Flicks With Chicks : Pacific Banana (1981)

Alyson Best as Mandy

The Story

Martin Budd (Graeme Blundell) is a pilot for Blandings Airlines. After his employer's wife, Lady Blandings, tries to force herself on him, first during a private flight and secondly in her chauffeur-driven limousine, Martin develops a sexual disfunction. When attempting sex he sneezes and loses his erection. This is depicted by a shot of a windsock deflating. Sir Harry Blandings (Alan Hopgood) sees Martin fall out of the limo and sneeze, while a dishevelled Lady Blandings informs him she has been molested.

Blandings fires Martin, but not before showing him off to his daughter, Julia (Helen Hemingway), and explaining that this is what a sex maniac looks like. For Julia it is love at first sight. After his wife is gone, Harry explains that he knows what she is like and that he will send Martin to work as a pilot for Banana Airlines. On his way there he is picked up by a sexy woman who tries to seduce him. When he finds out that she is Blandings' other daughter Penny he sneezes and goes limp.

Banana Airlines seems to consist of only one plane, and a pretty clapped-out one at that. The other pilot is an inveterate lady's man by the name of Paul Davidson (Robin Stewart) who is engaged to both of the airline hostesses - Sally (Deborah Gray) and Mandy (Alyson Best), but still finds time to cheat on them with a string of other women.

Once Paul, Sally and Mandy find out about Martin's problem they try to help him with it. When the plane is chartered by Candy Bubbles (Luan Peters) to carry a bunch of swingers to Club Candy (her cut-price answer to Club Med), she and her club hostesses lend a hand.

Julia Blandings keeps stowing away aboard the plane and popping up to declare her undying love for Martin, which just panics him even more.

While jealous husbands and jealous hosties pursue Paul, Candy finally resorts to a primitive ritual which involves her baring her boobs and which is liable to arouse not just every man on the island, but the slumbering volcano as well.

But perhaps it is true love in the person of Julia which will, after all, provide the cure for what ails our hero.

The Director

John D. Lamond was once the king of Aussie skin flicks. He began in 1975 with a mondo style documentary called Australia After Dark. This was to be a look at the sinister and sleazy side of Australian life. The only problem was that in 1975 Lamond found it hard to find anything sinister or sleazy going on to film, so he had to create his own black mass and kinky orgy, the latter scene featuring a well-known gay television personality sporting leather gear. Next came The ABC of Love and Sex : Australia Style (1978) - a softcore sex film posing as as a sex education documentary and featuring women in leotards fondling giant penis statues. Also in 1978, Lamond made his most popular film Felicity, an Emmanuelle imitation about a plucky school girl who travels to Hong Kong and finds herself on a journey of sexual discovery. After that he turned to the popular slasher film genre with Nightmares (1980). Pacific Banana appears to have been Lamond's last real success. He directed a couple more films in Australia - Breakfast in Paris (1982) and A Slice of Life (1983), a comedy about vasectomy, and he wrote and produced a science fiction adventure called Sky Pirates (1986). Since then he's made a couple of obscure thrillers shot in Asia. But his appearance in Mark Hartley's documentary Not Quite Hollywood (2008) and the DVD releases of a number of his films has brought him back into the public eye, and now he is planning to direct two new movies - a noirish thriller and a dramady as well as executive produce some others. Check out this article for more on these current projects.

The Writer

Alan Hopgood is a writer and an actor. In Pacific Banana he plays the role of Sir Harry Blandings. He wrote the script for the famous Australian sex comedy Alvin Purple (1973) which made a star of actor Graeme Blundell. He also wrote its sequel and the television series which followed. He has written for famous television soaps such as Bellbird (1967), The Flying Doctors (1987-1991) and Neighbours (1998-2001). As an actor he has been a regular on Australian television. He played the part of Wally Wallace in 75 episodes of Prisoner. Films in which he as acted include My Brilliant Career (1979), The  Blue Lagoon (1980) and Roadgames (1981). Clearly Lamond thought that, by reuniting Hopgood and Blundell, he might end up with a hit like Alvin Purple. Certainly he and Hopgood were hoping it would be the first of a series. It didn't turn out that way. Hopgood was disappointed with the way Lamond cheapened his script, adding a pie fight sequence, etc. He feels that it was the director's fault that they didn't end up with a successful series of films.

