User Reviews

Alex De Renzy straddles the borderline between underground filmmaking (the '60s: Stan Brakhage, Ed Emshwiller, Van Der Beek, etc.) and Frisco Porn. This early effort is more like a Robert Downey Sr. film (I'm thinking of Greaser's Palace, which is far better, natch) than a movie worth watching at an Adult Theater back in the day.

De Renzy provides the trappings of a Western, opening with decent locations and costumes for a silly shoot-out (in which even the dance-hall girls are toting and firing rifles, something Buck Jones would never have stood for). But he quickly pours on the anachronisms, which come so fast and furious that (as any seasoned comedian could have told him) they step on the punch lines.

Right from the first saloon scene in which the little town's combo sheriff/bartender waxes loquaciously and unfunnily, there are Coors cans prominently displayed and the bar girl is wearing a rather authentic looking Playboy Bunny costume. After a busty and nice-looking stripper shows up and does her very '60s (Carol Doda anyone?) routine atop a modern pool table, all sorts of odd folk show up, notably including a Viva lookalike who later excels in the film's minimal hardcore porn scenes.

In fact, 47 minutes of a 72 minute running time pass before Alex doles out any XXX footage, not a very wise move even in the early days of feature length porn (he had earlier dabbled in fake white-coater moviedom). The other all-the-way femme performer is a short and plump girl who likely had a one-shot career, so other than staring at the stripper's appealing breasts BURNS is woefully short on sexual content.

The gags and humor are painfully sophomoric, though one anachronistic gambit was subtle and satisfying for me. A Black Panther lady arrives at the saloon in requisite black leather jacket and barkeep informs her "you're too early" (100 years too early to be exact), so she's sent off to play piano. Later I heard her playing (quietly) the unmistakable strains of Horace Silver's 1964 jazz classic "Song for My Father", paying off on the initial premise of the film's outlaw trio comprising the McNasty Brothers gang, named after Horace's earlier Blue Note hit "Filthy McNasty".

End title reads "POWDERBURNS ever so lightly", perhaps De Renzy's cop-out as to the half- hearted nature of the project, especially compared to the all-out craziness of his next effort LITTLE SISTERS. One has to admire the maestro's chutzpah but the resulting feature reminded me of endless stillborn indie movies I used to watch that never saw the light of day due to massive shortcomings betwixt initial thought and final edit.

Powder Burns (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A narrator who is a sheriff of a small town talks about how it was held hostage by the McNasty Brothers, a trio of gunfighters who will stop at nothing to get what they want. What they currently want on this visit to town is some good alcohol and easy women.

POWDER BURNS comes from director Alex deRenzy and I must say that I was really disappointed with it. I thought it started off okay as the Western setting was actually very surreal thanks in large part to some bizarre camera-work that didn't try to hide the fact that this was a movie. The camera pretty much just floats around capturing whatever it wants and there's no question that deRenzy wants to viewer to know and see that they're watching something different.

The problem with this Western-porno mix is the fact that it's just not very successful at either thing. As a Western the film is just plain boring as there's no energy, no life and certainly no laughs. I'm really not sure what the director was trying to do with these scenes and setting but it adds up to a big zero. As far as the porno goes, nothing happens until around the forty-five minute mark and by that time the film is more than half over. None of the sex scenes are all that interesting and in fact they too are quite boring.

The film really doesn't have much going for it. It remains slightly entertaining because you keep watching and hoping that the director is going to throw us something wild but that just never happens.

I would just like to add that this was filmed at the historic Sutro Tunnel site near Dayton, Nevada. We are working on finding all of the movies that were filmed there so that we can share them and use them as a research tool. If you know of any movies filmed at the Sutro Tunnel, please let us know.