Dipping in on the then-nascent home computer technology craze that made its way onto the big screen, Bob Chinn’s Fantasies Unlimited finds its primary location in a business which delivers VR sexual scenarios via dial-in phone service. As the technology struggles throughout the day with a slight glitch in its interface, Tom (Eric Edwards) and Sue (Josephine Carrington) scramble to keep customers happy while he attempts to win her over by any possible means.
For most of the movie, Tom and Sue assist in programming fantasies for customers that include a couple in medieval dress-up (Christy Canyon and Gerald Elliot), a housewife serviced by the fire inspector (Tamara Longley and Harry Reems), blissful marital romance replete with feeding each other hors d’oeuvres (Jade Nichols and Peter North), being sick in bed and tended to by a sexy nurse (Greg Derek and Stevie Taylor), and a surprise visit by a plumber while in the shower (Summer Rose and Blake Palmer). But around the point in the film where we flash back to Tom’s previous life as a magician (in which he has a backstage tryst with Bunny Bleu that’s intercut with the Derek and Taylor scene), the movie takes an interesting and clever turn with the dialogue begins to become more and more pointed about how machines and technology and computers are taking over the kind of old fashioned slight of hand and practical effects that once were an art form to be perfected. It may be smut but it’s got a point.
As written by Cinderella honcho (and grandson to Buster Keaton), Jim Talmadge (credited as Phillip Dennis Conner), Fantasies Unlimited isn’t terribly original as films surrounding the notion of fantasies materializing into the real world had been done before (and better) in movies such as Anthony Spinelli’s Sex World and Chinn’s own Fantasyworld. Also, for a place that’s called Fantasies Unlimited, there sure seems to be a lot of vanilla fantasies that, by most metrics, seem very much limited. Not for nothing but a lot of these seem like they could occur with only a minimum of effort and without a credit card.
But Fantasies Unlimited rises above the material and emerges as a small technical triumph that’s a little bit dazzling, most especially given the time that was allotted to make it. Shot over the same long weekend that produced A Passage to Ecstasy, the amount of creativity and sophistication in its camerawork almost outshines the sex scenes which range from warm to mildly hot. Additionally, the twist of Tom’s sexual thoughts bleeding into the customers’ fantasies is genuinely inspired, and its extension that leads to Tom entering the matrix by using a pay phone to order up a pairing between Sue and a blonde bombshell (Pamela Jennings) that he can then watch is doubly clever. The film’s focus on old tech with the reel to reel tape, buttons, flashing lights and switches takes a clunky, 1980’s long-view of computers which was was kind of right/kind of not, but Fantasies Unlimited does hit some targets in its prodding of instant gratification via computer technology which, twenty years after this film was released, would more or less be thing that would be the final knife in what then passed for the adult film business.
Just pushing 90 minutes, there is quite a lot packed into Fantasies Unlimited. Though I question the strategy of beginning the film with a sex scene that doesn’t resolve (and with Christy Canyon, no less), the picture soon discovers firm footing and doesn’t waver. Harry Reems and Tamara Longely (and her crimped hair) bring some energy in their scene while Jade Nichols and Peter North downshift with their sparkly and romantic passage (though that sensuous eating moment is 100% silly business; and, as a side note, Jade Nichols ain’t putting that glass of champagne down for anything, but when she finally does, she ends up running her fingers through Peter North’s hair which is a move that would eventually draw a penalty flag later in his career). The fantasy between Derek and Taylor is kinda rote but since it’s coming from the noggin of legendary wit Greg Derek, perhaps this is the best he could muster. Props that he was able to conjure up Stevie Taylor, though, who serves up her nurse routine with just an extra bit of British sauce and gives the scene a joie de vivre. Additionally, the boilerplate plumber fantasy is given some life due to its fabulous use of mirrors at its beginning and the wordless way it plays out between Palmer and Rose.
Like A Passage to Ecstasy, Fantasies Unlimited is very much designed around the eventual and inevitable final paring between the two leads which works as Josephine Carrington and Eric Edwards make for a plausible couple and the audience buys their (very) slight romantic problem that occurs throughout the film. Obviously, this is helped tremendously by Edwards, one of the finest and most dependable male actors of the Golden Age, and by Carrington, who emanated a rarified sense of high-class refinement, as they both take the material seriously and play it as such.
The pull-back in terms of production design is evident as Fantasies Unlimited looks like the one 16mm production that could have been shot on video and not lost a whole lot, visually speaking. However, its bare walls and minimum dressing within the office itself (shot in the offices of Cinderella Video while they were deserted for the weekend) actually works and lends it an appropriately sterile atmosphere (even the business of sex is still a business and a home office is still a home office). And despite there not being much to look at, Chinn and cinematographer Tom Morton get a lot of juice out of some high-angled shots with a couple graceful dollies. Despite all of the non-corporate scenes being shot in the same house which also served as the location shoot of A Passage to Ecstasy, the illusion that multiple locations were used for each customer’s home base holds pretty firm. High marks go to the opening and closing theme (credited to Creative Claws) as it sounds like it’s in the same neighborhood as the Dr. Who theme and likewise sports a great, propulsive, electronic beat.
Fantasies Unlimited isn’t the most knockout picture Bob Chinn made in the waning days of celluloid but it is definitely a pleasant one that carries out its mission without any major hiccups. And it is interesting to note just how well and effortlessly he could shift from the rambunctious kind of sexual material like Nice N’ Tight to something more romantic and couples-oriented. And, my god, if it does anything it illustrates just how mind-bogglingly good Bob Chinn was at juggling multiple projects and turning out quality films in almost zero time. You think you work hard? Try making two quality features on film in two and a half days that look as good as A Passage to Ecstasy and Fantasies Unlimited and then come and tell me all about it.
(C) Copyright 2023, Patrick Crain
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