Evil Ways of Love Review

Distributor: Impulse Pictures Edition Details: Standard DVD Movie Specs: Genres: Classic, Feature Film Also known as: The Evil Ways of Love Run Time: 64 minutes Rated: X Release Year: 1971 Director: Charles Carmello Written by: Louis Peraino Cast: uncredited Release Specs: Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1

Evil Ways of Love is an early 1970s “feature” adult film that is rumored to have been written and directed by Gerard Damiano. Damiano has sadly passed on, so it is impossible now to confirm with him whether or not Evil Ways of Love was actually made by him or just distributed by his company. Then again, even if he had made Evil Ways of Love he might not want to cop to it since the film would just be a blemish on his impressive filmography. However, his son Gerard Damiano, Jr., has definitively stated his father didn't direct Evil Ways of Love, which is as official a statement as we'll ever get.

Reportedly the original Evil Ways of Love was made by director Charles Carmello with the involvement of Louis Peraino, and likely Phil Parisi as well. It appears that the original audio was removed before release and a new narration was created for the film in the original audio's place, likely made and written by Louis Peraino. The film was distributed by Gerard Damiano Film Productions (Bryanston Distributing), which was (at the time) owned by Louis Peraino, Phil Parisi, and Gerard Damiano. It is likely Louis Peraino and/or Phil Parisi that managed to get Gerard Damiano's name attached to the film at this point to raise interest in the film since Deep Throat was such a success.

Evil Ways of Love is a white coater of sorts, the film uses a narrator who tells about the film being an educational study of Andrew W., who is a womanizer and a sadist, and lives on a houseboat known as Evil Ways. He seduces and degrades women aboard Evil Ways with his friends according to our narrator. Our narrator makes Evil Ways of Love sound like it is a helluva lot better film than it really is. Nowhere in the film is any sadism shown nor humiliation.

The narrator is our only source of dialog in the film as he drones on and on about sometimes interesting sounding things that Charles Carmello apparently forgot to film. What is shown to the viewer despite promises from our narrator is Andrew and his friends smoking dope above deck, women making sandwiches below deck, Andrew carrying beer around, and sex occurring above and below deck.

Nothing within Evil Ways of Love seems overly inspired and if Damiano is the director, Charles Carmello definitely phoned this film in. If one removes the narration, Evil Ways of Love is an all sex film with occasional non-story telling non-sexual material as filler. The sex scenes are as uninspired as the film is. While the cast appears to be having fun, no new ground is broken in the sex scenes at all.

Evil Ways of Love isn't a film worth watching no matter how curious about the title you are. Evil Ways of Love is nothing more than a quickly churned out early entry in the adult film genre that is best left forgotten.

Impulse Pictures has done a great job with their DVD release of Evil Ways of Love. Evil Ways of Love was shot on film and it looks like a good quality film print was used as the master — or possibly the original film negative. Evil Ways of Love is presented in the academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 in 480p. The film presentation contains print damage, artifacts, and grain. None of these are overly intrusive and the colors in the film look absolutely beautiful.

Evil Ways of Love is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural audio track. The audio sounds great. There are pops, some hiss in places, and some minute damage to the audio. The narrator's dialog is clear and easy to understand throughout likely sounding almost as good as when Evil Ways of Love first came out.

Impulse Pictures hasn't included any extras on the release.

Evil Ways of Love, which was not directed or written by Gerard Damiano despite what some sources say, is just a poorly crafted and made white coater from the end of the era of the white coaters. Shortly after the release of Evil Ways of Love, Deep Throat (which was directed by Gerard Damiano) would take the blue screen by storm ceasing any need for the white coater. There is nothing remarkable, or even really worth watching, within Evil Ways of Love. Impulse Pictures has done a great job with their DVD release of Evil Ways of Love with great video and audio.

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