Having seen Gerard Damiano's movies theatrically back in the day as they were released, I was always convinced he was making "real" movies, not just porn, or porno chic, or whatever other ghetto they were pigeonholed in. This is one I missed, and watching it on video I was very impressed.
He takes what was once also ghettoized as the "Woman's Picture" by Hollywood (in the 1940s when Crawford, Davis, Irene Dunne and Rosalind Russell reigned supreme) and deftly integrates explicit sex into the story. Casting his greatest actress Georgina Spelvin in the lead role was essential: her poignant acting is letter perfect, and as fans have come to expect she provides utterly convincing passion and sensuality in her XXX scenes.
Whether consciously or not, Damiano once again has entered into Ingmar Bergman territory, as in his best work like "Memories Within Miss Aggie". Movie opens with both Spelvin and R. Bolla as her husband underplaying when he coldly announces to her in a simple scene set in their kitchen that he's leaving her for another woman who he's fallen in love with. Calmly stating how he's hired a divorce lawyer, set in motion selling their house and is providing her with the money she's entitled too, the film couldn't be more serious, and gives off zero indication we're watching porn.
But the explicit sex in all its tight closeup glory (including trademark fellatio scenes from the director so famous for making "Deep Throat") is carefully applied where appropriate.
After a couple of reels, he daringly shifts into a 30-minute dream sequence in which Spelvin's character is confronted with her inner urges and doubts in provocative fashion as she watches a version of herself acting out all sorts of sexual fetishes. Included is a medical examination (with speculum and shaving of pubic hair) that has its own porn niches; a strange lesbian encounter with a woman coated in gold (right out of a Bond movie) in which she is supposedly making love to herself, though a different actress plays the Golden Girl; and extreme food with sex sensuality when she is eating oysters while watching a couple making love.
Kasey Rodgers plays the redhead making love to a cock belonging to an actor whose face is never shown in this dream. I unfortunately passed the "Someone who's watched too much porn" test, as I recognized the cock (brown colored but on a white stud's body) as belonging to Herschel Savage, and looking up the credits in IMDb was confirmed in this identification. Ouch!
Damiano shifts gears midway through the film, after this erotic dream finally ends, by staging an S. O. L. I. (semi-obligatory lyrical interlude) of Spelvin meeting Bobby Astyr and falling in love with him. After MOS footage of them even bursting into dance in front of a touristy fountain and sculpture in a park, it shifts to a brilliant performance by both chatting so naturally as to appear improvised by pros. Spelvin even quips that it reminds her of a Charles Boyer movie, further name dropping Claudette Colbert, both particularly apt references.
There follows a night out at a restaurant with partying folks which brings the story elegantly to an end, with ex-husband Bolla even popping up with his pretty but horrid new wife -Georgina has moved on and is self-assured to ignore this annoyance. The movie ends in a very modern fashion, as we see the partygoers having a grand time, filled with cameos by Damiano, Annie Sprinkle (dancing with Astyr and giving him a big kiss), Susan McBain, etc. The only sad feeling I had was that such a creative and talent craftsman like Gerard Damiano never had the opportunity to crossover and make a REAL real movie within the mainstream of the Movie Industry.
He takes what was once also ghettoized as the "Woman's Picture" by Hollywood (in the 1940s when Crawford, Davis, Irene Dunne and Rosalind Russell reigned supreme) and deftly integrates explicit sex into the story. Casting his greatest actress Georgina Spelvin in the lead role was essential: her poignant acting is letter perfect, and as fans have come to expect she provides utterly convincing passion and sensuality in her XXX scenes.
Whether consciously or not, Damiano once again has entered into Ingmar Bergman territory, as in his best work like "Memories Within Miss Aggie". Movie opens with both Spelvin and R. Bolla as her husband underplaying when he coldly announces to her in a simple scene set in their kitchen that he's leaving her for another woman who he's fallen in love with. Calmly stating how he's hired a divorce lawyer, set in motion selling their house and is providing her with the money she's entitled too, the film couldn't be more serious, and gives off zero indication we're watching porn.
But the explicit sex in all its tight closeup glory (including trademark fellatio scenes from the director so famous for making "Deep Throat") is carefully applied where appropriate.
After a couple of reels, he daringly shifts into a 30-minute dream sequence in which Spelvin's character is confronted with her inner urges and doubts in provocative fashion as she watches a version of herself acting out all sorts of sexual fetishes. Included is a medical examination (with speculum and shaving of pubic hair) that has its own porn niches; a strange lesbian encounter with a woman coated in gold (right out of a Bond movie) in which she is supposedly making love to herself, though a different actress plays the Golden Girl; and extreme food with sex sensuality when she is eating oysters while watching a couple making love.
Kasey Rodgers plays the redhead making love to a cock belonging to an actor whose face is never shown in this dream. I unfortunately passed the "Someone who's watched too much porn" test, as I recognized the cock (brown colored but on a white stud's body) as belonging to Herschel Savage, and looking up the credits in IMDb was confirmed in this identification. Ouch!
Damiano shifts gears midway through the film, after this erotic dream finally ends, by staging an S. O. L. I. (semi-obligatory lyrical interlude) of Spelvin meeting Bobby Astyr and falling in love with him. After MOS footage of them even bursting into dance in front of a touristy fountain and sculpture in a park, it shifts to a brilliant performance by both chatting so naturally as to appear improvised by pros. Spelvin even quips that it reminds her of a Charles Boyer movie, further name dropping Claudette Colbert, both particularly apt references.
There follows a night out at a restaurant with partying folks which brings the story elegantly to an end, with ex-husband Bolla even popping up with his pretty but horrid new wife -Georgina has moved on and is self-assured to ignore this annoyance. The movie ends in a very modern fashion, as we see the partygoers having a grand time, filled with cameos by Damiano, Annie Sprinkle (dancing with Astyr and giving him a big kiss), Susan McBain, etc. The only sad feeling I had was that such a creative and talent craftsman like Gerard Damiano never had the opportunity to crossover and make a REAL real movie within the mainstream of the Movie Industry.