The Actors

Graeme Blundell became a household name in Australia playing the role of Alvin Purple in the film of the same name. This tale of an ordinary guy who is unaccountably irresistible to women was a huge success, taking advantage of the recently created R-rating and paving the way for a string of raunchy romps like Pacific Banana. He has had an extensive career in film and television and even appeared in Star Wars : Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). He has also worked extensively in the theatre and was the author of a best-selling biography of Australian television personality Graham Kennedy.

Robin Stewart is an English actor perhaps best known for his role as Mike Abbott in the sitcom Bless This House (1971-1976) starring Sid James and as Leyland Van Helsing in the Hammer Films / Shaw Brothers collaboration The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974).

Deborah Gray adorned the cover of Australian Playboy in March 1981 as well as appearing in three other issues of the magazine. She became famous in 1977 playing the character of Miss Hemingway on the notorious Australian soap Number 96. Miss Hemingway was a serial exhibitionist who would appear in public in a long fur coat only to drop it and reveal that she was completely naked underneath. Her public exposures and trips to the psychiatrist in hopes of finding a cure for her behaviour were  a highlight of the show towards the end of its run. As well as playing the role of Sally, she and Luan Peters co-wrote and sang the film's catchy theme song. She went on to have a pop music career in the late seventies. Now she writes witchcraft books and has put out a jazz album.

Alyson Best appeared on a number of television soap operas, including having a main role in the short-lived Holiday Island (1981) of which her bikini-clad form was the major appeal. She also appeared a number of movies, including Harlequin (1980), with Robert Powell and David Hemmings, and Paul Cox's brilliant Man of Flowers (1983). She had a very appealing girl-next-door quality and often got her gear off on film. John Lamond claims she walked around nude for much of the time they were filming Pacific Banana. She hasn't acted on television or film since 1986.

Helen Hemingway was born in 1953. This would mean she was 28 when she played the role of Julia Blandings, running around in a school uniform. So the voice over narration which describes her as "mutton dressed up as lamb" is accurate. Her acting career was a fairly modest one. She appeared in three television series and two movies. The other movie was the cult horror film Patrick (1978). A pity. After seeing her sexy and charming performance in this film I would have liked to see more of her.

Luan Peters did a lot of television in Britain including two appearances on Doctor Who. She also appeared in two Hammer vampire films - Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971).

Hedley Cullen who has a brief non-speaking role as an airline passenger who leeringly looks up Deborah Gray's skirt was better known as Adelaide television horror host Deadly Earnest.

The Review

John Lamond's movies are not what you would call high-class cinema, but unlike many other auteurs who chased the drive-in dollar he kept the production values high on his movies. They might be dumb exploitation movies, but they always looked good. And Pacific Banana is no exception. The girls are gorgeous and artfully photographed. The scenery often spectacular. And the acting is good enough for the requirements of the script. Graeme Blundell, in particular, has always been a fine comic actor. The gags in the film, and especially the campy narration, are more likely to induce groans than giggles, but it really doesn't matter. The characters are likeable, the actors and actresses good looking, and watching them fly around a number of Pacific islands having sexy adventures is a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half.

The Book

There was a tie-in paperback based on the film written by someone with the unlikely name of Aldor Flagg. It isn't very good. The plot differs in some areas from the movie, but it really has nothing to offer as the film's appeal is in its visuals and not in its plot or dialogue.

Native Love : Wank Wednesday

Time to get back to a bit of Wank Wednesday wantonness. Today's prompt is #grace. For more info on this near legendary writing challenge and to read the rest of the entries, check out the Word Ejaculation blog.

