One of Roberta Findlay's strangest porn films, LOVE, IN STRANGE PLACES is nutty, goof-ball XXX entertainment. It is better than its companion film HOT NURSES, a more conventional comedy (featuring overlapping footage and the same cast) also set in a hospital.
Much of PLACES' success is due to lead player Crystal Sync, cast as a ditsy nurse on her first assignment. She ends up at a hospital for the Sexually Insane, and what follows is pure Findlay insanity. Sync's high pitched voice and convincing "innocent" manner would make her an interesting (if offbeat, physically) choice to play Little Annie Fanny if that Playboy comic had ever been legitimately filmed.
Premise is that the patients have taken over the institution, led by Dr. Hook, played by John Holmes (imported from the West Coast for this otherwise NYC ensemble movie) with a flair for amusing ad libs and unrestrained nutty behavior. He fancies himself a self-taught brain surgeon, but seems to be operating on plush animal toys rather than real people, as Findlay (minus better half Michael) is not in a gory mood at all. This film is all-sex, the goofier the better.
Seeming to be the real nut-case running the institution is Dr. Fraud (Don Peterson, perhaps the only cast member who doesn't ham it up). His odd theories on treating mental illness result in a Psychodrama session late in the film, which is merely an excuse for an orgy.
The fans also have certifiably nutty Zebedy Colt on hand as the real head of the hospital, stuck in a strait jacket and overacting to a fare-thee-well. He can't convince Sync that he's been imprisoned by the inmates, for good reason since he's become crazier than they are.
A beautiful (but obscure) black porn actress Mousiendi (who resembles Diana Ross but with a huge chest) thinks she's Cleopatra and is quite diverting, whether masturbating with her pet snake or giving Holmes a blow job. One Findlay fetish is a "money" scene where a nurse fists Cleo, something still relatively unusual in mainstream porn in the mid '70s.
Eric Edwards is somewhat wasted as an inmate who thinks he's the Marquis de Sade, serviced by Justine (Jeanette Sinclair). Similarly, Findlay regular Jeffrey Hurst is rather dull in an uncharacteristically one-note performance as a nut with a Napoleonic complex, matched up with his Josephine (always reliable Marlene Willoughby). Marlene works very, very hard to try orally to coax an actual erection from Holmes, but when he humps her his legendary dick is distractingly in accordion-mode, shrinking to fit her vagina with each thrust.
An unimpressive rock band named Slim Pickins shows up at the orgy to perform -the lame excuse is that they are under the delusion they're rock stars. Findlay used the group in several films. Elsewhere, the distorted "novelty" musical score is intentionally annoying, and perhaps the weakest element of the film.
Hogging virtually all the credits (and seen as a frizzy-haired extra walking down the street as Sync arrives at the hospital via ambulance in the film's opening), Findlay delivers a very appealing, loosey-goosey movie. It's a reminder of the free-wheeling nature of porn in the '70s, before it became such a big business.
