Apr 20, 2020

"Blow the Man Down": Take As Much Time as You Need

I've heard the sea shanty "Blow the Man Down," or at least parts of it, many times, but I never thought of the double-entendre meaning before.  Until Amazon Prime offered a movie with Blow the Man Down as the title. Must be gay porn.  I'm in!

Scene 1: Establishing shot of Easter Cove, Maine.  Some fishermen are gutting fish and singing: "When boys become greenhorns, and greens become mates, give me some time to blow the man...um...down."

Sure, take all the time you need. Once it took me 45 minutes to...um.....





Scene 2: Priscilla (right and Mary Beth (left) stand on the beach, talking about how much they loved their mother. Then they go to the funeral.

Meanwhile, a man chases a woman through the snow, while Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life watches from her window.

Scene 3: Mom's wake. The Town Biddies discuss how much Mom helped them over the years, and advise Priscilla to attend the U. of Maine in the fall, where "they have the hottest boys."

Let's see some.  So far this is a quite heteronormative community of women.

They argue.  Mary Beth gets mad and leaves.

Scene 4: Mary Beth goes to a bar and picks up a Sleazoid (Ebon Moss Bachrach, left).  Well, what other options does she have?  There are no other guys in town.

As they're driving home, they crash into the town statue.  She opens his trunk, sees bloody sheets and ropes, and changes her mind about the hookup He turns violent, so she kills him in self defense.

Great, there goes the only guy in town.

Scene 5:  Mary Beth and Priscilla start to call the police, but change their minds, for some reason.  They go back to dispose of Sleazoid's body, but they have to cut off its arms so it will fit in the cooler.

A Greek chorus of singing fishermen serenade them.

Scene 6: Officers Hunk (Will Brittain, top photo) and Gordo (Skip Sudduth) are investigating the town statue mishap.  Meanwhile, Blond Hooker rushes to work at the Oceanview Bed and Breakfast, the town brothel, where Mrs. Garrett is the Madam.  They wonder why Sleazoid hasn't shown up for work. Was he a male prostitute?  Is Oceanview an equal opportunity employer?

Scene 7:  Officer Hunk stops by to ask Priscilla to borrow her boat to go pick up a body that washed up on the beach. Uh-oh.  But it's not Sleazoid it still has arms!  And it's a woman....

Scene 8: The Biddies discuss their disapproval of the brothel.  Then they accost Mrs. Garrett at the hair salon, and inform her that the dead woman is one of her employees, so she's crossed a line and needs to shut the brothel down.

This is just a little Peyton Place, and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites.

Scene 9: Mrs. Garrett goes to the Sleazoid's house, and finds the knife the girls used to dismember the corpse.  It has their name embossed on it.  Stupid!

At home, Mary Beth hides a huge bag of cocaine.  What?

Scene 10:  Blond Hooker has an appointment with the Biddies.  But they don't want sex, they want een-for-mation.  Did her boss at the brothel, Mrs. Garrett, kill her coworker? 

Scene 11:  Officers Hunk and Gordo visit the brothel.  Gordo is a regular: "Hey, Daddy.  Come on in and wet your cock.  You want your usual?"  Hunk is shocked.

They interview Mrs. Garrett about the dead girl and the missing Sleazoid ("Weirdo, not from Easter Cove").  

She gives them a lead: check out Declan, who works the docks, "where lots of things go in and out").  Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more. The town has both a brothel and street...er, dock...prostitution.  Is it all sex, all the time?




Scene 12:  Hunk and Gordo interview Old Guy Declan, bringing donuts as a bribe.  He doesn't know anything, so Hunk interviews Blond Hooker, who happens to be working the docks

Hunk's high school friend, shows up (Played by Owen Burke, who may or may not be this guy).  He tells Hunk:  "I love the sexy cop outfit.  Where's your stripper pole?"

Implying that Hunk is a male prostitute working the docks.  Yep, an equal opportunity sex town.  

Scene 13:  Blond Hooker gets a "thoughts and prayers" card from one of the Biddies.  Then she goes home and lies on the bed and thinks about the Dead Girl ("I love you so much...").  Blond Hooker is a lesbian!

Scene 14:  At the Easter Cove Pancake Breakfast, Priscilla and Mary Beth discover that their mother had a long history with Mrs. Garrett.  They "made a lot of money together."  They opened the brothel together!  But were they lovers?

The girls argue, the officers argue, Blond Hooker argues with Mrs. Garrett., Mrs. Garrett argues with the Old Guy.  Everybody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Mrs. Garrett visits the girls, and offers to exchange the knife implicating them in Sleazoid's death if they hand over the cocaine they stole.

Wait -- how could she prove that she found the knife in Sleazoid's house?

Scene 15:  Officer Hunk drops by and Columbos the girls about the night Sleazoid disappeared ("there's just one thing bothering me...why did someone from this house call the police, then hang up?").  Then he goes to the bar and discusses them with his High School Friend: Mary Beth has quite the reputation for hooking up with sleazoids...like...um..Sleazoid!  She was with him that night!

Meanwhile, Blond Hooker tells the Biddies that Mrs. Garrett killed her girlfriend.  They all confront each other.

Scene 16: The girls arrive with the cocaine, and get their knife back.  Blond Hooker sees the whole transaction.

Scene 17:  Blond Hooker steals the cocaine and leaves town with another brothel girl.  Meanwhile, Officer Hunk has breakfast with the Head Biddie, who happens to be his grandmother, and tells her that the case has been solved. They are on their way to make an arrest.

Later, the girls walk by, and see the Head Biddie hosing out the chest that contained Sleazoid's body.  She smiles at them.

Wait -- does this mean she turned them in, or didn't turn them in?

Or did she implicate Mrs. Garrett, who is actually innocent?  

I'm lost.

Beefcake: None.

Other Sights:   Exterior shots of small-town Maine all the time.

Gay Characters:  Blond Hooker is a lesbian.  Priscilla doesn't display any heterosexual interest.  The other characters all seem rather hetero-horny.

Sex Scenes:  None.  Not even a kiss.  For a town with a brothel, street prostitution, and bar hookups, this is odd, but welcome.  No hetero-romance.

Plot Holes:  Mrs. Garrett comes across as sympathetic, and then villain.  Likewise Mary Beth. The Biddies start out as tiresome small-town gossips, then become sympathetic. Make up your mind!

And what's with the annoying Greek chorus?  This ain't Euripides!

My Grade:  B for the scenery and the surprise lesbian.

4 comments:

  1. It's cash not cocaine and I liked the sea shantys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looked like cocaine to me, a big white bag, and the background song was "White Lines," about cocaine use, so....

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    2. The stacks of money kinda gave it up for me. As it's free I'shall watch it again.

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    3. The girls did say "Here's your money. We spent some of it."I thought a reveal of the mada being into the drug trade as well as prostitution was an indiction of her increasing villainy, as well as giving the sleazoid a motive for killing the first girl, Dee.It didn't look like a hookup gone wrong, since they were coworkers, and it took place in the early morning right outside the brothel where they worked.

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