LINDA, A Highly Successful Call Girl

Reg’d © Library of Congress

A Montreal 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 Prince—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 Prince introduces her to the former American President… 

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: Duncan Skinner (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: Guy Ingle ("the Prince")

Proposed cast: Wendy Ellis ("the Duchess")

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

Proposed cast: Teresa Barnwell ("the American candidate")

Proposed cast: Gerardo Puisseaux ("the President")

Pretentious Pictures presents a dry comedy.

Reg’d © Library of Congress

Loose Shoes: A Sinister Musical Comedy

A nice woman, on vacation in a small seaside hotel, meets a menacing woman who looks just like her—in fact they’re played by the same actress—and is determined to seduce Ms. Nice’s husband.

Ms. Sinister is a nightclub singer who impersonates Lucy, Marilyn, Liz, Marlene, Kim, Bette, Joan and Vivien—

—and captivates Mr. Nice.

She is also a dominatrix—

—in the employ of an English aristocrat who enjoys being tortured by her.

As the women step into each other’s shoes their men, and then they themselves, no longer know which Georgia is which.

Pretentious pictures presents

Loose Shoes

a sinister musical comedy

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. No brains but an intellectual snob.

“I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.”

The Light Touch on Amazon Prime

Film reviews

The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean

Love without Kissing

A non-Hollywood film about Hollywood
Reg’d © Library of Congress 

When aspiring actress Dolores Davenport's face is destroyed in an accident, there's nothing the doctors can do. Plastic surgery has its limits. A face transplant would take years, and cost more than she can come up with.  

So she goes veiled, and earns her keep by posing for lesbian painter Virgy, who's in love with her.  

Proposed cast: Catherine Tate

Dolores doesn't return Virgy's love, only her friendship, and while she poses, she works on a screenplay. If she can't make it as a star, she'll make it as a writer. But how can she sell a script when she can’t even show her face?

At an exhibition of Virgy's paintings, Dolores meets French movie star Louis Bertrand, who's been collecting Virgy's pictures of Dolores, and, already in love with those—

—falls in love with her.

Proposed cast: Gérard Depardieu

Here is someone who can open doors for her, and he does, but his passion, his obsession, is to see behind her veil. That, she tells him, he will never do. She won't even sleep with him. But he doesn't give up. He arranges an interview for her with cold ruthless studio producer Perry Zabrowski.  

Proposed cast: Jon Malkovich

She pitches Perry an idea based on his private life, which Louis has filled her in on, and Perry buys it, and wants to shape it, but only if they attach a star—Louis.  

Impossible. But when she pitches it to Louis he agrees! "You’re going to make this movie?" "Of course I am! And do you know why? Because if you do not sleep with me this instant I won’t do it! Et voila!" She refuses. He shrugs. She relents, but he must never touch her veil. If he does that, they're through. It's love without kissing.

She is now a writer-producer. But Perry won't proceed unless his wife Suzanne has a role. Suzanne is not a star, and Louis says no: his reputation won't stand it, and besides, Suzanne is one of his many ex-lovers, perhaps the most delicious of them. He doesn't want to go there again.

The deal is off, and Dolores spurns Louis until his passion gets the better of him and he relents. But neurotic Suzanne can't work with the director Perry assigns; she'll only work with Dolores. So Dolores directs.

They're shooting on a yacht in Marina del Rey, and Perry comes aboard to check on his wife, and to have Dolores. The five of them spend the night there—Virgy is co-writer—and Dolores wakes up in a red bed: Perry's throat has been cut. It matters very much to her who did this, but her friends aren't talking, in fact no one seems to mind, and it's the last day of the schedule so they should really get these shots before the police come in and delay them interminably, shouldn't they?

Because of a gap in the cast Dolores takes the role of a pirate pleading for her life, and at the moment of truth rips off her mask—she won't show her face to Louis, but she'll show it to the world if her film needs it. Not being a stunt man, Louis blows up the wrong boat, and Perry's corpse along with it, so the murderer is off the hook. Oscars. Louis takes Dolores back to France, but she still won't show him her face.

Pretentious Pictures presents a serious comedy.

Reg’d © Library of Congress

Also by Robert MacLean, the "Toby" books,

Will You Please Fuck Off? at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT, Amazon ES and Smashwords;

Foreign Matter at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT, Amazon ES and Smashwords; 

Total Moisture at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT, Amazon ES and Smashwords; 

The Cad at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT, Amazon ES and Smashwords;

and these, too,
Mortal Coil: A Comedy of Corpses at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT and Amazon ES;

The President's Palm Reader: A Washington Comedy at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT and Amazon ES; and
Greek Island Murder at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, Amazon IT and Amazon ES.