Her Name Was Lisa

Her Name Was Lisa (1979)

*** (out of 4)

Roger Watkins directs this story that starts off with us seeing a dead young woman who we learn is named Lisa (Samantha Fox). A number of people come to pay their respects and through them we see the story of Lisa and how she ended up dead.

Watkins will always be remembered for the notorious film LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET but he also toyed with the porn genre and HER NAME WAS LISA will certainly appeal to his fans, although this early effort is not nearly as good as CORRUPTION. That there is without question the highlight of the director's career but there are still some good things to find in this film.

The story itself certainly isn't anything to write home about as there were several movies that used this set-up to tell its story of a young woman who finds herself dying due to how she lived. The idea of letting us know Lisa dies isn't anything original either but I thought it was decent enough to keep the viewer glued to what was going on.

Typically the stories play a part to keeping the viewer entertained but that's not really the case here because it's the sex that makes this movie so memorable. There are some pretty crazy scenes that I won't spoil here but Watkins certainly keeps your eyes wide as we get to these moments. Fox isn't exactly great in her role, performance wise, but she at least manages to keep you entertained. The same is true for Vanessa del Rio who shows up towards the end and steals the picture.

The sex scenes between Fox and del Rio are extremely erotic and are certainly the highlight of the picture. HER NAME WAS LISA isn't a masterpiece for the genre but it's certainly worth watching.

The cinema history is full of directors using an alias to make some smut. Or to protect themselves for being in the porn industry. The name Richard Mahler maybe doesn't ring a bell but when I say that his real name is Roger Watkins then I guess that those horror buffs will be moved. yes, the director of a cult classic "The Last House On Dead End Street" that he made under the alias Victor Janos.

Watkins only directed 8 porn films between 1979 and 1980. The time that the porn industry was at his best. It's all a bit strange because he hated the industry and wanted to make porn without f***ing, naturally that doesn't work and he was rejected from the non porn industry so he had to bring some money in and wrote those 8 flicks that became classics. The most famous were Midnight Heat and Corruption both with Jamie Gillis. Still he shot the close-ups and hardcore in his own films realizing he imbedded on freaky people and weird situations.

Her Name Was Lisa was his first attempt and appeared in 1979 in the NYC grindhouses. Of course made back then it really had a story and this here isn't your usual porn flick. It follows the life of massage girl Lisa who's being discovered by a photographer. But he has no money and Lisa is sponsored by a promoter. She gets involved in the promoter's sex life but things go wrong when friends of him rapes her while he's watching. She slips in a bizarre world of kinky sex and drugs. It's all shown in a special way. When she's drugged the camera uses extreme close-ups with special lenses and the sound of voices is pitched down while we here if I'm not wrong a Led Zeppelin song. It was a very heavy flick to watch and due that reason the films he made afterwards were lighter.

The porn itself is filmed with extremely close-ups of butt licking and pussy shots. Still it's the story that kept you watching. They all had an acting ability. Just watch Samantha Fox (Lisa) how her face changes from a role model towards a junkie.

The weird thing is that IMDb says it clocks in at 67 minutes, other say 70 minutes. Mine clocked in at 89 minutes. I don't know if I have a really uncut version. I must say that the scene when she's under heroin and is having triple sex goes on and on. Mine was a VHS version, I do know it's available on DVD at 70 minutes.

Still, those XXX flicks from the seventies do show how girls do look in real life. They do have curves and aren't living skeletons like nowadays. They act normal at work and do not fake groaning and moaning like it's done today. They did have a storyline and had good tunes in it (here we even have Kraftwerk in it). Maybe they were a bit hairy back then but they looked real with B-cup juggs and not those blown fake plastic dolls like nowadays. Yes, I like the old stuff, still, they are so hard to find...

If Jerry Falwell had ever made an x-rated movie in order to show the world everything that's bad about pornography, this would have been it. There's not one scene in this entire movie---not one!---that has anything at all to do with lovemaking!

I finally got a chance to enjoy this film on DVD.I was too young to get into a porno theater in 1979 but knew about it from the newspaper ads in the mainstream newspapers.Yes, that's right,the late 70's was the beginning of the golden age of porn and the filmmakers for the most part really tried to make a film with a story and they were shot on 35mm film.The actor's and actresses's were not the buffed model perfect specimens one sees in today's releases, but most had some acting ability and your intelligence wasn't insulted with dull clinical-closeup sex scenes and no plot whatsoever.

Anyway,the film stars Samantha Fox who plays a prostitute who moves up in the world by becoming the sex slave to various people in the sex industry.The sex scenes are for the most part erotic but in a in a almost sleazy documentary way.Nothing like the polished sanitary sex scenes in DVD productions today.But what makes Her Name Was Lisa superior is that there is a real story there.Worth purchasing for your collection.

It's one adult film I think my partner and I would actually want to own. Revenge is sweet for sure. I didn't mind the strap-ons either, I thought they were a nice kinky touch. The plot really works in this genre too. See it with some you either love or hate. You'll figure it out after you see the end.