Buttman's European Vacation Review

Running Time: approx. 140 min.

Production Date: 1991

Director: John Stagliano

Cast: Zara Whites, Sunny McKay, Veronica Doll, Noelle Budvar, Joy Karins, Natalie Streb, Rocco Siffredi, Christophe Clark, John Stagliano, and Philippe Soine

Initial Expectations: The only John Stagliano DVD I’ve seen before is Face Dance Part 1 . It’s one of my favorites and I hope that this one is just as good. At the very least, I have a lot of confidence in Evil Angel putting together a very well made DVD with a great transfer and plenty of well done extras.

Initial Reaction: It isn’t Face Dance Part 1, but it doesn’t try to be either. For a gonzo movie, it’s going to be hard to beat.

Audio /Video Quality: The transfer appears to be very good. There’s some focus issues, but nothing worse than any other gonzo movie. The audio synchs great and is very clear in all but a couple outdoor situations.

Music: The music feels out of place. Thankfully, it’s only in a couple scenes, so it doesn’t detract from the movie that much. It does give it kind of an unusual feel, though, as the scenes with music seem pretty random.

Disc Problems: Maybe it’s more of a pet peeve than an actual disc problem, but there’s no time code on the actual movie! Strangely, the director’s cut of the group scene does have a time code.

The Movie: Although Buttman isn’t quite a classic yet, it’s impossible to deny the effect it’s had on porn. There’s a lot of movies out there that have come out copying the Buttman style. This is my first full Buttman movie, with my only other Buttman experience being the orgy in Face Dance Part 1. It’s a great scene, and gave me something to expect sexually in Buttman’s European Vacation.

Buttman’s European Vacation follows Buttman (John Stagliano) as he travels through Amsterdam, Paris, and Rotterdam, frequently with Dario (Rocco). Throughout the opening credits John gives us shots around Amsterdam, where the movie begins. John and Rocco are cruising the red light district and Rocco goes off to look for girls. John goes down an alley and meets Zara, an old friend. Zara really wants to see Rocco again, so John goes off to get him. Rocco’s really excited to see Zara, so they rush back to the alley only to find Silver instead of Zara. Although it isn’t Zara, Silver is still really hot and starts blowing Rocco in the alley. John convinces them to go back to the hotel room when somebody starts walking down the alley. At the hotel, Rocco and Silver pick up where they left off in the bathroom with a lot of the action taking place on the sink. This is a really hot scene with great chemistry. Rocco doesn’t talk to John as much as he does in many of their other scenes, but I can’t blame him here. It’s a really long scene with a blowjob in the middle. I expected Silver to suck Rocco’s load out, as the scene had lasted about as long as a normal American porn scene. Instead, Rocco and Silver keep fucking after Silver’s sucked him a while longer. Finally Rocco finishes Silver off with an amazing facial. Silver’s entire face was striped like a tiger with Rocco’s population pudding. Rocco then tells her that they are trying to find Zara and gets Silver to help them.

Next John goes to Paris where he spots Joy, an average looking French girl with huge natural tits and a great body. She doesn’t speak English, but John is still able to communicate with her. She tries to leave, but John can’t help but follow her. She leads him back to her apartment where she puts on a great tease. Joy really knows what she’s doing works her body to the max for John. Natalie joins her after a little while, and they work each other over for John. Natalie isn’t quite as good looking as Joy, but they work together very well. Philippe shows up a little while later and is upset with John and Joy. He tells John that he is Joy’s boyfriend and that she does this quite often. Luckily this is a Buttman movie, so instead of a fighting Philippe joins in the action and takes both girls in the ass.

John’s journeys take him to Cannes, which wasn’t nearly as popular then as it is now. He meets Rocco again and once again goes in search of women for him. He finds Noelle and things go nicely between them until her boyfriend Christophe shows up. Christophe is a real jerk and takes Noelle away. Rocco comes back with Sunny, who I’ve always enjoyed. Rocco and Sunny go off together and Noelle and Christophe come back to talk to John. Christophe tells John that Noelle will do a scene that afternoon if John agrees that Christophe will never see him again. That afternoon they shoot the scene in what appears to be a country style French home. The action is partly inside and partly outside. This is probably the weakest scene in the movie, however it’s still above average. Christophe really brought the scene down for me. Noelle is very attractive and does a very good job, but Christophe keeps stopping to remind John of their deal. He really reminded me why the French seem despised around the world for everything except sex.

