Joanne Guest FAQ   >   Appendix 1

 

Appendix 1 - Video Reviews

 

 


 

Page 3 Profile: Jo Guest

reviewed by Stig

Rated: 18.
Running Time: 48 mins.

The Page 3 Profile video was shot on the Algarve during the summer of 1997 over a period of seven days, Jo along with six other models was hired for the photo-shoot by a Japanese company.. some of the footage is obviously similar to the Yellow Box series of scans.

The video is good quality and starts with the girls arriving at the airport in Portugal along with their baggage and photo crew.. seven models passing through an airport lobby is certainly a sight to behold.

The video is produced in documentary style with a narrator telling the viewer what is taking place, though photographer (Jeff Kane) is the first to talk on film of his plans for the week. From the airport the models head to their villa on the sea front for the week, Jo gives her first interview to the camera here, this is the only real one on one interview that takes place and is used throughout the video. While smoking a cigarette she tells the story of how she got involved in modelling during her teens in Chesterfield and went on to find work with a London model agency. Interspersed throughout the interview is footage of a naked Jo cavorting in the villas swimming pool with the now obligatory cheesy music, when the interview continues Jo discusses her problems with an ex-boyfriend (Phil Babb?) who originally liked her modelling but then encouraged her to stop, Jo now says she's happier staying single.

We now move to the first work of the week that involves a faux lesbian scene with Jo and Kirsten Imrie, little is seen of Kirsten as the background music kicks in and Jo starts removing her clothes. We head next to one of the villas various beaches and Jo discusses how Jeff Kane can have a short temper, followed by Jeff shouting obscenities at a local armed with a camera within a few hundred feet. Jo then goes through her routine for the camera and we return back to the interview at the villa, Jo discusses her sex life and covers issues such as losing her virginity, one night stands and quickies and a rather odd fantasy of an old man masturbating over her. The last shoot of the day is a threesome on a snooker table with Jo, Sammi Jessop and Charmaine Sinclair, Jo proceeds to have a game of snooker and lose every stitch of clothing, sadly we get to see nothing of Sammi as the video focuses on Jo.

The next days shoot is on location at the coastline, the weather puts paid to much of the photographers plans as wind and rain keep making an appearance to blight his plans, with Jo perched on a rock ledge complete with angels wings a strong wind makes things dangerous for her and the shoot is shelved.

They decide to take the next shoot in a garden with Jo dressed as a sailor, most of you will recognise this as the ybd-5 series which includes shots of photographer Jeff Kane and the girls arriving at the airport.

The sixth day of the shoot is shown next when Jeff plans to shoot a scene involving all seven girls dressed in men's clothes playing a game of strip poker, though probably for copyright reasons once again the video cuts back to Jo's interview before the poker game reaches its climax! Musical footage of Jo in the shower follows, a dressed Jo takes a shower and decides it would be much more effective for bathing if she were to take her clothes off.

Some more short video interludes follow with Jo dreaming in the garden of herself in latex fetish gear.. with a short video clip of Jo in the desired clothing.

The video is somewhat over-hyped as the interview covers a lot of old ground and much of the media hysteria over her comments fails to point out the humour in her comments, as opposed to the seriousness of the Fiesta video interview. The video claims Jo's 'honesty and frankness will shock you!' - not unless you're of a nervous disposition would be more honest. Still it's not a bad companion for the Fiesta video but hardly anything new.

 


 

Page 3 Profile DVD

reviewed by DB

For those who do not know DVD is the home video format of the future. It offers better picture quality and dolby digital sound (if you have the right equipment) and is practically indestructible (unless you choose to use the discs as table mats). The media can be played from dedicated players or dual purpose internal CD units. With this you have further options of either hardware or software decoders - hardware is best as s/w needs a pretty fast processor - Pentium 350+ - and plenty of memory to work well.

Enough of the techie stuff. What we have here is a straight DVD version of the Steam TV tape originally released in January 1998. It was filmed in Portugal in August 1997 as part of the Yellow Box Japanese series of CD's and clips of the tape appear on issue 13.

One great advantage of DVD over tape is the indexing features found on most discs whereby you can jump right to your favourite scene - no more fast forwarding followed by that nightmare scenario whereby your precious tape has been chewed up in the video heads. Here we have 12 interactive chapters (as the blurb on the box cover calls them) which are simply still images of the particular sequences - many dvd's offer fully animated sequences which can blow you away on those American 'Educational' numbers!. Strangly the opening sequence of the tape is missing on this menu and to access this you will have to select "Play Film" from the main menu.

From a quality point of view picture quality is quite good although there is little here to really test the encoding. Sound is also quite crisp. But, unless it is my imagination, the sound is often out of sync with the picture which spoils the overall effect.

The original video is a rare beast now so if you do not have it this is your best option. There is no regional coding so it will play on US and other countries' machines as well. It is in PAL video format so you should ensure that your player can handle this to avoid disappointment.

There is also a Video CD version of the tape but I have not seen it so I can not comment or compare.

A single DVD can pack up to 4 hours of video - on each side. The main feature comes in at only 52 mins so what else do we get for our money. Click on the 'Special Features' option from the menu and you get a 15 min extract from a quite old vid which I believe was called Page 3 girls and features viginettes from Kirsten Imrie and Gaynor Goodman amongst others. It would have been nice to have seen some out-takes from the shoot. I also recall many words written of a 'TV Special' which has never come to light and here would have been the perfect vehicle.

