Imperial's Rating:

When I first wathced Spinelli's "Sex World" (1978) it was in a proper movie theatre, with popcorn and the like (I never took raincoats to the pornies, I was underage anyway :-)). I still remember how impressed I was by this very well made production, the good quasi-sf plot, the direction and the quality of the acting. I came out convinced that this really proved that porn films were as good as the bulk of mainstream commercial releases, and that as a result this was indeed porn perfection. For 10 years, "Sex World" shone bright in my porn memories and thoroughly deserved its perfect rating of 4.00. Finally, I re-watched it this year and sadly this state of affairs is no more. Certainly it remains one of the best porn films ever made and is still a joy to watch. But it is primarily a "film" and the sex scenes are sadly deficient in both quality and duration. The plot is so lengthy that there is inevtiably little time left for the pumping; normally I do not mind this but "SW" definetely overdoes it and ends up marginalizing the sex rather than just accentuate the plot. Great scenes (for example Lesllie Bovee's g-g fantasy involving her neighbour Abigail Clayton) are set up in a wonderful manner but then the sex fizzles out after a couple of minutes, obviously due to the lack of time. Secondly, the casting of a pleiad of big stars (Annette, Abigail, Lesllie Bovee, Kay Parker, Desiree West, Amber Hunt, John Leslie, Cris Cassidy) also poses the problem of having to accommodate all of them in a satisfactory manner and avoiding the Waste Of Resources (TM) ogre. "Sex World" unfortunately fails in that respect as well; Abby is in the film for no more than 5 minutes; Annette for 10 at most; and the lovely Cris Cassidy for all of 15 seconds. One is left wondering what might have been...

Finally, a weakness in the editing has left many sequences (for example the famous one between Desiree West and the once-bigoted-but-now-seduced John Leslie) fragmented throughout the film, or just plain choppy. There is also a bit too much close-up, a frequent curse of vintage porn.

All this means that "Sex World" cannot be considered a perfect porn film anymore. It still remains a must-see though. It is a very enjoyable movie, some of the sex is quite good and it contains some scenes of still unsurpassed beauty. The introduction of the Lesllie Bovee-Abigail Clayton scene remains one of the sexiest ever - even though the actual sex doesn't follow up on the promise. And Cris Cassidy swooping over sleeping Annette Haven like some Nordic goddess remains one of those immortal pictures in the history of sex films.

Heartily recommended despite all the grumbling.

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Posted By Imperial, www.excaliburfilms.com | 10/5/06 1:58 PM