The Devil's Pleasure Garden

Foreign Matter

Toby travels with a woman who pays. He's got it made, except that her nine-year-old daughter is smarter than he is. Based on the novel:

“A very, very funny book"—The West Coast Review of Books

“Enormously enjoyable”—Kirkus Reviews

“Fresh and spirited”—Publishers Weekly

Think of:

Proposed cast: Paul Rudd

Toby Tucker gets along as a tour guide, though all he knows how to do is keep the clients amused. In Venice he falls for rich bubble-head Marcie but can't afford her style. "To-bee! Let's just live on my money!" Well—it’s awkward but what can one say? He reclines into the good life.

Proposed cast: Leslie Mann

Marcie Harding, sweet, fresh, blonder than blonde and all heart, is a lonely widow who takes a tour in Venice. Toby abandons the tour to take her to Rome, and when he runs out of cash is about to abandon her. He loves her more than he knows.

Proposed cast: Amber Liddicoat

But for Andrea, things would be perfect. "The child." Toby and Marcie are no smarter than anybody else; the child is smarter than anybody else. She'd have got rid of him long ago but her mommy loves him, so she keeps him around to, how shall I say, play with. When you’re not looking she rotates her head like Linda Blair.

Proposed cast: John Goodman

Marcie’s father-in-law, billionaire Hazelton Turnbull “Hard Turd” Harding IV, loathes Toby, and loathes giving Marcie her allowance to feed him. But he loves his little granddaughter, and there lies the control.

When Haze spends Marcie’s money on a painting for the Harding Memorial Museum it looks like Toby's meal ticket is gone.

Proposed cast Pamela Shaw:

Johna Nerg is the butch-nightmare artist whose painting Toby accidentally steps in, sits in and sets on fire. He really doesn't mean it but she thinks, as who does not, that he's trying to destroy it—and gets real mean with him.

He has no choice, finally, but to try to steal it. But until the child takes a hand, nothing works.

Light, charming, sophisticated, and the first of a series, each set in a new pleasure zone. Total Moisture, one of the sequels, is set in the south of France:

Foreign Matter is set in Venice and on a Greek island, and is available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Smashwords, and the usual places: Apple, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel—the whole street.

Pretentious Pictures presents a summer comedy.

LINDA, A Highly Successful Call Girl

A Paris lady of the evening with dignity and business sense is superior to her circumstances.

Linda is so beautiful, so refined, so aloof that her clients fall in love with her.
She's making a pile with American businessmen—who introduce her to the French President—who falls for her too.

Her passion for independence only inflames him—he wants to marry her, have children!—they all do, but she is resolutely herself.

Professional cool is the secret of her success, and the allure that enslaves powerful men.

Cops, pimps, hookers, judges, prison guards, psychiatrists, politicians—there isn’t much she can’t deal with.

And when the President introduces her to the former American President…

Proposed cast: Marion Cotillard (Linda)

LINDA is a call girl, a businesswoman and an independent spirit. Presidents fall in love with her, though she’s not that interested, and she winds up in the Oval Office advising one of them.

Proposed cast: Peter Sarsgaard (Barry)

BARRY is the American junior executive who’s in love with her. He will do anything to have her, and ultimately kills for her, which finally gets her attention.

Proposed cast: an actor who specializes in "the French President"

Proposed cast: an actress who specializes in "the First Girlfriend"

Proposed cast: Timothy Watters ("the former American President")

Proposed cast: Teresa Barnwell ("the American Secretary of State")

Proposed cast: Gerardo Puisseaux ("the President")

Pretentious Pictures presents a dry comedy.

“Intelligence is a kind of immorality.”—Paul Valéry

I’d be a perfect gentleman

If I weren’t such a prick.

Debauchery with harlots

And dalliance with starlets—

But why should I

Pass any by

When I can have my pick?

I’d be a perfect gentleman

If I weren’t such a prick!

I’d prize exalted feeling

And put by double-dealing

If I but could

Do as I should

Like Harry, Tom and Dick.

I’d be a perfect gentleman

If I weren’t such a prick!

I’d make a flawless model

Of sentimental twaddle

If I submitted

To be insipid—

The idea makes me sick!

I’d be a perfect gentleman

If I weren’t such a prick!

I’d sparkle in society

With exquisite propriety

And keep a smile

Upon my dial

As if I gave a lick.

I’d be a perfect gentleman

If I weren’t such a prick!

The darlings all endeavor

To make it last forever!

And how their eyes

And soulful sighs

Do cut me to the quick!

Oh, I’d be a perfect gentleman—

(He’d be a perfect gentleman!)

I’d be a perfect gentleman—

(He’d be a perfect gentleman!)

I’d be a perfect gentleman—

(He’d be a perfect gentleman!)

If I weren’t such a prick!

On youtube

In print

Faust: the movie

Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a film reviewer, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. Committed to making movies that don't matter. No brains, but an intellectual snob.