scheme of events.  Also attending was Herschel Savage who worked the bar and a Laura Lazare worked on Savage behind and underneath the bar, tongue whipping his trouser snake the whole night in pepper comedic scenes of him trying to serve drinks.  Lazare could wrap her mouth all the way around and still manage to slither her tongue up his shaft and out her mouth.  Not bad for her first credited feature.  In a very minor role, Sonya Sommers has a very memorable role as a cheerleader.  Though cheerleaders are very common in porn, this particular spirit gal had a mouth full of braces, getting the shaft in a hot tub orgy involving also Chelsea McClane.  Both McClane and Sommers have fit bods, romping every which way possible around a hot tub in a highly erotic, greatly dirty moment of lust.  Rounding out the cast are a couple of high profile studs in Mark Horner and Sean Sullivan, portraying a pair of amateur hour male dancers who get involved in a day-dreaming fantasy scene with Annette Haven.  Haven gives them a hand with lube-tastic handjobs as Horner and Sullivan sneak their wandering fingers just under Haven's rear, copping a feel of Haven's hairy beaver from behind.

The cast is epic and amazing, the story is good, and it's Harry Lewis's direction that puts "Ladies Night" over the top as an all out winner in free spirited copulation.  Lewis's gift in angled shots, getting the girls in all sorts of enticing positions that fed the camera with great chemistry between them and their partners, sold his cinematic eye behind the camera, even if his experience isn't lengthy on paper.  His scene transitions were timely and smooth and Lewis showed his production value didn't have to look barren or cheap to be in porn.  What Harry Lewis brought was an alternate way to look at porn by guiding the performers to properly pose, speak when deemed erotically functional, and dazzled with a slightly better production set. 

"Her Wicked Ways' (3.5/5)

Ruby Sutton just hit the jackpot.  Her billionaire husband, Oliver, had croaked.  Now, Ruby's ready to live the good life with Oliver Sutton's money and eager to please any guy.  Only one person stands between her and a fortune, Oliver's only daughter Catherine who challenges the legal standing of her late father's will and hires a sleazy private eye to poke around in Ruby's private life for devastating dirt.  In ensure her wealth in secure, Ruby will stop at nothing, especially if that means sleeping with every single member on her husband's corporate board to get what she desires. 

A sure rival to first film on this double bill, "Her Wicked Ways" is equally as fun and as sultry from the other half of the Lewis Brothers, Louis Lewis, but credited on the film as Ken Gibb.  The 1983 carnal comedy roles with a string thin story surrounded by a conventional plot with a dead rich guy leaving all his wealth to a beautiful broad, but "Her Wicked Ways" doesn't become too caught up in dramatics by not taking itself seriously.  Louis Lewis is able to pinpoint a method of being able to switch back-and-forth between sensual and satire.  When Ruby inherits wealth, she gets down and dirty with the limousine driver in a fairly erotic highlight reel, but when the chairman of the board goes over the revenue figures with his secretary, all the important input is in one ear and out the next when he stands from the board table, sporting no trousers and immediately hikes up his secretary's tight skirt in order to get her to the point.  That's where this Lewis brother's comedic carnalities come to the fold.

"Silk Satin Sex's" Jesie St. James goes from get-offing one board member to the next as the determined widower Ruby Sutton.  Despite only being 29 years old, James looks quite older in this production compared to the other ladies.  Either Jesi St. James had a hard life, work done, or Lewis provided some production value to make James' skin seem tethered and her face more stretched.  When compared to Joanna Storm, as Catherine Sutton, there's a stark difference between to two blondes.  Storm's flawless skin and youthful faces makes her the quintessential antagonist as Ruby's fortune roadblock.  Both James and Storm embrace their roles to the fullest, sexing up the screen in their own respective roles with a cast of usual studs such as Mike Horner, Eric Edwards, and Paul Thomas as the down-right sleazy private dick named Riff Rafferty.  However, Tigr, Janey Robbins, and Debi Diamond fill in the omitted moments of leg-spreading mayhem by being the respectively loose secretary's to Eric Edward's chairman role, a personal assistant and migraine reliever to Catherine Sutton, and as Riff's...well you get the drift. 

As a reviewer of porn, and of many other fine upstanding films, I'm never really taken aback by much; however, Louis Lewis had brought me to twitch a little during a girl-on-girl scene with Joanna Storm and Janey Robbins.   The actions were great:  Robbins tongue whips Storm's love nest and finger bangs her ever so gently, but the dialogue maintained this creepy banter between Robbins and Storm.  Robbins, in a throes of passion wordplay, spitfires the "get it hard for daddy" and "make mommy happen" quips that continue with having daddy put his big you know what in you know where.  The communicably aggressive scene had me thinking, "her personal secretary's juice inducing pillow talk is all about Catherine's parents, but isn't Catherine Sutton's parents both dead?"  Basically, Catherine Sutton had the hots for her folks and that touch gave me the willies.

In any case, that's the style Louis Lewis portrays and that bit of material is a smaller portion of the bigger picture brought up as an important public service message to the viewers from Lisa De Leeuw before "Her Wicked Ways" begins.  A message that transcends into protecting your freedom and right to choose and explore strong sexual content and, trust me, "Her Wicked Ways" is clearly abundant with strong sexual content.  After the credits, an uncredited message appears, presumably from Lisa De Leeuw again, thanking you for participating in the viewing pleasure.  The bookend announcements are a nice touch and a good reminder that the adult industry has been fighting stigmatization and legalities for decades upon decades.

Audio/Video (4/5)

Vinegar Syndrome's Peekarama Big 2 Unit double feature of the Lewis Brothers' "Ladies Night" and "Her Wicked Ways" is presented in anamorphic widescreen, a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and have been, like with all of Vinegar Syndrome's releases, scanned and restored in 2k from 35mm negatives.  Out of the two films, "Ladies Night" has better definition compared to "Her Wicked Ways" that bares more of a softer or hazier veneer.  The colors pop more in Harry Lewis' feature with details so apparent I can see every spot on Lisa De Leeuw naked skin. 

Both films have a single channel Dolby Digital mix that's good.  The track is clean and clear of any hissing or popping imperfections with robust dialogue tracks taking prominence in the forefront.  Even in the ladies club in "Ladies Night," the ambient and dialogue had their respective courses of distinction and timeliness. 

Extras (1/5)

The only extra available was an in-depth audio discussion by the Lewis Brothers overlaying the "Ladies Night" feature.

Overall

The Lewis Brothers impress commingling perverse comedy with erotic flair.  Big names like Paul Thomas, Joanna Storm, Lisa De Leeuw, and Eric Edwards, along with the Will Forte dopplerganger, Mike Horner, will attract fans and arouse many viewers, but The Lewis Brothers are responsible for the entertainment which completes this Vinegar Syndrome release of "Ladies Night" and "Her Wicked Ways" with the ultimate swanky sex appeal.  Recommended