After John finishes filming Noelle and Christophe, he follows Sunny to the topless beach and convinces her to show off her lovely natural tits. Rocco shows up shortly after and they all go back to the hotel room. Sunny gets rimmed a lot here, but never takes it in the ass. This was a little disappointing after how much she appeared to love Rocco’s rim job. There’s great chemistry between Rocco and Sunny and it really raises the heat in the scene. John joins in a little, but not too much.

John journeys back to the Netherlands and goes to Rotterdam (a town about an hour away from Amsterdam) where he comes (note the letters O and E instead of U) across Debbie. Debbie has a great body and John, of course, can’t resist talking with her and filming her. Veronica shows up shortly after John starts talking with Debbie and he learns that they were meeting to go out on a date. Instead of leaving John behind, the girls take John with them back to Debbie’s apartment. Lesbian scenes aren’t really common in Buttman movies, but after watching this scene, I’d sure like to see John shoot a lot more of them. In the commentary, John mentioned somebody described the camera work as completely devouring every inch of Veronica and Debbie’s bodies. I can’t think of a more appropriate description.

John returns to Amsterdam and meets Rocco once again. Shortly after meeting Rocco they run into both Silver and Zara. They all go to lunch (for food, amongst other things) and then return to the hotel. The girls can’t keep off of Rocco in the elevator and have him primed as soon as they step out of the elevator and into the hallway. Rocco’s getting blown before John even gets the hotel key out of his pocket (after Rocco goes back to the elevator where John left it). As soon as they get into the hotel room, the games really begin. This scene is amazing! It actually deserved to win the best group scene award from AVN! Once again, John joins in a little, but most of the footage with John was cut for time constraints. Luckily, we get to see some of it in the director’s cut of the scene in the extras portion of the DVD. I’m not going to go into any real detail on this scene, as words alone can’t do it justice. After listening to the commentary, this scene is really an editing marvel to get a scene this good with how much footage John had taken. The scene doesn’t feel at all hacked up, as opposed to many scenes by other directors where the director used the same blender he just used to make himself a margarita. This scene really takes Buttman’s European Vacation out with a bang and leaves anybody with blood flowing through their veins (even if it’s all concentrated in one area), eagerly anticipating the sequel.

Extras: Fetish menu, photo gallery, biography of John Stagliano, audio commentary with John Stagliano, and the director’s cut of the group scene. The photo gallery is very good and has about 24 pictures. The biography is the same biography as in other Evil Angel releases, but there’s no need to change something like that. The audio commentary is very good, although not as complete as some other commentaries. John doesn’t talk every second of the movie, and leaves in a few scenes so the watcher can really enjoy the scene. He gives some great background to the scenes and performers as well as differences in how he makes porn between then and now. The director’s cut of the final award winning group scene is excellent. It’s almost a half hour long. It’s really a shame that it had to be cut originally to fit the movie on a videotape. Thankfully, John brought it out so that we could see it.

Themes: Butts, straight, anal, public sex, rimming(male > female, female > male, female > female), lesbians, toys, group sex, and light spanking

Raincoat Factor: Extreme. Gonzo porn doesn’t get much better than Buttman.

Overall: Currently you can find ‘Buttman’s European Vacation’ for between $15 and $30 with most stores having it for about $25. For $15, this is a must have in almost everybody’s collection since gonzo porno doesn’t get much better than this! As usual, Evil Angel has put together a great DVD.

Note to Evil Angel: As usual, this is an excellent DVD. There’s a couple problems, but they’re minor and easily solved. I hope that we’ll see more of John’s lost footage in future releases from Evil Angel. Thank you for doing such a great job!