In porn, as elsewhere, often a hambone actor (and/or director) will mount a vanity production with terrifyingly bad results. Anthony Newley, RIP, did it with his HEIRONYMUS MERKIN disaster, X-rated when released but small beer by anybody's porn standards, and around the same time one untalented German name of Gunter Hendel fabricated this stinker.
Like Newley, Hendel was really full of himself, but unlike Newley (the memorably renaissance show biz giant of yore: actor/composer/vocalist/Broadway & nightclub star/raconteur, etc.), Hendel is an ego-tripping, no-talent lout.
He writes, directs and stars in EROS CENTER, an incredibly tedious combination of would-be thriller and documentary-style examination of the German sex trade in Hamburg. I coincidentally watched the next day Yves Allegret's 1958 film LA FILLE DE HAMBOURG which touches on the same subject matter and vive la difference! English-dubbed version revived by Something Weird Video runs a mind-numbing 98 minutes, so it's pretty much intact. Unfortunately for Hendel, the sexual content is completely wimpy -just occasional nudity and many a sex scene occurring entirely off-camera. Even on a sexploitation level he strikes out.
But treating it as a real movie, as it does resemble same (only poorly done), Hendel has concocted a non-starter. He plays a visitor from America, interviewing prostitutes all over Hamburg, while throwing around money like Ben Bernanke. The man's ego knows no bounds -he even has scenes practicing karate, so that when he beats up Mafia-styled goons (I lost count how many) as if it were nothing special later in the film we're supposed to believe it.
This is wish-fulfillment on a grand scale; instead of merely aspiring to the Hugh Hefner nonsensical role model, Hendel surrounds himself with beautiful women and thinks he's not only irresistible but "Action Man" to boot. He doesn't get the joke at all -this clown on screen doesn't resemble Sean Connery or Daniel Craig but rather looks like a dead ringer for satirist Harry Shearer, not the "Derek Smalls" look of his SPINAL TAP salad days but more like his current over-the-hill self.
Film keeps building up to a "lesbian sex show" on stage, but when it happens it's strictly dullsville. Same show features a mixed-combo "sandwich" routine that's nearly identical to that staged by Lindsay Anderson a few years later in his masterpiece O LUCKY MAN!, but as usual Hendel leaves the porn off-screen.
Key subplot takes his Walter Mitty-syndrome too far: he falls in love with an underage virgin who he tries to protect from the sex racket, and it's ludicrous. Regina Jorn is cute as the virgin, but I felt really sorry for her being trapped with such a lame guy pretending to be her knight in shining armor.
