Never Forgotten

I'm a big fan of Stormy Daniels the writer-director, not just the performer who is certainly this year's queen of the tabloid headlines courtesy of Pres. Trump. This recent release demonstrates how seriously she takes her work, and I respect it for that reason.

Unfortunately, for all the brownie points Ms. Clifford earns for her commitment to quality and her art, the old-fashioned movie lacks the oomph and je ne sais quoi that might have made it a classic.

In a NonSex role billed as a "Special Appearance", porn veteran Kyle Stone dominates the show as an ex-sailor now quite old, and living in his past. We see his lonely, daily rituals, conjuring up a Kitchen SInk mood of such British classics as Bryan Forbes' forceful vehicle 50 years back for Dame Edith Evans -"The Whisperers".

Before I'm accused of holding Stormy up to too high a standard, it is such standards that I insist on appealing to when evaluating Adult Cinema, unlike the trend in recent decades (especially since the end of porn's Theatrical era and golden age circa 1983 when home video took over) that insists "only the sexual content matters". Stormy delivers the requisite five explicit sex scenes to her employer Wicked Pictures, but "Never Forgotten" was made and plays just like a Real Movie, and has to be taken on those terms.

It's highly sentimental and at times verges on the maudlin, as Stormy artfully cuts between Kyle the faltering old man Robert Thompson and his youthful self in the 1940s as Robby, played by young porn star Robby Echo.

We have a tale of unrequited love, as Robby romances beautiful Elizabeth, empathetically portrayed by Ella Nova, a fresh talent who benefits from the lack of overexposure that would kill the role (think Riley Reid, Elsa Jean or even Lana Rhoades for example). Had the film been made a few years earlier I would have cast Maddy O'Reilly, the best actress of her porn generation.

To see what happened to these star-crossed lovers I commend the DVD to you, but suffice it to say that Stormy treats their plight with great sympathy and zero condescension, almost as if she were directing a movie in Hollywood's Golden Age.

But in 2018 it doesn't quite click, as Stormy's fondness for genre films, in this case a weeper right out of Irene Dunne's script archive, gets the better of her talent. I appreciated the performances, with the sex thrown in, and all the nice touches in costuming and styling of not only Ella but also Casey Calvert and yes, Maddy O'Reilly herself as Robert's niece (or grand-niece?), but the excitement and originality the story needed is lacking.