SexWorld

Depending on my mood, SEX WORLD is forever vying for top spot with THE DANCERS and NOTHING TO HIDE as the late Sam Weston's finest film, with EASY and TALK DIRTY TO ME as all time runners-up. So let's just consider these as his top five personal best then. Like those other titles, SEX WORLD stands as an adult classic that truly seems to have everything going for it.

The screenplay, consisting of intertwining story lines involving a large group of exceptionally well-played characters, is realistic and rich with incisive observation . Production values are on a par with anything pouring out of mainstream studios at the time. Editing in particular – with artistically composed and juxtaposed imagery – could very well be the best ever witnessed in the adult field. But holding it all together is Weston's subtle guidance, picking out tiny details that throw a whole new light on a dramatic situation and teasing once in a lifetime performances out of a superstar cast.

As the original ads proclaimed at the time of the film's original release, SEX WORLD picks up where pop science fiction flicks WESTWORLD and FUTUREWORLD left off with a theme park aimed squarely at adults. The promise of being able to set up every possible sexual scenario attracts a disparate bunch of characters whose stories are followed from the flashback drudgery of daily life to the exhilaration (and, tellingly, in one case disenchantment) that comes with finding their deepest longings satisfied.

Lust legend Lesllie Bovee, an exquisite light comedienne in movies like Chris Warfield's CHAMPAGNE FOR BREAKFAST, and fly by night performer Kent Hall who had bit parts in Stu Segall's YOUNG STUDENTS and THE SPIRIT OF SEVENTY-SEX have an endearing chemistry as the happy couple seeking to spice up their marriage, only to be confronted with doubt and insecurity. As a painter of female nudes, Lesllie harbors suppressed lesbian tendencies so a passionate encounter with gorgeous next door neighbor Abigail Clayton (star of Antonio Shepherd's 7 INTO SNOWY) is in order. For the less complex husband there's a threesome with giggly Chinese chick Carol Tong and cult favorite Amber Hunt who'd delivered a standout performance in Weston's CRY FOR CINDY, her adult film debut. Comic relief comes from the director's male muse, John Leslie (who has of course starred in most of Weston's masterpieces), as a loudmouthed racist who gets a tumble with the only black female superstar of the '70s, Desirée West (a/k/a Pat Lee) who's resolved to prove that "his spigot ain't no bigot !" Momma's boy Jack Wright, an outstanding character actor (mostly for Weston but also in Alan B. Colberg's NAKED AFTERNOON) forever rumored to have resorted to a studly stand-in for his hardcore footage (though he certainly did perform with Jesie St. James in EASY), and belligerent spouse Kay Parker – making her porn debut following a non-sex performance as Madame Jacinda in Gary Graver's V - THE HOT ONE – provide a much darker shade of humor with their incessant mind games. Watching his wife being taken by force (by longtime actor Joey Silvera, still active today) from behind a two-way mirror, Wright finds solace in the arms of little-seen Maureen Spring whose only starring role was in Jesse Pearson's LEGEND OF LADY BLUE.

It's back to Heartbreak City with Annette Haven, the uncrowned Empress of Erotica and perhaps the most beautiful adult actress of all time (surely the only possible choice for the role of the alluring Sheherazade in Edwin Brown's A THOUSAND AND ONE EROTIC NIGHTS), as a Sapphic recluse who has just broken up with her girlfriend of five years (blonde amazon Cris Cassidy, billed as "Suzette Holland", making a fleeting debut before knocking viewers flat on their backsides as one of Bob Chinn's CANDY STRIPERS) in search of male companionship.

Saving the best for last, AFAA Best Actress Sharon Thorpe (too frequently overlooked but she should be high on any real dirty movie devotee's list of people to enjoy in movies like Gary Graver's 3 A.M.) burns up the screen as a mousy secretary trying to break free from her lonely existence through a scorching romp with big black stud Johnnie Keyes wearing his iconic white peekaboo BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR outfit, though her sad phone sex conversation with Peter Johns earlier on is just as riveting.

With such a vast number of characters running and playing around, SEX WORLD risked becoming just a long series of sex scenes with little time left for plot development. Fine filmmaker that he was, Weston effortlessly managed to sidestep this probability by encouraging his talented cast to make love in character. Too many people still seem to think that just because the sex is for real, and instinctively we all know how great that can feel and how it can make you forget all that is going on around you, surely there can be no room for any acting left, as if an actor's capacities were somehow magically zapped away at the moment of penetration. My spelling it out should prove once and for all just how ludicrous that notion really is. Sadly, even critically acclaimed yet occasionally explicit art-house movies like Marco Bellocchio's DEVIL IN THE FLESH or Patrice Chéreau's INTIMACY have done little to alter that perception for the average viewer.

Nearly three decades ago, SEX WORLD achieved an audience's full interest, nay, involvement in the plight of its set of characters whose story's effectively furthered through the sex. Not wanting to come across as an apologist (i.e. someone who feels the need to find a legitimate reason, other than his penchant for looking at pretty naked people, for viewing and enjoying pornography), I would have to say that SEX WORLD accomplishes its goal of being a complete cinematic experience – looks like a real film, sounds like a real film, so it must be a real film – far better than most XXX movies made since.