California Summer

Short on plot but long on eroticism, William Higgins delivers a surprise knockout with CALIFORNIA SUMMER. I usually fault his films for lacking narrative, but who cares when the men are this sexy?

In the film's defense (or maybe not), it seems like there's some attempt at a barebones plot, but it's so sketchily elaborated that, if it exists, it's impossible to follow. Opening finds three guys - Mark Scott Solo, Brett Woods and Chris Thompson - skateboarding and then going their separate ways. Woods is a surfer going to a contest in Hawaii, and Thompson is a pilot and offers him and his buddy a free ride. Back at Chris' place, the two get down to it before Chris has to leave. Next scene finds Solo hanging out with three friends and unable to get their girlfriends to come over - what's left to do but play grab-ass in the pool and have an orgy? One of the orgy participants, Tim Richards, leaves his brother Larry at home the next day, and Larry promptly seduces the pool boy. Back at Thompson's house, Chris makes it with Joe Reeve, the other surfer, before discovering Wood is bowing out of the trip. Set to housesit for Chris, Tim convinces Joe to go solo so he can still have the run of the place. With the house to himself, Tim invites three more friends over for another orgy (he's just that insatiable, I guess!).

During the early '80s, there was a vogue in straight porn for LA RONDE-style narratives, where the action passes from character to character. CALIFORNIA SUMMER can't even manage that, instead just accumulating random incident as it hops from one guy to the next with the barest of set-ups. This seems to presage the type of scene-based content Internet porn would eventually devolve back into, and it would generally earn my contempt, but for the fact all the guys are so darn hot. Obviously, the Higgins brand is famous for young, athletic, all-American men, and Will doesn't disappoint here, delivering a cast of stunners who all have great chemistry, rut enthusiastically and in many cases deliver multiple pop shots in a scene. It's not exactly high art (though it does feature a nice original score by Costello Presley), but sometimes, you just have to let porn be porn, and here Higgins delivers.