Gabriella Banks perched gamely but uncomfortably on Jon Dough’s motorcycle, awaiting the inevitable. It was 2006 and VCA was remaking a slew of the late Jim Holliday’s movies, but with a smaller budget and smaller casts.
It almost seems like an alien thing now, to remake, like Hollywood does, a “classic” title. Simply because porn is lightning in a bottle, almost impervious to any script or direction. The only recent remakes or updates that seemed to carry the original story further were Eon McKai’s “Neu Wave Hookers” and Paul Thomas’s “Throat” with Sasha Grey.
But the “Car Wash Angels” shoot was interesting for me because it was one of many examples of my not having any idea of porn’s larger history. Then, when I got a sense of that history, I was disappointed that it was being referenced so shabbily.
Not that “Car Wash Angels: Wet ‘n’ Wild” turned out to be a bad movie (it may have been—I didn’t see it), it just was never going to capture the spirit of the original, which few performers on set remembered anyway.
Both Jon Dough and director Jane Waters are now dead, but the remake of “Car Wash Angels” had nothing to do with that. If anything, Gabriella Banks probably prolonged their lives.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Holliday at the Car Wash—”Car Wash Angels” redux
Gram Ponante is America's Beloved Porn Journalist
Gabriella Banks: one of those female performers I have to respect for having such an incredibly high anal to non-anal ratio of performances in her filmography.