Candida Royalle's One Size Fits All Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  4/19/2003

Running Time: 80 min.

Production Date: 1998

Director: Candida Royalle

Cast: Missy, Mark Davis, Nina Hartley, Melissa Hill, Shanna McCullough, Gina Rome, Peter Romera, Tom Byron, and Alex Sanders in sexual roles and Candida Royalle, Dolores DeLuce, and Silvana Religi in non-sex roles

Initial Expectations: I haven’t heard much to excite me about Femme Productions, but with this kind of female lineup I can’t help but have decent expectations.

Initial Reaction: There’s nice chemistry, but a few visible pop shots and penetration shots would have added a lot.

Who Should Watch It : Anybody wanting something light and non-threatening that’s emotionally driven and anybody who values the foreplay more than the actual fucking

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody who wants to see a lot of penetration shots or pop shots

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is clear and well balanced for the most part, but there are a few of the background noises that do creep up into the foreground. The video is often a bit dark, and also has a bit of grain. I know this feature was made in the late nineties, but the video quality makes it look more like it was from the early nineties.

Music: The music is soft, very non-threatening, and frequently even romantic. It’s pretty well balanced with the rest of the audio, but approaches being a little on the loud side. Also, the music isn’t a constant throughout the movie. It disappears through much of the sex scenes s you can clearly hear the real action.

Menus: The main menu works clips from the movie in to give a very nice first impression. The chapter menu lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of each scene.

The Feature: When Candida Royalle drops off a dress she doesn’t want anymore at Tom Byron’s boutique, he doesn’t have the slightest clue how much attention it’s going to get. In addition to new customers interested in the dress, he also finds out that the dress had previous owners who had more than a little luck while wearing it. Amazingly, some of those women are friends, and are just as surprised when one of their circle buys the dress.

Missy flashes back to wearing the dress and being with Mark Davis on their romantic first date. Mark wants to take things very slowly, but Missy wants to move things along a little quicker. After a little kissing, Mark leads her to the bedroom where he energetically mouths Missy’s muff as she gyrates against his tongue. Missy returns his oral affections with the same energy, but before they let things go any further, Mark breaks out a condom. He fucks her in a couple positions, and then takes a break to please her orally and tease her a little. After a little doggie style, Missy begs Mark to come inside her, which he does. Although I didn’t care for some of the camera angles here, since they allowed very few shots of the actual penetration, there’s no denying the heat between Mark and Missy. They seem to feed off each other’s passion, and it makes the scene work great!

Tom Byron takes a hands-on approach to sell the dress to Gina Rome in the second scene. After caressing her through the dress, Tom drops down to tongue Gina’s twat. Gina returns the favor before bending over for Tom to bone her from behind in the dressing room. They keep it short and sweet with that one position, and finish things up with Tom cumming on Gina’s ass and kissing passionately. Tom even plays with Gina’s ass a little while they kiss. There’s a slight claustrophobic feel to this scene, but with the limited area they were fucking in, that fits right in.

Nina Hartley tells Missy about her experience with Mark Davis after they learn that they both dated him. Mark romances Nina through the same date as Missy, and right into the bedroom. He undresses Nina as he works his tongue around her body, but rather than trading oral favors right away they take a small break to masturbate for each other. Nina takes an active part in putting Mark’s protection on before climbing on to ride him. They also work through a bit of missionary work before Mark pops inside her. It’s another nicely done scene, but it’s held back a little here since the scene is so very similar to the opening scene.

Melissa Hill gets her chance with the dress when her boss leaves it with her and Peter Romero shows up late to audition for a part. In a plot twist that nobody could have seen, the audition turns to passion. Melissa and Peter writhe around on the couch and the floor in front of it as they please each other orally, and even tease each other with a bit of dry-fucking. Peter takes control by hopping on top of Melissa after he slides a rubber on, and with about as many pumps as most people have fingers, pops inside her. This is an okay scene that gets as far as it does due to a bit of chemistry and Melissa Hill’s talent. Peter Romero does okay since it’s basically a softcore scene, but seems so out of his league when it comes to the actual fucking that the scene nosedives towards the end.

Finally, Alex Sanders tries taking the dress of Shanna McCullough after dissing it. After playfully fighting about it, Shanna and Alex start stripping down and Alex starts apologizing with his tongue between Shanna’s thighs. She returns the favor with a great blowjob before they fuck in a couple positions. Unfortunately, the scene comes to an abrupt ending without so much as looking to have a fake internal pop shot. This really brought down this scene. Up until the scene ended, this scene had the potential to come up to the same level as the opening scene with Missy, but ended feeling like Candida ran out of video.

One Size Fits All is a light and fun porno who’s strength is also its biggest weakness. Every scene is overloaded with chemistry, and it seems to try to get by on that while neglecting showing much of the actual penetration. I’ll readily admit that seeing a movie where each scene had great chemistry and play was a great change from a good portion of what’s out there for adult films. Unfortunately, each scene also focused on it so much in the foreplay that when it got to the fucking, it seemed anti-climactic. Once the fucking started, virtually nothing was shown graphically from then out. Almost every scene seemed like a classic case of great salesmanship leading up to a disappointing actual product. The cast here does such a great job that even with these problems, I couldn’t find myself really disliking One Size Fits All. It isn’t perfect, but it’s got enough of a foundation that it’s well on its way to becoming a very good adult film that could be enjoyed by almost everyone.

Extras: Candida Royalle gives a short message about the Femme line of films to lead off the extras. It’s mostly Candida beating her own drum about her movies being able to be used educationally. There’s also a commercial for Candida Royalle’s Natural Contours vibrator, website information, trailers for four other Femme Productions movies, and a bio for Candida Royalle. Finally, there’s a short commentary with Candida and a photo gallery, a scrapbook style photo gallery, and bloopers.

The scrapbook lasts about four minutes with about six seconds per photo. Along with each photo, you also get a little note from Candida about what’s going on. This really sets the scrapbook apart from other photo galleries in a really nice way. It feels really personal and fun, and might be the best photo gallery I’ve seen.

The blooper reel lasts about two and a half minutes. There’s plenty of flubbed lines and other screw ups. There’s even some sexual bloopers, which really round things out nicely. My only complaint about the bloopers is that the video has a bit of pixelation.

Finally, there’s an eight minute photo gallery with commentary by Candida Royalle. Candida talks about the casting of the movie performer by performer. She talks both about her history with the performers and what she liked about them in the movie. It’s a great extra that really adds to the movie. I’ll admit that I was a little unsure about this extra when I saw it on the boxcover, but it really works well here.

Themes: Straight and spanking

Raincoat Factor: Medium high

Condom Usage: Three out of five scenes

Overall: Currently, most of the movies from Femme Productions can be found online for between $14 and $25 with several stores offering them near the low end. The DVD shows some nice care with good extras, but the technical aspects lacks a little. The movie itself is hit or miss, and has an almost softcore feel as it tries to get by on almost chemistry alone. If this is what you like, this one should be well worth your money.

Note to Femme Productions / Adam & Eve: I can see what you’re trying to do here, and although I can’t complain about the idea, the execution leaves a bit to be desired as I think you’ve cubbyholed yourself into a fairly narrow market. A few minor changes, such as a couple pop shots and a few penetration shots would make this much more desirable to a wider range of people and hopefully wouldn’t turn off the smaller market it’s currently aimed at.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

Other reviews by Astroknight