Native Love

It was a bright summer's day in the Cotswolds, the daisies in full bloom, when news reached Prudence Butterworth that her husband had been mauled to death by a leopard.

The year was 1910 and Prudence, who had just turned fifty a few weeks earlier, was not particularly surprised at the news. Reverend Bartholomew Butterworth had been the Presbyterian pastor of Puddleby-on-the-Donk when she married him. She had been a good respectable pastor's wife and had born him a son, Archibald. But when Archibald graduated from college and took passage to Australia, Bartholomew found himself suddenly fired by missionary zeal. No longer could he content himself with a life of jumble sales, tea parties and organ repair fund-raisers when he knew that the Dark Continent was just chock full of naked heathens living a shamefully carefree existence in complete ignorance of the peril hanging over their eternal souls. He kissed his devoted wife goodbye and, armed with a trunk full of Bibles and a copy of Teach Yourself Swahili he headed off for the Congo.

He had been gone for six years when the grizzly news of his demise reached Prudence. She hadn't really missed him all that much. He'd always been a bit of a wet blanket, but he was a good provider. Prudence was a dreamer. She had always longed for a man who would take her in his strong arms, ravish her soft wet mouth with rough kisses and give her a long hard poke in the whiskers. She knew she shouldn't really think about these things, but she couldn't help herself. She was far more hot-blooded than her husband who seemed to view sex as some kind of regrettable necessity much like blowing one's nose. She paid close attention to the men of the village. She daren't flirt with them. That would not be proper. But if she saw a finely chiselled muscular workman with his shirt open spilling water down over his chest as he drank from the water pump in the town square, she would discreetly run her eyes over him and store up the image to be enjoyed in the realm of fancy when she was curled up in her warm bed. One reason she didn't mind her husband's absence was that it gave her the freedom to do what she wanted in her bedroom. One day, while unpacking a box of books for the jumble sale, she had discovered a copy of a magazine called The Oyster. My did that open up her imagination to new possibilities! The magazine was full of stories of wicked men and women engaging in every kind of debauchery. Prudence read it over and over again, and then she would lie in her bed naked (something she could never do with Bartholomew beside her) and she would recast the orgies from the magazine with herself and the men of the village as she fondled her stiff nipples and frigged her wet pussy, sailing away on a sea of salaciously saucy sluttiness. That, she was afraid, was the only word for her - a slut. Well, maybe not the only word - trollope, whore and jezebel would do just as nicely. But this was only what she was in spirit, not in deed. There was no reasonable opportunity for a secret slut to live out her desires when she was trapped in the body of a pastor's wife.

The letter which informed Prudence of the death of her husband also asked what she wanted done with his body. To send it back to England would be expensive, and she knew that he would prefer to be buried in the wild land that he had come to love.

"If he can travel to Africa, I don't see why I shouldn't do the same," she said to herself. "It is only right that I be there to put his body to rest."

And so this was how, three months later, after a long sea voyage and a long and dangerous trek into the dark interior she found herself in the village of Utambi.

Her husband had done an amazing job of civilizing the natives. She had to give him that. They all spoke perfect English. The men were all dressed in neatly pressed black suits with white bowties, and the women wore brightly coloured dresses which hung down straight over their bodies and reached to their ankles. They didn't seem troubled by the demise of their benefactor, in fact they were all smiles. The men grinned broadly and their eyes had a naughty twinkle, and the women giggled shyly and reaching out to touch Prudence.

"We are most honoured to meet the good Reverend's charming wife," announced Chief Ngobla with a deep bow.

"I can understand now why my husband was so in love with Africa," she replied. "Such a charming congregation."

"May I dare to suggest," put in Ngobla, "that he might be alive today if his love had not extended to the wildlife."

"Poor Bartholomew," sighed Prudence. "It must have been dreadful. But tomorrow we will bury him and have a proper funeral."

