Written by Steve Tymon and directed by K.T. Sumner (aka Lawrence Lanoff aka Lawrence Unger), this Playboy Channel film from 1998 has long remained one of my all time favorite softcore films. It’s a tragedy that it is not easily available, either as a DVD or legal download, these days, because it is really great.

Sage Kirkpatrick stars as Haley Chambers. A young woman from Wisconsin (her age is never mentioned, but it’s implied that she’s about to start her senior year of high school, so 17 r 18?), the film opens with her making out in a car with her boyfriend Scott (Matthew Fling). Then she quickly jumps out and grabs a blanket, then set it down on the grass and the two of them have sex. Afterward, Scott attempts to propose to Haley, but she puts him off. She’s about to leave for the summer to visit L.A., the first she’s ever left Wisconsin. She tells him she wants to experience new things, and see what’s out there. That all sounds reasonable to me. But when Scott tries to press her about whether she also means being with other men, as she’s never been with anyone other than him before, and she says she wants to be open to the possibility, and actually tries to get him to promise to wait for her. Talk about selfish.

Anyway, Haley arrives in L.A. where she’ll be staying with one of her mother’s oldest friends, Paul (James Horan) and his wife Mia (the luscious Lauren Hays). Paul is a rich movie producer who has had a string of successful action films, but is now getting ready to make a more personal film, a small love story, which is a big gamble for his career. And as Haley arrives she quickly learns that all is not well between Paul and Mia. Sometime ago they got bored with each other and agreed to have an open marriage. Now, the two of them don’t even sleep together anymore. Mia is shown having sex with Tom (Paul Logan), their handyman, and we see that Paul is having an affair with Loran, a Hollywood gossip columnist (played by Caroline Ambrose aka Julie Condliff).

Haley is introduced to Stefan (Benjamin Shelfer), the director that Paul has hired to direct his film. Sparks immediately fly, and Stefan soon takes Haley out on a date. He takes her to this unnamed club, where people are dancing on the dancefloor, making out a tables and on couches, there’s a half-naked woman (Tracy Ryan) dancing on stage. They meet the owner Christine (Monique Parent), who then gets on stage herself and in performance where she’s a woman shopping in a department store who gets turned on by the female mannequins and undressed and plays with herself. During the show, Haley sits on Stefan’s lap by a table, and he starts trying to fondle her breasts, which makes Haley uncomfortable and she demands to be taken home. She still wants to see Stefan, she just tells him that things were moving a little too fast for her, but now he seems to have lost all interest in her.

Eventually Haley goes back to the club to talk to Christine, and gets her to agree to let Haley try out as a dancer and performer at the club. On her first night, Sage does a performance as an old-fashioned Las Vegas showgirl in her dressing room, in reverse strip tease, she starts off completely nude and then slowly and seductively gets dressed. Then Christine does a performance as a 1950’s housewife, when an uncredited actor comes in as the milkman, and they have sex on the kitchen table. It’s never made clear in the film whether or not this an actual live sex show, or if they’re just acting. But Haley is turned on (she plays with herself while watching), and wants to try that next. And back at Paul’s house she allows herself to be seduced by Tom the handyman, in a hot scene.

Meanwhile, things get worse for Paul, as Loran, in a fit of jealousy, writers a column where she claims to have read an advance copy of Paul’s script and she trashes it, which makes the studio nervous, and they give Stefan permission to make a bunch of rewrites that Paul doesn’t approve of. Mia tries to cheer him up to no avail, and he goes to stay at a hotel for while. Left alone at the house, Haley comforts Mia, which leads to a late-night lesbian session, which is hot enough by itself to make this film worth buying.

Then Haley performs again at the club, in a sort of Adam and Eve caveman scenario, where she and that previous actor have sex (again, don’t know if it’s supposed to be “real” or not). At Haley’s invitation, Stefan is in the audience (with another woman), and he gets turned on. But when he tries to talk to Haley backstage after the performance, she realizes that she’s not that interested in him anyway, she just wanted him to see what he’s missing, and she blows him off.

Without completely spoiling the ending, Haley ends up finding out some information which saves Paul’s film, and arranges for him and Mia to reconcile. And then she leaves early, going back to Wisconsin to reunite with Scott (apparently, he did wait for her after all). So it all ends happily.

Really, this is very well-done film. Shot and directly well, with an interesting and plausible story. And the cast is stellar, obviously chosen as much for their acting ability as for their looks. Frankly, any film with Monique Parent and Lauren Hays in it is instantly recommended (the only thing that could have made this film hotter is if they had a sex scene together), and Sage Kirkpatrick ably carried this film, as the leading lady. Despite being almost 30 when this was filmed, she convincingly played a wide-eyed innocent young woman, while also oozing sex appeal. This film gets a Chacebook rating of 5 STARS

Unfortunately, finding this on DVD is difficult, even a copy of the R-rated version can be pricey. But what you really want is the unrated version. There are means to pirate this film, but morality precludes me from posting links here, but if you search hard enough (and it’s worth the effort), you can find it.