Hitchin' Up with LINDA AND ABILENE

Libido-churning eroticism in the long-feared-lost LINDA AND ABILENE.

I finally caught up with H.G. Lewis's once-considered-lost LINDA AND ABILENE the other night, courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome's THE LOST FILMS OF HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS startlingly beautiful Blu-ray disc -- undoubtedly one of the releases of the year, regardless of the films' individual, er, merits.

Set in the Old West, and originally X-rated for its scenes of two adult orphaned siblings who get tired of moving hay from place to place, LINDA AND ABILENE would be considered a stylistic throwback had it been made at the same time as Edwin S. Porter's THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903). The plot is very simple: First Act) brother and sister resist each other; Second Act), brother and sister stop resisting each other; and Third Act) the brother attempts to restore sanctity to their home by directing his lust toward the saloon floozy Linda, and everyone loses.

Its highlights are anachronistic glimpses of Linda's silver toenail polish (not to mention her styrofoam-stiff boob job) and - my favorite - the jumbo-sized Band-Aid spied on Abilene's foot. The director did take care to remove it when the bottom of her foot was in closeup, and the mighty distracting gash across it makes us wish she'd worn her clodhoppers whilst preening nude in the shallowest "river" ever filmed.