Carnal Haven isn't completely inept film making, but it isn't particularly "ept", either.
The film opens with a bizarre mission statement from writer, producer, director, "fotographer", and editor Carlos Tobalina (as Troy Benny):
From there, Carnal Haven is more or less broken into three parts:
28% An introduction to four couples with relationship issues that all find their way to a sex clinic, interspersed with some of their action at the clinic.
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| Lesllie Bovee & John Leslie |
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| Turk Lyon & Candida Royalle |
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| Desiree West & Dashile Miguele |
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| Joey Silvera & Bonnie Holiday |
32% Time at the clinic where the four couples (plus a few other people and minus Joey Silvera, for some reason) get some basic instruction on human physiology and learn a few techniques to please their partners (the "Inca Nut" thrusting technique for men and the "Gypsy Grip" squeezing technique for women) courtesy of the doctors (Ken Scudder and Sharon Thorpe).
The new techniques (and some things that just come naturally) are tested out during a prolonged (and moderately uninteresting) orgy.
40% Cutting between the couples, post-clinic, relishing their rekindled passions, with an 8-minute aside in which Lesllie Bovee explores her sapphic desires, back at the clinic with Sharon Thorpe and Annette Haven.
The only parts of this final act that stood out were Turk Lyon and Candida Royalle getting into a position that put the structural integrity of Lyon's dick in serious jeopardy:
...and Silvera's character's resolution (giving up his life of crime) getting it's own extra silent film-style thought bubble card:
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| "Shity" all right. |
There's some inconsistent narration that lends a bit of an educational film feel (a bit on that later).
The film editing wasn't great, but the music editing was a train wreck, particularly during the orgy and post-clinic "reclaiming" sex. It was like somebody only had access to a few songs (including a 1970s cop show jazz funk cast-off and echo heavy proto-jam band song) that they were trying to mix live, cutting between them seemingly at random and in no way influenced by what was going on on-screen, and sometimes letting them overlap. Just truly bizarre stuff.
Then, at the very end, Tobalina gives us two more text cards:
I get that pornographers were under serious threat of prosecution for indecency, but even by 1976 it seemed like dressing up blue movies as documentaries or marital instruction was kind of a bygone thing. If he'd leaned into it more, I could have believed it was satire of the convention, but it doesn't play that way at all.
Let's see if Rimmer has an explanation for recommending it:
A sex education porno film? Sure enough - and unlike the Love Tapes, which are more clinical, this one has many top stars.....
Uh, sure.
At the outset, the narrator says, "If you think this is one more orgy, you're in for a big surprise," but I'd argue you really aren't. I kind of got the feeling Tobalina did just want to shoot an orgy picture and when he finally got around to it (in 1983's Marathon) it was a lot more fun. CC200
RANDOM THOUGHTS
° I feel badly for Dashile Miguele and Desiree West. Whereas all the other couples were just examples of "couples", Miguele and West were representative of Black America. And then their problem was that he coveted a new Cadillac and she wanted him to get a job. And then the resolution was that he did get a job that let him get the car, but his new illustrious career was as a pimp. Yikes.
° You can't help but notice that for all the talk of clits in the clinic, there was no real focus on female pleasure (let alone orgasm) during the film's climax (so to speak).
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