Overall if you can live with the out-of-sync sound it as must for all Jo fans even if you do not own the h/w now by the time you do the disc may no longer be available.

 


 

Playboy Millennium Calendar Girls DVD

reviewed by DB

A full review of the DVD (it is also available on PAL tape) is not for these pages (anyway as I write this I have not seen it all).

One important note before we start - the disc is coded for Region 2 (Europe, Japan etc) - make sure you can handle this before buying.

Other than Miss January (you all know who) I was interested in the final credits as the producer/director was none other than John Mearman who brought us the Page 3 profile number. This surprises me as usually the Bunny Company do all their own stuff.

The footage of Miss January is a different cut of the 'Snookered' sequence from the above mentioned number, in fact the edit is pretty close to the sequence on YBD (that's Yellow Book 13 to you). The main difference here is that there is no blurring of the private areas (how do they do that on a video!). [1]

The bad news is the music track which accompanies the clip - it is absolutely awful. It would not be so bad but they chose to have a vocal accompaniment as well and it sucks.

If you already have the Page 3 DVD you may want to give this one a miss unless the other girlies take your fancy (for the record Kirsten Imrie, Adele Stevens, Charmain Sinclair, Teresa May, Jordan, Lisa Montgomery, Sammi Jessop, Lana Cox, Mischa, Linzi D McK and Vickie Lee).

We are promised another Playboy DVD featuring Joanne, and only Joanne, at the end of November. Given this one I am a little worried about its content. Now 2 concurrent discs of the same material would be simply too much to swallow. I hope I am proved wrong. [2]

 

[1] - To answer DB's question: Blurring is a common feature on the professional "video effects" units such as those made by Quantel, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that a Video Toaster could also do it.

[2] - The "Playboy Celebrity Special" video is now out and, much as DB feared, all of the Jo material on the "Calendar Girls" video can be found on the "Celebrity Special" video. See DB's review below.

 


 

Playboy Celebrity Special - Joanne Guest (DVD)

reviewed by DB

Here was a DVD almost afraid to be be released. Originally scheduled for November 22 it was ultimately delayed until December 13 although it actually escaped two days earlier, very thoughtful that.

But I ask "What were they afraid of?" Had they read my previous reviews?

When this DVD was first touted several months ago I put my reputation on the line and stated my belief that it would contain new stuff. The erstwhile editor of this FAQ (Snarkamedes - ed) responded in his belief that it would have older material.

In a way we were both right.

If you have read my review of the Millennium Calendar Girls you will see my concern about this later release and its inferred similarity to the Page 3 Profile aka Joanne Guest in Portugal aka (in these parts at least) as the Steam TV tape (did I get that bit right Zed?) (Yes - ed). Doubts completely justified as what we have here is a total re-working of that video which itself only appeared on DVD a few months back. What is missing is all the semi-documentary stuff featuring Jeff Kane, the photographer, the background to the photo-shoots and all the other girlies who briefly appeared at various times. Actually that is not completely true but more of that later.

The DVD is split into 10 chapters two of which are the opening and closing credits. However this opening sequence is quite well put together as we hear Jo's voice in segments from the original interview. Some of the footage from the full shoot also appeared on Yellow Box 13 (the producers of these were footing the bill) and part of the intro appears here.

Of course from the Jo fan point of view when she says "I've been modelling for 7 and a half years now" you can be completely thrown and you have to remember that this was shot in 1997.

On the positive side all the action sequences run for much longer in this release. For example chapter 2 is the PVC number which was intercut originally with the garden dream/masturbation sequence. The entire sequence then ran well under 3 minutes (if you do not believe me check out Page3-3.mov which was complete and also included a little bit of chat) whereas the PVC number alone runs to about 6 minutes - the garden sequence is also on this DVD at chapter 9 [writer pauses to refill beer glass].

The only other model featured is Kirsten Imrie in the extended roof-top quasi photo-shoot. Unfortunately she keeps her clothes on throughout.

Some of the interview stuff is done as voice-over to the visuals and some is as before but is kinda strange as often Joanne is giving us the answer but we do not hear the question. Of course, if you are not here for the words and only the pictures this will not matter to you.

Interspersed with the moving pictures are some still photos - the 'Cab' series and also a Penthouse set come to mind.

I cannot say I noticed any improvement in the video quality from the earlier DVD - the film has quite a soft feel anyway. The sound is good and there are no lip-sync problems here.

If the Steam Tape had never happened this would be a really good homage to our goddess. There will be many potential buyers quite oblivious to the earlier material but there will be equally many who, if they have not read this, will feel short-changed by the duplication. I must confess that these thoughts went through my mind the first time I viewed it...

On second, third or more screenings I at least have appreciated the more expansive approach here. So they do to a degree complement one another but whether the company who released the first DVD will agree is another matter.

I no longer have John Mearman's e-mail address so I cannot ask him how he was able to sell this on to Playboy but there again maybe they did not know about the other one - they do now.

One final thought. You will recall Jo's management objecting to the first tape. At least she was still actively doing nude modelling when it came out. Not so true now. Joanne has also gone on record to say that she has mixed feelings of people who duplicate her material - scan and post - as no payment gets back to the model or photographer for this.

It would be interesting to know whether there was a repeat fee.

 


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