The straight-to-video boom of the 1980s produced an astonishing collection of sex comedies, some in which hotels and recreational nudity combined to work the room for genuine hoot(er)s and hard-ons.

When grading term papers, put the likes of Rosebud Beach Hotel, Hot Resort and Young Love at the head of their class.  Then, after you're through passing out the scholarships, consider Bikini Hotel, a film that takes sex comedy to the hilarious level of The English Patient.

The seen-it, done-it storyline, about competing establishments that employ scantily-clad females to do some extracurricular belle hopping, works on the Jessica Walters principle as illustrated in Play Misty For Me.  Flail away and, sooner or later, a gag is bound to land in the general direction of the funny bone.  In the case of BH, picture José Feliciano swinging a comedic broadaxe in an empty elevator.

As one might surmise by the film's title, the establishment in question threatens to become a regular X-rated Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition by story's end.  Not entirely the case, unless you consider a winner-take-all miniature golf tournament in the same league as a Starbangers' orgy.

Lead star J.J. North plays a sweet, down-home gal who makes the preposterous transition from flipping hamburgers to playing Conrad Hilton.  North's career switch is hastened by her old man's last will and testament.  And, as has been consistently the case all along in her own real-life career, J.J. bares just a tad more than Jay North in an old Dennis the Menace rerun.  Not a magnanimous gesture on J.J.'s part, by any stretch, since Julie Strain's left to pretty much make up the skin quota - often deploying embarrassing thespian overdrive to compensate.  The results are a series of convulsively unfunny and PG-13-rated blackout sketches featuring both Ms. Strain and a coterie of supporting B-list players, some who really shouldn't be seen in the semi-altogether.

We've seen her jugs often enough, and maybe someday her fans will get a glimpse of North's luscious lobby.  But it won't be in this picture.