Ignoring the bad-pun title, it's well-made porn

MAKING IT BIG is an early version of the popular pun which put Chris Noth on the map two decades later as Mr. Big in SEX AND THE CITY. It's an expose of Hollywood casting, a very corny topic which I just saw treated rather more gruesomely in the lousy Balakoff/Roter film Hollywood SHE-WOLVES.

Key character here is Dolly Dumore played by Shaun Michelle. She's a mature actress I see in lots of films (and MIB is shot on film, not video), but can never remember her since she's not pretty, untalented as an actress and not distinctive. Watching her this time I made no connection whatsoever, thinking that the Shawn (misspelled) of the opening credits was a male.

Dolly narrates and plays a big-shot Hollywood power broker who with her paramour/assistant Chas (Jerry Davis, another '80s performer who had several big roles without making much of a mark in the industry) acts as a sort of gatekeeper regarding new talent looking to make it big in La La Land.

Picture is basically built around a competition between promising young starlet Desiree Lane and newcomer Jacqueline Lorians as the evil duo pit them against each other -only one will get the almighty invite to meet Mr. Big, no - not Chris Noth, but rather Herschel Savage.

Competitions are sexual in nature, with one big test (which should have been added to the roster of nonsense on such crappy reality TV shows like "The Bachelor") where our two heroines make love in a gym and the first one to have an orgasm (at the "hands" of the other) loses.

Deck is heavily stacked (pun intended) by the filmmakers in favor of Lorians as telegraphed by her billing, but I was rooting for a personal favorite, Lane. Desiree is further sabotaged by being very artificially and noticeably dubbed (ADR) in her first scene, thought her vocal chords straighten out later in the movie.

Paul Thomas pops up briefly, typecast as an acting coach with the unlikely name of Igor, while Blake Palmer is wasted in a recurring non-role of Lorians' boyfriend back home, seen masturbating & cuming on her photo from time to time. Final test for Lorians conducted by smug Savage is as he says so eloquently: "Show me that you can make it big", referring to his object of circumcision.

Film's unexciting ending has the usual alibi appended: "To be continued..." I'm glad that this movie, like so many others, turns out to use this as a scare tactic rather than actually delivering an unwanted sequel.

It's either a contradiction or an irony that the two leading characters (apart from audience bait Lorians) are played by Michelle and Davis, both clunky talent who despite their screen roles here in real-life inexplicably got their foot in the door in the porn biz. Fictional Dolly & Chas would have weeded them out immediately, but truth is stranger than fiction.

Film's production values are good, including a soundtrack featuring good original songs in the Paul Jabarra mold. End credits are surprisingly thorough in listing the large crew, but my excitement at this development wore off quickly when I discovered they were all one-shot made-up names.

Unlike any movie about the Hollywood casting system, MAKING IT BIG takes us on a ride behind the scenes into an acting workshop that trains its girls in what really counts in the world's movie capital: sexual performance! Our story begins with a young country girl named Cherry who has won a scholarship in the DuMar Manor School of Acting. She is informed their training method may be a little unusual but has proven to be highly effective. Cherry gets intimate lessons from several "instructors" on proper technique. She soon realizes the only way to beat out her arch rival Liz is to challenge her to a one-on-one competition during an audition for Hollywood's biggest, richest, movie producer. The winner will literally be MAKING IT BIG!

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