Cinema: Wild Blue Yonder

Two items are traditionally absent from the blue movie: clothing and humor. Cry Uncle exuberantly rectifies the imbalance. To be sure, the parade of semi-and unclothed ladies seems to have entered from the centerfolds of sex tabloids; but the male star, for once, is neither the nude superman nor the furtive rascal familiar to devotees of Grove Press. Instead he is Jake Masters (Allen Garfield), a very raunchy and extremely paunchy victim of private eyestrain. Masters, whose favorite outfit is a pair of underpants, is the kind of detective who could lose a suspect in a phone booth. He gets out of breath cutting corners, hasn't enough hair to make a wig for a grape, and cowers before any weapon larger than an insult. Nevertheless, in accordance with the rules of soft-core pornography, he attempts to be Casanova in Jockey shorts. On the trail of an anonymous killer, Jake samples a smorgasbord of tarts, including a Lib wom-mannekin (Pamela Gruen) with the voice of a burglar, some spaced-out chippies and hookers of various hues.

Copulation of Clichés. Director John G. Avildsen directs his actors in the same manner that a red light may be said to direct patrons. No matter. Pornography is customarily, in Nabokov's fine phrase, a copulation of clichés. Not here. Garfield takes this insanely, inanely plotted movie and lends each scene a Rabelaisian gusto and surprise. His movements are reminiscent of the hippopotamus in rutting season; his expressions are unique. Who else could register such dismay when he finds that he has been making love to a corpse? Who else could transmit such concern for the girl who replaces her lover with a personal vibrator? Who else would want to? Garfield's reputation is secure; he is the first blue-movie comedian—a pantie hero funny enough to melt a statute.

·S.K.