Beautiful stewardesses Debbie (Connie Hoffman), Barbara (Marilyn Joi, as T.A. King) and Lori (Regina Carroll) decide to take a vacation from the city life at the Lucky Dollar Ranch, run by one of Lori's good friends Brewster (Robert Livingston). However, the ranch is plagued with masked riders terrorizing Brewster while the girls are invited to spend some time at the neighboring brothel ranch run by tough spitfire Honey Morgan (Yvonne De Carlo).

Unlike Adamson's THE NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES shot the previous year, the sequel BLAZING STEWARDESSES' roots lay in good old-fashioned slapstick comedy and the kiddie matinee westerns of 1930s Hollywood. The R rating is a light one at best, with brief blow-up doll scenes and some goofy standing-on-heads and cockpit sex. The primary focus of the film is unfunny comedy by the Ritz Brothers, geriatric shoot-outs by Bob Livingston and Don "Red" Barry and their respective hired hands and clothed sex appeal by the three lovely leading ladies. Yvonne De Carlo would certainly make more embarrassing films in the latter part of her career, including SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS, and seems to be having a super time making this low-budget ode to Old Hollywood. She also doesn't look as wrinkly and used-up as she would in later films, and even lip-synchs to a ballad obviously not sung by her! For a while, Regina Carroll was bowing out of appearing in her husband's films. It's refreshing to see her in a nice big part, displaying her beautiful bodice and comic talents. Carroll died too young in 1992 from cancer, with her cult growing soon after. Connie Hoffman and Marilyn Joi return from NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES, playing the same characters, as does Robert Livingston. They are the only connections to the first film and very shaky ones at that. Al and Regina's dog makes another trademark cameo as Regina giggles reading comics in a bathtub, and Regina's father Barney Gelfan plays an irritated plane passenger. BLAZING does pick up during Yvonne's training of the whores-to-be, with the former Mrs. Munster appearing to really relish this change-of-pace role. The cast is all game and seem to be having a ball making a legitimate film masquerading as a sexploitation flick, but it doesn't have enough entertaining moments to keep it interesting through the epic 95-minute running time. Adamson definitely made better films, but Regina Carroll and Yvonne De Carlo fans will enjoy this more than anyone else.

Typical with their Al Adamson special edition releases, RetroSeduction Cinema has included some appreciative extras with this 2-disc 30th anniversary edition of the film (limited to 20,000 pieces). Most enticing to fans of drive-in trash will be the video interview with Marilyn Joi in her first DVD appearance ever! Ms. Joi still looks scrumptious, with big beautiful lips and hypnotic saucer eyes, and discusses most of her films made with Al Adamson, from THE POSSESSION OF NURSE SHERRI and MEAN MOTHER through the STEWARDESSES films (no mention of BLACK SAMURAI and the UNCLE TOM'S CABIN inserts, though). Because the films were shot so quickly and Marilyn made so many films in such a short period of time, her memories of certain films aren't as extensive as others, but she does have something to say about all four of her Adamson epics. It's also good to see that Marilyn has a good sense of humor about the abundant nudity in her films and is boldly open about her stripping days, she tells great behind-the-scenes stories about Regina Carroll and Yvonne De Carlo and her story of learning of Adamson's tragic death is quite sad. What a welcome supplement for fans of the genre!!

Anywhere an Al Adamson film appears, Sam Sherman is always there to reveal every tantalizing behind-the-scenes story imaginable. His audio commentary on this disc is no exception. Sherman discusses the genesis of the film (he didn't want to shoot a second STEWARDESSES film so decided to go for broke by combining his favorite film genres into one film), working with the Hollywood stars and has-beens on the set (you won't believe who was supposed to play Yvonne De Carlo's part!), his love for 30s westerns and lots of great stories covering all aspects of production. Unfortunately, after viewing the less-than-spectacular feature film, it's kind of sad to hear Sherman praise it so highly and hold it so dear to his heart.

An informative booklet is encased between the two discs in the amaray, with liner notes by Ed Hulse (who accompanies Sherman on his commentary). Most fascinating about his liner notes is the fact that he interviewed Connie Hoffman for them! This is the first place Hoffman's thoughts on her films have been published, as far as this writer knows, so it's great to at least read her thoughts. Too bad she couldn't be enticed into a video interview a la Marilyn Joi. A combo trailer for THE NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES with BLAZING STEWARDESSES finishes off the disc. Imagine seeing a softcore sex drama paired with a goofy sexless comedy at the drive-in in 1976-1977!!

The second disc is basically the best way to get a hold of the out of print RetroSeduction Cinema disc THE NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES, which came out in 2002. New disc artwork, but same contents, same transfer, same extras. The disc has been reviewed at DVD Drive-In before, but here are a few additions to that review: starlet Mikel James is in actuality softcore-and-hardcore porn actress Sandi Carey. Most revealing about her on Sam Sherman's commentary is that he was so smitten by her and firmly believed she was a good actress (I agree) that he tried talking Al Adamson into conceiving a star vehicle for her. It's too bad nothing came of it, perhaps Sandi would have graduated to bigger and better things as she deserved. Sherman doesn't mention in his commentary that leading lady Donna Desmond was a softcore sex starlet, but she worked with director Don Edmunds in several of his films, including WILD HONEY, TENDER LOVING CARE and ILSA SHE-WOLF OF THE SS, and was commonly known as Donna Young among the drive-in crowd. At 105 minutes, NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES is a friggin' magnum opus and will put some people to sleep for sure, but the quartet of beautiful girls and the film's attempt to ape the social politics and drama of Stephanie Rothman's THE STUDENT NURSES makes it a keeper. It's more entertaining than the hodge-podge of a sequel, has the nudity and adventure to keep exploitation fans happy and the soundtrack is killah! (Casey Scott)

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