TV REVIEW : ‘Posing’ Poses Lots of Problems

You know you’re living in the age of the infomercial when a TV movie as shameless as “Posing: Inspired by Three Real Stories”--which is basically a de facto two-hour commercial, uncritically extolling the virtues of posing for (and perusing) Playboy magazine--passes for prime-time dramatic entertainment. This massive free plug airs tonight at 9 on CBS (Channels 2 and 8), which really couldn’t sink much lower.

The three separate stories, whose scenes are intercut rather randomly, star Lynda Carter, Michele Greene and Amanda Peterson, all of whom occasionally address the camera face-on to explain “why I did it.”

All three do face unforeseen negative consequences in the wake of their respective issues hitting the stands, but only in the form of flak from self-righteous hypocrites at work and home. And the movie hammers home that each gal made the right, liberating decision, finding herself through losing her camera-shyness and blouse.

Carter is a flaming knockout of a 37-year-old Southern housewife whose husband hasn’t touched her in ages. (So much for credibility.) Greene is a successful commodities broker and former fat girl who feels too much like “one of the boys.” Peterson is an uptight, overachieving Yale preppie in perpetual rivalry with her licentious sister. Will these women shed their pesky neuroses through public nudity? Is the Pope Catholic? Does Hugh Hefner have Jacuzzi bills?

Peterson turns in the most believable performance, even though she suffers the movie’s most hilariously campy transformation--first, as stuffy editor of the Yale paper, writing a front-page banner editorial against Playboy recruitment on campus; then, spontaneously bolting into the photographer’s studio and dropping her robe, just in time for the requisite lingerie-’n’-rock-song montage.

In the era of “Pretty Woman,” perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that all three sagas turn out to be veritable Cinderella stories. The rank script is credited to two women, Cathleen Young and Ann Donahue, so go figure and go hoot.