Collaborating with Lauren Niemi, Candida Royalle's second feature for her Femme Prods. Banner survives as a tone poem to Manhattan from an erotic point-of-view. Previous IMDb review submitters claimed it is not hardcore content, which is incorrect as the auteurs blend softcore and explicit sex tastefully, yet another argument for my long-advocated suggestion to IMDb that an Erotica genre be added to the website, as "Adult" does not adequately describe both soft & hard romantic content.
Viewed nearly 40 years later, I was struck by the underlying starting point for the show, anticipating Spike Lee's oh-so different "Do the Right Thing" made five years later in Brooklyn. "Urban Heat" is set on a summer day during a heat wave, entirely shot MOS, with music replacing any dialogue or direct sound, as a series of seven couples make love on various Manhattan locations -strictly pantomime.
Striking opening scene is set at Kamikaze club with many extras (including Candida) dancing and sporting evocative 1980s styling, before Marita Ekberg and Klaus Multia head for the basement for a quickie sex tryst (based on real-life behaivor of the staff at the club, per Royalle's commentary provided during the Slide Show on the DVD reissue). The explicit blow-job spotlighting Multia's big dick is clearly hardcore, but there are no money shots in this "Couples-friendly" flick.
Familiar porn lovelies including Taija Rae, Trish Ambrose and Carol Cross appear in the other vignettes, all presented with a positive, hedonistic and romantic approach uncommon to the usually grittier NYC brand of porn filmmaking.
