Every Woman Has a Fantasy (1984)

In Every Woman Has a Fantasy, producer-writer Summer Brown (as Sandra Winters) and husband director-writer Edwin Brown (as Edwin Durrell), let the viewer into the inner sanctum of a group of women who meet weekly to discuss their lives and open up to one another about their sexual fantasies. Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden was published more than a decade before Every Woman Has a Fantasy was made, so I guess it was pretty well-accepted that many women had rich fantasy sex lives. The implication here, at least, was that it was still rare for them to open up about them, with friends, and especially partners.

When Ben (John Leslie) asks his wife, Teri (Rachel Ashley), if he knows any of the women in the group, she explains that the women not knowing each others' spouses is a benefit to opening up since there's no threat of the fantasies getting back to their husbands. Ben's fascination with the group turns to an obsession as he progresses from hearing the fantasies relayed by Teri to convincing her to smuggle in a tape recorder to hiding in the closet when she hosts the group to, finally, dressing in drag and posing as his visiting cousin, Jennifer, to sit in on a meeting.

Centerfold Celebrities (1982)

"The tape you're about to see is called Celebrity Centerfolds.

What is a 'celebrity centerfold'?

The girls you're about to see, in x-rated action, hardcore sex, are girls that you see and fantasize about in men's magazines."

So says director Bobby Hollander in the introduction to the video Centerfold Celebrities or Celebrity Centerfolds or maybe Triple X Confessions 1 depending on which version you come across.

He goes on to say, "You'll see them in adult films and hear how they feel about posing in the nude for you, out there, to see."

Bobby's first interview is with Laurien Wilde (credited and introduced as "Lauren Wild"), who was just a few months into her adult career. She has a natural charm and while Bobby Hollander was no Johnny Carson, his conversation with Wilde was pleasant enough, and he was quick enough on his feet to drop a laugh-out-loud moment when Wilde said her preferred dick was, "Long and not toooo...round in circumference," and he asked, "Not square?!?" to which she clarified she meant not too thick.

Pleasure Palace (1979)

In Carter Stevens's Pleasure Palace, recently terminated Big City vice cop Jimmy (Eric Edwards) and his two-bit, ambulance chasing lawyer pal Mike (R. Bolla) are the proud new owners of a brothel, thinly veiled as a massage parlor.

Among their first new hires is Carol (Serena) a streetwise and world-weary call girl who Mike takes an immediate physical and romantic interest in.

Things at the parlor get off to a rocky start with the Fire Marshal threatening to close them indefinitely for a litany of fire hazards. Fortunately, Mike's time on the vice squad taught him how the sausage is made, so he sets to appeasing the Marshal with some companionship (Robyn Byrd and Veri Knotty) and making sure the "village elders" - including the sheriff (Joey Silvera) and judge (Jake Teague) - are kept happy with some champagne, a hot tub, and the attention of another girl on their staff (Lisa Heyman).

Unfortunately for Jimmy and Mike, things get complicated when a couple of heavies, Al (Roger Caine) and Pete (Bobby Astyr), show up on behalf of their crime lord boss, Joe Goodson (Jamie Gillis). After Jimmy and Mike send the goons packing letting them know in no uncertain terms that their boss won't be getting an interest in their business, Goodson strikes back by orchestrating the sexual assault of one of the parlor's employees.

Boiling Point (1978)

About 15 minutes into Boiling Point (aka Intimate Illusions), I said I bet director Paul Levis had fewer than five adult film credits. Sure enough: Boiling Point was his one and only. I wonder if he had a sense that he was only going to make one film, because it was (at least) four separate half-baked ideas crammed into one movie.

First, in an opening reminiscent of Thoroughly Amorous Amy, Angel (Phaedra Grant) is walking through the streets of San Francisco to a song (presumably) called "City Girl," and it seems like it's going to focus on the life and times of a young lady in the city. When she gets back to her apartment, she calls Alex (John Seeman) for some phone sex, presented with some pretty clever set design.

The scene had a very play-like quality. After they both get off, Angel tells her phone partner they can smoke a cigarette and then she needs to go, adding "Here's looking at you kid," the first of multiple times the line pops up throughout the movie.

Sweet Young Foxes (1983)

With Sweet Young Foxes, Bob Chinn presented a surprisingly insightful look at the breadth of female sexuality. In truth, had I watched the film by myself, I almost certainly would have missed a lot of the thematic subtleties, but fortunately my wife attended the screening (in our living room) and picked up on them and clued me in. Our conversation after the end credits gave me a much deeper appreciation for Foxes than I would've had on my own.

Ostensibly about three young women - Laura (Hyapatia Lee), Maggie (Cara Lott), and Kim (Cindy Carver) - celebrating the end of their first year of college, the actual story is the complexity of transitioning from girlhood to womanhood.

While the college girls are getting a taste of independence, all three still live at home and have varying degrees of tension with their parents. Laura's parents are divorced and while she lives with her mother, Julie (Kay Parker) their relationship is volatile to say the least.

Introductions (1976)

The original French title that translates to The Weekends of a Perverse Couple is plenty blunt. I wonder if "perverse" (or, pervers, I guess) has a bit more nuance in French than English. Regardless, I prefer the classier ambiguity of title Introductions.

There's no time wasted letting the viewer know what's up: it's sexy summertime in France, and while Mitch (Jacques Insermini) spends the week working in Paris, it's up to his wife Ann (Emmanuelle Pareze) to locate and seduce a sweet young thing that they can share when he's back for the weekend. For our voyeuristic pleasure, the target is Beatrice (Chantal Nora).

House of Strange Desires (1985)

If there's something strange in Jason (Mike Horner) and Terry's (Tamara Longley) new house, who are they gonna call? Gina (Cindy Carver), Krensky (John Seeman), and Abigail (Jill Ferari)! Unfortunately for the haunted homeowners in House of Strange Desires, the ghosts decidedly do not get busted.

While there are some "first draft" shortcomings of the script (mostly that there's no clear origin, reason, or motivation for the malevolent spirits, almost certainly misidentified as paranormal/occult expert Krensky as a succubus), to the movie's benefit, (co)writer, director, producer Lawrence T Cole resisted the urge to lean on camp or comedy and kept the tone earnest, which made for some charming laugh-out-loud moments that can only come from movies like The Room or Miami Connection that don't come at the viewer with any winks or nods. There were also a few great details, like the spirit(s) only manifesting in physical form after being drawn by Jason's semi-possessed hand and the use of sheer fabric to denote the barrier between the tangible and spectral realms.

About halfway through the movie, something about the setting and interaction between Jason and Terry reminded me of Dangerous Desires which, turns out, was also a Cole picture. [Writing this now also brought to attention Cole's apparent passion for putting "desire" in titles: Challenge of Desire (1982), Forbidden Desire (1983), House of Strange Desires (1985), and Dangerous Desires (1982).] Both films have an undercurrent of melodrama (though in Dangerous Desires, that shit's turned up to 11). I wonder if Cole started making more serious porn explicitly or implicitly to atone for his early, much sleazier career. Either way, movies like this sort of explain how he segued into the writer's room on the final season of Dynasty.