If there is any other value to be afforded to Alex de Renzy’s Sexual Encounter Group outside its own existence as a funky time capsule, it might make for a fine segue into de Renzy’s equally dull Powder Burns, a primitive narrative feature made the following year that feels constructed out of the kind of loose, experimental community featured in Sexual Encounter Group. A seemingly interesting idea when high as a kite and brainstorming movie ideas while sitting in the offices of The Screening Room, but the end product is definitely not ready for prime time, and de Renzy would have to wait a bit before he found the rhythm that would best suit his work going-forward.
Ambitiously conceived as a western set in and around Sewer Pipe Creek in 1869, Powder Burns opens on a shootout between the local gentry and the McNasty Brothers, a clan of black-clad miscreants who roll into town annually and raise hell. Despite the fact that they literally abscond with the female employees of the local saloon on their way out of town, not a whole lot is done about the McNastys because… well… they spend more money during their annual debauch than the combined rest of the county residents do all year. When barkeep and sheriff Shem is visited by a San Francisco dancer known as the Golden Dream, a plan is hatched to hire some more dance hall-girls to get the saloon going again. With the annual visit by the McNasty family on the horizon, the new girls will show them a good time and drain them of their money after which Shem will turn them into the county for the price on their heads.
Though this was made in the earliest days of the hardcore narrative feature where little is expected and a lot is forgiven, Powder Burns still manages to register as a missed opportunity. Amid a few rotten lean-to’s and the shell of what looks to have been a standing western set for motion picture productions, Alex de Renzy snags a terrific location but does almost nothing with it. The opening montage of nature’s beauty is drop-dead gorgeous and almost all of the exterior work throughout the film is fantastic (if languid), but there is simply not enough fidelity to story or plot to hold the audience’s interest. As it is, the story and almost all of the setup seems like an extended improv idea with painfully long takes, barely audible dialogue, and some unfunny humor. What there is of an actual story is regaled via Shem’s voice-over which sounds so much like Dr. Teeth or Rowlf the Dog that I wonder if Jim Henson didn’t see this before developing the voice for either character.
When the sex does finally occur (after 45 minutes, but who’s counting?), the audience can get a glimpse of what made de Renzy uniquely suited to porn. Here, de Renzy captures the best of old fashioned, unbridled hedonism, ensuring everyone in front of the camera is caught up in the fun. de Renzy gets in tight, but the performers seem completely unbothered by the camera’s presence be it when it feels like its own participant in the thick of things, or if its being operated in the rafters, the corners of room, or through open windows. The best, and most covered of the pair-ups occurs between George McDonald and Kim Hope, both refugees from Sexual Encounter Group. While McDonald would go on to have a more illustrious career in smut, this is the last time audiences saw Hope as she would be one of countless performers who could have had a great career in adult films, but for one reason or another, moved on to pursue more anonymous goals in life.
As far as western take offs are concerned, Powder Burns is only interesting in its baffling mix of contemporary and antique, a strategy used again (and far better) by Bob Chinn in Lipps & McCain seven years later. Of course, Powder Burns is worth a look for de Renzy completists, but it’s hard to imagine anyone getting much enjoyment out of it unless it was put on the bottom half of a double bill with Russ Meyer’s Wild Gals of the Naked West and the viewer was five cocktails deep by the time the evening was over. On the whole, Powder Burns is just a real struggle and its shambolic production doesn’t even have the benefit of being charming. It’s just stupid. Ditto that Johnny Cash soundalike tune which should be tossed off a cliff. It wouldn’t be long before de Renzy righted his course which would see him producing one top tier title after another, but Powder Burns is one of the most inauspicious narrative debuts since Hitchcock’s The Pleasure Garden.
(C) Copyright 2025, Patrick Crain
Apollo Twin 