Blow Dry is a 1976 porn spoof on the movie Shampoo, released a year earlier.

Victor Colicchio (here under the single name “Pepe”), an actor and director better known for small mainstream parts in movies like Goodfellas, Bullets Over Broadway and Inside Man, had his first starring role as Warren, a young up-and-coming hairdresser trying to fuck his way to the top and start his own salon. He already has a name for it: Public Hair (although if I were him, I’d strongly shoot for a second option.)

Maggie (Helen Madigan) is Warren’s girlfriend, an aspiring actress whose part in the movie doesn’t really affect the story at all, yet she gets top billing, as she does get a lot of camera time – mostly in a couple of absurd sex montages with her boyfriend and a couple more with a fellow actor.

While Colicchio plays a straight, handsome Italian hairdresser, the always awesome Jamie Gillis – an openly bisexual actor – plays Percy, the very gay owner of the salon Warren works for. Gillis has an unusual (for him, anyway) non-sexual role, and brings the rare correct amount of camp, still pretty effeminate, but without making it too cartoony, like most attempts back then. Unsurprisingly, in the 70s, not many people could write good, believable gay characters.

Of course, you know on your way in that the film title will start more puns than anyone can handle, but even then this took it way farther than I imagined. If you’re looking for anything sophisticated, this is not the place. Blow Dry is full of porn humor clichés: constant predictable puns; a couple speaking on the phone while having sex with other people and pretending the moaning is related to their conversation; and a lot of clearly non-consensual advances that would have the movie shut down in less than a week if it were released today.

Slapstick prevails all through the movie, even having some Benny Hill-esque naked chases. Without wanting to give any spoilers away, the last chunk of the movie is a major primitive – if unplanned – orgy that feels a little too messy and unnecessary.

I understand that it’s a farce, but there were ways to make this a little better, considering the budget wasn’t exactly non-existent. In a culminating head-scratching scene, a vast array of people of different races and religions randomly show up at the mansion, and some mediocre dubbing is attempted, hitting on any possible stereotype and pun available, looking for absurd comedy; not quite getting there.

With the tagline “Shampoo Teases, Blow Dry Pleases,” the producers found a clever selling point. Sadly that wasn’t in the film, and Blow Dry, too, merely teases.

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