Dirty Lily | Chuck Vincent | 1978
Chuck Vincent’s fun take on the country-bumpkin-goes-to-the-big-city genre, who in this film ends up in New York to track down her estranged dad. The trope had come a long way since Mack Sennett’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914).
Along the way, Lily (Bethanna) ends up in the dirty picture business, has an affair with C.J. Laing, ends up in a sticky bondage situation with a bodybuilder and dominatrix Marlene Willoughby, and is almost sacrificed to a Satanic cult.
The whole thing is glued together by lead star Bethanna’s electrifying charisma with everyone she comes into contact with: Eric Edwards, R. Bolla, Sharon Mitchell, C.J. Laing, Marlene Willoughby (“She’s gotta suffah!”). Many New York stalwarts (Dave Ruby shows up at one point). Robert Michaels’ camera never stays still and the gritty sheen of New York’s heydey is all over this one.
I wonder if the scene where Lily is walking down 42nd St. in her red dress as everyone is transfixed by her inspired the Red Riding Hood scene in The Deuce.
