'I Saw a Set of Thighs and Realized Instantly That Wasn't My Movie'

Go figure. A low-budget flick made by a former politician confused with a soft-core porn movie of the same name. This guy should have had the best of both worlds and just filmed the behind-the-scenes dealings at Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama's healthcare scam. They could have used Bart Stupak as part of a lurid threesome.

A former lawmaker is suing cable TV channels HBO and Showtime, claiming they promoted his low-budget comedy about Appalachia called "The Hills Have Thighs" only to instead show a soft-core pornographic movie with the same title.

James "Bubba" Cromer said the mix-up defamed him and caused emotional distress, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles. He accuses HBO and Showtime of negligence and is seeking unspecified damages.

How the legal action came about is its own Hollywood story.

It started as Cromer and his father surfed the TV listings on March 1 as they waited for his mother to finish her bridge game. The Columbia lawyer saw "The Hills Have Thighs" was set to make its television debut on The Movie Channel, which is owned by Showtime. He said the listing included the description of his movie and the names of its actors.

It was the first Cromer had heard about it, but he had recently hired a talent agent to promote his work. And the 1:30 a.m. premiere was just hours away. So he called the cast of the film, his friends and family to tell them to set their digital recorders. He wrote to his more than 4,000 friends on Facebook: "The Hills Have Thighs is on The Movie Channel all month!!!"

Cromer said he stayed up late even though he had to be in court at 8:30 a.m. and in the South Carolina House a few hours later, where he serves as reading clerk. Before the movie came on, Cromer said he heard a voiceover: "Bubba Cromer later tonight does it again with his second feature film 'The Hills Have Thighs.' Deliverance in reverse."

"All my words," Cromer told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I got on my floor and I crossed myself because that was a dream come true."

Then the appointed hour arrived, with a surprising plot twist: "I saw a set of thighs and realized instantly that wasn't my movie."

Instead of his "hysterical Appalachian comedy," it showed the film directed by Jim Wynorski, a longtime cult favorite and director of exploitation films with plenty of skin and risque turns on popular movie titles, such as the "The Da Vinci Coed" and "The Witches of Breastwick."

The plot is pretty straightforward for its genre, according to its current Showtime listing: "A group searches the desert for a missing friend but instead find a trio of crazed, sex-starved mutant women."

Hmmm. Sex-starved mutant women. DVR alert!

The agitation in Cromer's voice was evident as he talked about the lawsuit Tuesday.

"Associating my name with pornography is the last thing I would ever do," Cromer said. "That's just nuts. I could care less about marketing. I want my name back."

Better watch how he uses the word nuts.