Private Penthouse 2: Fashion Review

The First Word: Former fashion photographer Antonio Adamo directs a gem with a subject that he's very familiar with: the glamorous and cutthroat world of fashion modeling. Adamo brings a refined elegance to the excellent, yet unpolished hardcore tradition of Private.

What's It About?: Cute brunette Kate More stars as Jennifer, a European fashion designer and former runway model.  The film opens with her finding out that her show has been cancelled and another designer will take her place in the spotlight.  Her friend and fashion photographer, Jean Paulo (Nacho Vidal), tells her that the successful designers sleep their way into the shows.  He points out the fashion show director and suggests that he can make her famous.

At his studio, Jean Paulo proves how models can rise to the top by fucking the right people, as he finishes up a photo shoot with Hungarian models Genevievre (blonde) and Chanel (redhead).  The scene is highlighted by a nice extended blowjob and features a lot of standing and up & under positions, both vaginally and anally.

Later, Jennifer meets up with Jean Paulo for dinner and has him introduce her to Albertino, a fashion show director.  Alberto tells her that to be famous in the business is hard, but he can help (of course).  He gives Jennifer the name of one of his top clients and tells her to visit him.  After Jennifer and Jean Paulo leave, there's a threesome between the brunette who is serving as Albertino's office eye candy (Wanda Curtis) and a couple of handy cocks (Frank Gun and Leslie Taylor).  The obligatory anal and double penetration is followed by relatively weak double cumshots on her breasts and face.  Wanda does her best with what she has, playing with the strings of cum.

So Jennifer goes to meet Albertino's client, Ali Kumar (Franco Roccaforte), a big black guy with an equally big cock.  She brings along her friend, model, and blonde bombshell, Alicia (Sophie Evans) to the Roman bath of his guest villa.  The nude girls stand on the steps of the pool and begin by playing with each other while their VIP watches.  Eventually, they join this primal looking specimen of manhood in the pool, first blowing him then Jennifer gets pounded in the shallow water.  After retiring to the pool deck, Ali and Jennifer continue to fuck, while Alicia masturbates and sits on his face.  From there, our deliciously wet and glistening Jennifer receives a long anal ravaging before Alicia takes and shares his load orally.

With the client satisfied, Jennifer finds doors starting to open, beginning with a layout in a fashion magazine.  To thank Jean Paolo for his help, she sends one of her girls to his place.  The gorgeous, small breasted blonde Claudia Jamsson becomes his gift.   Her small frame makes Nacho's large cock seem that much bigger, especially during anal.  There are plenty of moments where she looks directly into the camera with her striking blue eyes, especially during the finale of this outstanding scene when she laps at his oozing rod and uses her tongue to play with his cum.

Flushed with the prospect of success, Jennifer asks Jean Paulo to arrange another encounter.  This time it's with a beautiful singer named Nadia (played by Mercedes).  As Nadia's textile millionaire husband watches, Jennifer and the two blokes from Albertino's office take good care of her so as to secure a new benefactor.   As an aside and slightly out of Private's character, Mercedes doesn't have a shaved pussy, but rather a closely trimmed bush that extends down and around her lips -- a nice contrast to our fashion designer's shaved lips.    The scene ends with nice, high pressure spurts from Frank Gun and Leslie Taylor in true Private style (facials with camera eye contact).

With a Paris fashion show now moving into the planning stages, the last finishing touch is made to secure Jennifer's show, with Alicia servicing the show's stage manager, Girard and a bystander (Tony Ribas and Bruno Sx).  After she rides her asshole up and down on Girard's cock, the other guy appears to get his dick serviced (oral only).  This somewhat short scene (9 minutes) ends with a gorgeous, roping facial.

As a thank-you for his help arranging the earlier encounter with Jennifer and company, our leggy singer (Mercedes) visits Jean Paulo and lets him venture in all of her orifices.  There's extensive anal plundering for butt fans, but without the usual Private anal accompaniments (such as gapes, ass to mouth, hard pounding, etc.).  Many Private fans will probably boo that, but I think it's classy that Private can offer everything from artsy to nasty porn.  The final scene, which seems more like an add-on, both sexually and plotwise, ends well with a rare hands-free, dripping oral cumshot that you can tell Nacho really enjoyed.

