Harry Novak, through his company Box Office International, distributed all manner of oddball films to the grindhouse and drive-in market before they collapsed under the weight of the multiplexes and the 'play it safe' distributing that accompanied it. Everything from Japanese obscurities such as Naked Pursuit to sexploitation movies such as the two we find paired together on this double feature from Something Weird Video…

Wilbur And The Baby Factory:

Wilbur Steele (Peter Ford as Tom Wolfe) has always been a man who liked to help others. His company, Protestor's Inc., made it their job to stand up for the little guy and through his work there he always tried to do the right thing. Imagine his surprise one day when a draft card arrives and he finds out he's being shipped off to serve his country in the jungles of Vietnam. Knowing he doesn't have much time before his world starts to suck he decides to get it on with his girlfriend and write an anti-war song before shipping off.

On his way to the recruiting office, however, fate steps in and through two strange men who claim to be doctors, Wilbur's life takes a very different turn from the one he expected. They talk him into joining their program which would allow him to skip out on his tour of duty and, they tell him, allow him to help make the world a better place through their efforts. Of course, Wilbur being full of hope and wanting to truly help, agrees to their ploy and before you know it he's a human guinea pig at a research center specializing in birth control experiments.

Before you can say bang, Wilbur's tasked with siring two thousand children, and he's been chosen for this task not only because of his potency but also because of his excellent health record. What Wilbur doesn't know is that the truth behind this is very different from what the two doctors sold him on, and in fact Wilbur's children are going to be used to create a world of people who cannot breed thanks to the deranged plans of the man behind all of this (the one and only Stuart Lancaster who will forever be remembered as the crazy old man in Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat… Kill! Kill!) who suffers from some serious penis envy.

Wilbur And The Baby Factory (also known as Love Machine and as The Pleasure Farm) is as interesting as it is flat out goofy. The premise, while sounding very ridiculous on the surface, is actually rather clever in that it tackles some controversial issues without being too serious for its own good. In that respect, the movie was a little ahead of its time and with current debates raging about stem cell research, a form of biological engineering not too far removed from that ideas put forth from the antagonist in this film, it ends up providing more food for thought than your average fast and cheap sex film of the era. With that said, does it work as a sex film? That's how it's marketed after all. Well, yes and no. There are plenty of love scenes in here but the nudity factor is a lot lower than you'd probably expect. The interesting thing about that is that you don't really realize it until you think about it, as the camera work is clever enough to make us think we're seeing more than we actually are.

In the end, Wilbur And The Baby Factory is actually a pretty good little movie. Ford is fairly strong in the lead, he's sufficiently angst ridden by the time the catch is revealed to him and he does a good job playing the naively optimistic type. The pacing is good, it never feels boring or padded thanks to some decent editing and everything here works quite well.

Tanya:

A dude named Cinque leads the S.L.A. (Symphonic Liberation Army), an anti-government organization that fights for their right to do whatever they want with whoever they want and who aren't afraid to show off the fact that they certainly know how to get that taken care of. To make their point known Cinque decides that they need to make a statement and so he organizes the kidnapping of Charlotte Kane (Maria Aronoff of Fantasm), the daughter of a wealthy publisher. You'd think that they'd want money or some sort of political favor in return for Charlotte's safe return, but no, instead they insist that he use his fortune to do some good in the world and feed the homeless.

Charlotte never seems all that concerned by any of this and she figures that once her dad feeds the homeless, she'll be returned safe and sound. What she doesn't realize is that Cinque and his cohorts have other plans and that Charlotte figures into them more prominently than she first realized. They're going to start their revolution and they want her to come along for the ride. Charlotte protests but both the male and female members of Cinque's posse have ways of making little Charlotte, now not as innocent as she was before the kidnapping, change her mind. In fact, Charlotte does a complete one eighty and before you know it her desires are overshadowing and overpowering the political aspirations that Cinque had. Now known as Tanya, her libido completely out of control, they're going to have to stop her before she boffs her way out of the group entirely and blows it for everyone else who is there for the cause.

Directed by Nate Rogers, the inspiration for this twisted tale was obviously the real life story of Patty Hearst. Though it's hardly a realistic adaptation of those events, the similarities are there and there's really no denying that's where the idea came from. With a few bizarre twists and the presence of copious graphic sex scenes and a lot of stilted political dialogue, however, Tanya is a lot of fun. It's not very good, but it is enjoyable as a very dated time capsule and as a goofy, entertaining time killer.

The best aspect of the movie is how Maria Aronoff handles the changes that her character goes through. While she's not going to win an Academy Award for her performance here it is fun to watch her turn from a somewhat innocent and definitely naïve type into a freewheeling and free loving antisocial nymphomaniac. Contrasted against B. B. Hinds performance as Cinque, who is deadly serious at all times, it makes for interesting viewing.

The end result is a moderately amusing comedy with plenty of skin on display (the movie comes very close to hardcore in a couple of scenes – there is a LOT of sex in the film!) and a few fun, over the top moments that make it worth a look. Some of the supporting characters are funny even when they're just standing around in the background, and the score adds some odd atmosphere to things even if at times the music isn't really all that appropriate. Not a classic by any stretch, Tanya is at least entertaining and amusing even if the politics behind it end up going nowhere and the story gets lost amidst all the humping.

Video:

Both films are presented in fullframe transfers and none of the compositions appear to be compromised much by this format leading one to guess that this is their original aspect ratio. Both films appear quite colorful and print damage is minor even at the worst of times (though it is there, it's just never overwhelming). Grain is present throughout but it's not a big deal and it doesn't prove to be too distracting. Some mild mpeg compression artifacts are noticeable in a few of the darker, blacker, shadowy spots during playback but these occur only rarely and aren't really cause for concern. For a pair of low budget exploitation films, both features look quite good on this double feature DVD though some of the fine detail in Tanya goes missing sometimes and the picture does look a tad on the soft side during certain scenes.