Gerard Damiano's Odyssey

Studio: VCA Classics

Stars: Richard Bolla, Nancy Dare, Sandy Long, Michael Gaunt, Celia Dargent, Gloria Leonard, Samantha Fox, Linda Maidstone, Sue Bright, Susan McBain, C.J. Laing, Vanessa Del Rio

VCA running time: 76:30 (IMDB running time: 82 min)

This is one of the first porn movies I ever saw. Not the first, but the first one that really made an impact on me--so much so that I remembered it some 25 years after I first saw it.

This is also the strangest feature I've seen. Porn features are typically just a series of sex scenes linked together with enough filler to make them all interrelate somehow, but the sex scenes are all just masturbation fodder.

Odyssey is more of an art film than porn. It has explicit sex. Hardcore sex and cumshots. But the sex scenes serve to drive something more than simply arouse.

The problem is--what?

The movie is broken into three unrelated acts. "The Beginning," stars Nancy Dare and Richard Bolla as an estranged married couple. Bolla is introduced onto some kind of strange fantasy world of porn, and ends up having porn-movie sex with his wife. I think.

"The Middle" features Gloria Leonard, Samantha Fox and Linda Maidstone in a bit about two women discussing their sex lives to a therapist. One complains that her husband doesn't get her off, but then segues to a vignette about how she needs to be degraded and objectified to be pleased. Gloria Leonard talks about picking up girls for lesbian trysts.

and then "The End," which stars Susan McBain as a nude-model and wannabe actress who's burned out and beaten with life, and unable to break out of the dark place she's found herself. This portion includes a nightmare fantasy with an appearance by Vanessa Del Rio. VDR now gets top billing and a photo on the DVD covers, but she's really on in this for a few minutes.

This is a tough movie to review. I wouldn't exactly call it erotica because I can't imagine pleasuring myself to this movie; but it's an interesting move to watch. It was made in 1977 when these things were shot like real movies, and it has a good enough budget that they spent good money on art direction and cinematography. Viewers with modern tastes will hate the relatively short scenes, and while the sex action is explicit, it isn't nearly as long, as brightly lit, or as in-your-face as modern movies. It's far more dreamy and moody, less explicit, and definitely dark. Several scenes are lost in shadows, particularly the Gloria Leonard lesbo piece in the middle.

The movie's other highlight (along with the photography) is the music. This doesn't have the typical porn score of the 70s. The music varies with the scene, and includes (and ends on) the beautifully melancholic "Sleepy Shores." You don't see that in your typical porno.

So what the hell is this movie about? I can't quite figure it out. The New York Times says it's about "societal taboos in a series of dramatic and graphic vignettes exploring sexual guilt and repression. Sketches feature clothing fetishes, sadomasochism, homosexuality, and alternative paraphilias." Uhh---maybe. I don't really see it. To me it seems far more about a journey through the world of porn, where "the beginning" is the first realization and the shock of discovery, "the middle" is discovering what it is that gets you off and what doesn't, and "the end" is burnout and cynicism and a longing for escape.

Or maybe it's not. The IMDB listing says it's 82 minutes. My VCA DVD edition weighs in at 76:30 including the end titles, so it seems some time has been cut. I remember enough from the first time I saw it to know that some of it is at the end, because the ending has changed (and if you wouldn't otherwise notice, listen to the hard edit of the music in the final scene in a movie that's otherwise pretty fluid). It's possible that other little bits may have been snipped here and there. Would they have made the movie a little more coherent? I don't know, but I'd like to have seen it in its full form.

As far as this DVD version goes: I haven't seen this movie since I originally saw it on VHS so many years ago; I don't know how well or poorly VCA did with the transfer. I think a couple of scenes are just too dark and might have been improved in the transfer. I am pissed by the missing 6 minutes. And VCA divides this movie into a whopping 6 whole chapters, which seems chintzy at best.

Final verdict: as far as porn goes, I don't like it. It's not erotic, it's a downer. There are a couple of good scenes but I don't think it's satisfying. As an art film about sex--it's better but it leaves something to be desired. Even with the missing 8 minutes, I get the impression this movie probably was meant to be an hour longer and got cut already, and it would have made a lot more sense in its fully-realized form. It's choppy, it's vague, it's obviously attempting to do something but nothing ever seems to gel. It's full of dream logic, and in a dark, downbeat study, that just doesn't work.