"A funeral we shall have," agreed the chief, "but we cannot bury him."

"Why not?" she asked.

"A week after the leopard killed him," he explained, "the Goona tribe from the next valley stole him for their cooking pot."

"That's terrible!" cried Prudence. "You can't mean that there are still cannibals in this area?"

"It is most regrettable," he nodded. "We too ate the first three missionaries sent to our village."

"But you have learned to be good Christians now, haven't you?" she replied, a bit nervously.

"Oh, yes," he reassured her, with a big toothy grin, "we are good Christians now. We no longer eat missionaries. Only athiests. And we say grace first."

"Oh, my!" cried Prudence, not sure if he was joking or not. It was so hard to tell when he grinned all the time and the women kept giggling.

"Now that the Reverend has been taken from us, what can we do for spiritual guidance?" asked Ngobla.

"I'm sure the church will send you another missionary," she said.

"Yes," he replied sadly, his grin suddenly gone, "but there are missionaries and missionaries."

"You stay and be our missionary," said one of the women enthusiastically, grabbing her by the arm.

"Yes!" cried Ngobla. "We like you! It is decided!"

"But I can't be a missionary!" exclaimed Prudence. "I haven't had any training."

"We'll train you," explained Ngobla. "The Reverend trained us so well, we can train you and then you can train us back again."

"Well, I must admit the prospect is much more appealing than going back to boring old England," she admitted. "I'll stay until a proper missionary turns up anyway."

So Prudence was shown to the Reverend's old hut where she stowed away her luggage, and then they sat around and ate a delicious zebra hot pot cooked by Ndooboo, a short chubby man who was Ngobla's chef as well as the village witch doctor. (The Reverend had had a hard time persuading him to stop telling people with various ailments to sacrifice two chickens and see him in the morning.)

Prudence had never felt so welcome anywhere before. It was as if she had instantly been adopted into the tribe.

That night as she lay in her tent, thinking about how handsome Ngobla and the other men of the tribe were, and quietly fingering her wet pussy, she began to hear the sounds of passionate love-making in the other huts. The growl of marauding lions, the laughing bark of the hyena and the crash of rhinoceroses through the undergrowth - these background noises were now drowned out by groans and grunts and feminine squeals as the flimsy walls of the village huts trembled and shook.

Prudence didn't sleep well that first night. She came about twenty times pleasuring herself to imaginings of what was going on just feet away from her, but she didn't sleep well. She awoke with a plan.

"Ngobla," she said, when she emerged from her hut shortly after dawn, "I've been thinking. I think perhaps my husband made a mistake."

"I would say so," replied Ngobla. "Stepping on a leopard cub when its mother is sitting on a tree branch over your head would generally be classified as a mistake."

"No, I don't mean that," she insisted. "I mean when it comes to cultural sensitivity. I'm sure he meant well by dressing you all in these fancy clothes, but it isn't really appropriate for the climate, and it shows insensitivity to your culture, which, in its own way, is just as legitimate as English culture."

Ngobla's face lit up with his trademark grin.

"You would not be embarrassed if we went naked?" he asked.

Prudence blushed.

"Well, off course, I might feel a bit embarrassed, but it is the right thing to do, to let you be comfortable," she responded, though she couldn't keep a cheeky grin of her own from creeping across her face.

"I think you want to be a bit embarrassed," Ngobla replied. "The Reverend was very embarrassed when he arrived in the village. He was so embarrassed when he saw the ladies of the tribe that the front of his trousers became insubordinate."

"I wish I'd been here to see that," she replied. "Now get out of those ridiculous clothes, all of you!"

Ngobla tore off his coat and shirt and yanked down his trousers and undergarment. In less than a minute he was nude. And what a fine figure of a man he was, tall and muscular, his ebony skin shining in the sun.

"Wow! I can see why you're the chief of the tribe!" cried Prudence, as her eyes fell upon his massive cock which hung about a third of the way to his knees.

The women, who were all now naked as well, giggled.

