CHAMPAGNE FOR BREAKFAST (1980)
Director: Chris Warfield
Vinegar Syndrome

Vinegar Syndrome gets drunk on Leslie Bovee in their DVD of CHAMPAGNE FOR BREAKFAST.

With her successful new advertising campaign, Champagne (Leslie Bovee, SEXWORLD) has just been appointed vice president of sales for Britton Cosmetics. The vice president's daughter Peggy (Bonnie Holiday, THE JADE PUSSYCAT) takes it upon herself to show Champagne that women in power can use men to fulfill their sexual needs when the tables are turned by holding a new contract over the head of a chemical supply salesman (Ken Scudder, BABY ROSEMARY). Champagne, however, has spent so much time trying to become a success that she has forgotten to have a love life. With more free time on her hands as an executive, she decides to take a two week vacation and will need a bodyguard to wake her up, put her to bed, massage her, and drive her around town trawling for men. Boxer Harry (John Leslie, ORIENTAL HAWAII) – down on his luck after his brother-in-law (Paul Thomas, FANTASYWORLD) cheats him out of his share of a printing business – pumps employment agent Gladys (Kay Parker, DRACULA SUCKS) for information on the $350/week position and surmises that it has been difficult to fill because Champagne would likely prefer a gay man for such intimate services. Affecting an effeminate voice and mannerisms, Harry gets the job and blue balls as he hears of her escapades while giving her deep tissue massages. When Harry rescues her from an amorous construction worker (Michael Morrison, TABOO), she procures a young man for him after sampling a trio (HOT LUNCH's Jon Martin, Tony Grant, and DEBBIE DOES 'EM ALL's Jonathan Younger) at a male brothel; but is she rewarding him or testing him?

CHAMPAGNE FOR BREAKFAST has production value, an attractive and engaging cast, and some hot sex, but it also has a strangely conservative attitude for a pornographic film. Harry may be the only male straight porn character who reacts with disgust at the potential of a threesome – with NEON NIGHTS' Kandi Barbour and NIGHTDREAMS' Dorothy LeMay – dismissing them as a couple of lesbians (he also punches out the guy Champagne procures for him under the guise of a panic attack), and Champagne may be the only female porn protagonist who is not naturally predisposed to lesbianism (illustrated by what turns out to be a one-sided encounter with HOT & SAUCY PIZZA GIRLS' Candida Royalle). After Champagne is rejected by a distinguished older gentleman who is put off by her forwardness, she instead seeks men on the street (and boys on the track, as is the case with BLONDE AMBITION's David Morris who takes her to a no-tell motel for a quickie in between classes and piano lessons). The resolution finds Harry on equal footing financially with Champagne through an amusing plot contrivance, but she then decides that she would rather be the woman behind the man and gives up her position at Britton (presumably Harry's newfound wealth makes him socially acceptable as breadwinner). Champagne's tryst with TROPIC OF DESIRE's Blair Harris lacks a money shot, showing instead a stain on the sheets as the two actors roll out of frame (the reason for this may have been the editing of the scene to Ravel's "Bolero" ala Blake Edwards' 10 and its inclusion in both hardcore and softcore edits of the film). Sharon Kane (PRETTY PEACHES) gives "special service" to Harry in the car wash, and John Seeman (CRY FOR CINDY) is on hand as Harry's business advisor (in addition to serving offscreen as "casting consultant"). Reportedly, an R-rated version of the film was released under the titles BOSS LADY and EXECUTIVE SWEET by director Warfield's own company Lima Productions.

Scanned and restored in 2K from the original 35mm camera negative, Vinegar Syndrome's single-layer, progressive, anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen transfer is crisp, colorful, and virtually spotless apart from the expected heavier grain in the shadows and night scenes as well as a diagonal frame tear at roughly ninety-five minutes that had been taped back together. Some shots look softer, but that appears to be an effect of the star filters, and one shot of Leslie looks grainier than the surrounding footage (and it may have been optically enlarged from a wider shot for emphasis); while what looked like aliasing on the zebra-patterned bed sheets is actually light bouncing off of an offscreen disco ball. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio is clean apart from a layer of hiss (which may have more to do with the original recording or the re-recording than the condition of the materials).

The "Softcore Cut Scenes" (5:56) are not the sex scenes with alternate angles but additional scenes to beef up the running time in the absence of hardcore action. The first scene features Champagne telling her secretary (Karen Penzell) – who has no dialogue in the hardcore version and is only seen in one of the last scenes – that she will require a chauffeur. The second scene is an extension of Harry storming off from his aborted encounter with the club manager and stripper in which his scuffle with the bartender makes the girls even more hot, and the final scene has Champagne arriving in town by private plane (there is no indication in the final film that she has traveled out of the city for her vacation) and visiting her old grammar school (which makes sense of the "girl in roller skates" credit for Timmi Jansen). The disc also includes trailers for the film in hardcore (3:31) and softcore (2:40) variants. (Eric Cotenas)

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