THE DEVIL WALKS ON WATER

This sleazy tone poem to the codpiece-popping proclivities of a third generation Irish young man of the Southampton of the Thirties offers little besides some startling barnyard erotica and pronouncements concerning same. Briney Mitchel, on the make for Old Family beauty Midge Crocker, rebels noisily against family restraints and sneaks Midge out to the nearest brothel on a slumming trip. One fight with the natives and a hurricane flood later, Briney rescues Midge from the briny waters--both coasting nude on a raft. (This is handily accomplished after a session with lovely Irish servant Peggy, who gives her considerable all.) Throughout Briney's cut-ups--roaring automobiles on front lawns, rocking the oldsters with boyishly candid observations about the activity in which he so excels--it is obvious that any Southamptonian worth his salt is awash in grudging admiration. This admiration is hard to share since Briney is a heated-up version of the ham-handed, simple-minded, tediously randy non-hero of drug store detective and adventure fiction.