Under the Covers

With superstar Lisa Ann taking the lead role within a solid ensemble cast, director Candida Royalle's final feature displays her attention to detail, ability to elicit fine acting from her cast, and emphasis on eroticism over mere explicit sex.

Lisa Ann has a lifestyle tv series "Undercover", exploring sexuality via interviews and location shoots. Movie's five sex scenes vary in subject matter, culminating in Lisa's participation at an "Aphrodite Masked Ball" in group sex.

Also in a cast populated prinicpally by unknowns is the great star of the previous decade Syren, playing a dominatrix named Chloe with great panache. Her uppity receptionist and sub (who receives much-deserved disciplining) is played by Royalle's producer and co-writer Jayme Waxman, who makes her acting debut by necessity, filling in for an actress who could not make the shoot at the scheduled time.

Sex scenes were shot bareback, not using the condoms for safe sex that Candida previously employed, perhaps a concession to backer Adam & Eve's then-current policy.

Cleverly conceived vignettes include a couple shooting a home-made sex tape; a girl (amusing played by Erika Kole) who is a member of a group called Virgins Until the Vow, who is working undercover at the Babeland sex boutique; buxom sex therapist Dr. Claudine Kahn who is interviewed for Candida's show and then has two great scenes, one masturbating solo with a huge dildo bought at Babeland, and then phoning for a gigolo and ably serviced by a stud named Primo. Royalle casts handsome, muscular actors in the lead roles.

Waxman does a fine job as Syren's sub, and the couple Mariah Ritani and Johnny Dannon are alluring as a haughty femme novelist and her mate, who finally get (and enjoy) their comeuppance in sex with Lisa.

Royalle's brand of Adult Cinema was obviously not in the commercial mainstream, what with its absence of money shots and avoidance of crowd-pleasing misogyny, but these feature videos hold up far better than the "hits" decades later.