Alex De Renzy straddles the borderline between underground filmmaking (the '60s: Stan Brakhage, Ed Emshwiller, Van Der Beek, etc.) and Frisco Porn. This early effort is more like a Robert Downey Sr. film (I'm thinking of Greaser's Palace, which is far better, natch) than a movie worth watching at an Adult Theater back in the day.
De Renzy provides the trappings of a Western, opening with decent locations and costumes for a silly shoot-out (in which even the dance-hall girls are toting and firing rifles, something Buck Jones would never have stood for). But he quickly pours on the anachronisms, which come so fast and furious that (as any seasoned comedian could have told him) they step on the punch lines.
Right from the first saloon scene in which the little town's combo sheriff/bartender waxes loquaciously and unfunnily, there are Coors cans prominently displayed and the bar girl is wearing a rather authentic looking Playboy Bunny costume. After a busty and nice-looking stripper shows up and does her very '60s (Carol Doda anyone?) routine atop a modern pool table, all sorts of odd folk show up, notably including a Viva lookalike who later excels in the film's minimal hardcore porn scenes.
In fact, 47 minutes of a 72 minute running time pass before Alex doles out any XXX footage, not a very wise move even in the early days of feature length porn (he had earlier dabbled in fake white-coater moviedom). The other all-the-way femme performer is a short and plump girl who likely had a one-shot career, so other than staring at the stripper's appealing breasts BURNS is woefully short on sexual content.
The gags and humor are painfully sophomoric, though one anachronistic gambit was subtle and satisfying for me. A Black Panther lady arrives at the saloon in requisite black leather jacket and barkeep informs her "you're too early" (100 years too early to be exact), so she's sent off to play piano. Later I heard her playing (quietly) the unmistakable strains of Horace Silver's 1964 jazz classic "Song for My Father", paying off on the initial premise of the film's outlaw trio comprising the McNasty Brothers gang, named after Horace's earlier Blue Note hit "Filthy McNasty".
End title reads "POWDERBURNS ever so lightly", perhaps De Renzy's cop-out as to the half- hearted nature of the project, especially compared to the all-out craziness of his next effort LITTLE SISTERS. One has to admire the maestro's chutzpah but the resulting feature reminded me of endless stillborn indie movies I used to watch that never saw the light of day due to massive shortcomings betwixt initial thought and final edit.