"You like it?" asked Ngobla with a wink as he fondled his big soft penis. "You can touch it if you like."

Prudence blushed a deep red, but she reached out as if in a trance and began stroking Ngobla's cock, which slowly began to stiffen.

"We love it best of all!" shouted Mboobla, the prettiest of the women, and all the rest giggled. "We love his big thing and we all like him to put it inside of us."

"Your English is very good," said Prudence, her voice quivering with passion as she stroked her soft hand up and down Ngobla's now rigidly erect rod, "but my husband left some gaps in your education. There are other words you need to know. Say it along with me - 'We love Ngobla's huge cock and we love it when he fucks us with it!"

"We love Ngobla's huge cock and we love it when he fucks us with it!" they giggled.

"'We want him to fill our juicy wet cunts with jets of juicy jism!'" she added, her head spinning as Ngobla's proud prick throbbed in her fist.

"'We want him to fill our juicy wet cunts with jets of juicy jism!'" they agreed.

Ngoba suddenly pushed her down onto her hands and knees in the dust and pulled up the back of her dress.

"No! No!" she cried. "That's not the way to do it. Didn't my husband teach you anything?"

"I never did this with your husband," replied Ngobla.

"He didn't teach you about the missionary position?" she gasped.

"Missionaries have their own position?" he wanted to know.

"No, its for everybody," she tried to explain. "Look, I'll show you." She rolled onto her back, pulled up her dress and pulled down her wet panties. "Now you lie on top of me this way and we fuck."

"OOOOooooh," replied Ngobla with a wink, "kinky!"

And then he slid his huge black cock deep into her pale pink grey-haired pussy.

"That's right," sighed Prudence.

"Do all women make such faces when they are being fucked?" asked the chief as one of Prudence's eye-lids began to flutter and her mouth hung open in an idiotic expression. "It is most amusing. I like this missionary position better."

The women giggled as they watched. Some were playing with themselves, some were playing with someone else.

"I love your pale skin," said Ngobla, tearing off the rest of her clothes. She felt embarrassed to be revealed in this way, especially since she was older than the rest, her breasts soft and droopy and her belly less than firm, but it was an exciting embarrassment. After all her years of hiding her true nature, here she was completely naked being fucked senseless by a black man with a massive cock as a whole tribe of horny savages looked on aroused by the novelty of her pale flesh.

"Oh, God! You don't know how I've longed to be properly fucked!" she sighed, running her fingers over Ngobla's sweaty chest as his cock slid deeper into her very being than she ever thought possible.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" groaned the chief as he spurted over and over, before collapsing on top of the missionary's wife.

"Did he fill your cunt with jets of juicy jism?" cried one of the women.

"He did! He did!" grinned a satisfied Prudence.

Later as they were laying beside the river after a swim, Ngobla covered her body in tender kisses.

"Your flesh is tender and pale," he sighed adoringly. "It makes my mouth water."

"Now, now," replied Prudence anxiously, "we'll have none of that."

"All the men adore you," he replied. "They all want to fuck you very much."

"I assure you the feeling is mutual," she smiled.

"There is also much mutual feeling going on amongst the women," Ngobla laughed, pointing towards a lesbian orgy that was taking place further up the bank.

"You have some very horny women in this tribe," she replied. "I feel very much at home."

"Yes, they were very troublesome for your husband. He was always having to scare away the poachers," Ngobla explained.

"There are tribes which poach women?" she asked.

"No, the elephant poachers," he said.

"What do they have to do with the women?" she wanted to know.

"These poachers, they were always trying to egg the women on to buy their ivory dildoes," he explained.

"Ah," she replied, pulling him close for a long slow kiss.

"Can I eat your pussy?" he asked, looking down at the spot were droplets of water clung to the silver hairs which crowned her tender pink slit.

"Only if you say grace first," she smiled.

"For what you are about to receive may the Lord make you truly thankful," laughed Ngobla.

The End