What I liked: Pretty girls and gorgeous sex:  What makes this disc better than most of Private's generally excellent catalog is the combination of some of the prettiest Private stars in very hardcore, yet not excessively vulgar, action.  Seeing blonde bombshell Claudia Jamesson looking at you while she's taking Nacho's big rod is the stuff of fantasies.  Similarly, Dutch star Kate More looks fabulous with her wet hair as she services Ali Kumar -- her appearance in this feature is definitely better than her previous movies when she looked a lot more like Yet Another Anonymous Private Eurobabe.  The list of great positions and penetration angles can go on and on:  the best cunnilingus shot I've seen in years, tight anal without the Private urge to ruin it with a gape, facials with willing and eager participants, etc.

Style and substance: This film transcends most of Private's features in terms of production value and styling, and that's saying a lot considering some of Private's productions have budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Antonio Adamo brings his mainstream knowledge and design to the adult cinema and it shows in everything from set design to photography.  If I had to compare Adamo to other adult directors, he certainly would fall in to the category of Andrew Blake or Michael Ninn.  Stylistically, he's closer to Blake, with very elegant poses and soft photography that emphasizes the performers' beauty.  However, sexually, the heat of his films is more appropriately compared to Ninn.  While not as hardcore as, say, Pierre Woodman, there's definitely some great looking action with some bona fide heat.  It may not be balls-to-the-wall fucking but it's not just the "barely hardcore" action typically associated with "artsy" videos.  I don't want to hear any complaints that this film is nothing but style without substance -- it's substance with style.

What I didn't like: Dubbing and narration: I have a long-standing dislike of Private's decision to dub over the production audio track with a localized language track on many of their movies.  While this might be okay for the dialogue, the dubbing includes the sex scenes, so the moaning and other sounds are completely replaced.  I would much prefer to hear all of the audio in the native languages with subtitles, even though the performers do not often speak the same language.  Also, the film is narrated by Kate More, and her English is heavily accented -- so heavy at times that it's almost impossible to understand what she's saying.  The lack of an English subtitle track makes it difficult to understand what's going on.  But then again, most people don't watch Private films for the plot.  So I guess the biggest language problem is the audio dubbing during sex.

Multiple angle camera icon:  On the scenes with multiple angles, Private has been good enough to include a really ugly black camera icon, burned into the upper right hand corner of the screen.  It's really sad to see such a crude indicator on Adamo's otherwise beautiful tribute to hardcore.  It would have been nice for this icon to be more tasteful (like VCA's watermarked camera icon), or better yet, able to be turned off (as it can be in recent editions of the Private-Penthouse series.

DVD Extras: Private has long included the same type of extras on their discs that they seem almost mundane for most of their discs.  Maybe that's not fair to Private since the same extras on another studio's DVD would earn it high praise.  In addition to the numerous subtitles and foreign language tracks, there's a rather extensive photo gallery, a very good set of production notes, a short behind-the-scenes featurette, and handful of trailers. Just about every Private DVD has the same "basic" extras package, but Fashion has two supplements that really raise the bar for Private DVDs.  First, there's an 8-minute deleted scene that features Kate More and Ava Vincent (who plays her publicist in the film) in a girl-girl scene.  Like most of Private's lesbian efforts, it's not outstanding sexually, but photographically, it's almost approaching something you'd expect from Andrew Blake.  Second, several scenes include a second alternate video angle that features a lot of behind-the-scenes wide shots.  For example, while you can see Nacho engaged with Genevievre and Chanel in the main angle, the alternate angle shows the lights, boom mic operator, cameraman, and so forth.  Between these BtS glimpses, you'll see other angles of the action but the video quite a bit different than the softened image of the feature.  All in all, it's a great addition, although I could have done without the ugly alternate angle icon as I mentioned earlier.

A/V Quality: The video quality is top notch, yet not flawless.  Creatively, Adamo has picked a very soft, bright, and overwashed look to give Fashion a very upscale and dreamy feel.  That overexposure tends to be fairly harsh at time, and while it definitely intensifies the bright colors, the blacks are often slightly gray.  It's not a flaw in the mastering, but this creative decision may be distraction to some.  Audio is fine, although I could have done without the dubbing and Kate More's almost unintelligible English narration.  My only other complaint with the audio is that the narration in most Private movies, this one included, tends to be a lot softer than all other audio elements.  Combined with the tendency to use non-native English speakers, you will probably have to jockey the remote control to adjust the volume (that is if you care to listen to the plot -- I'm sure many just skip to the naughty bits).

The Last Word: This is one of the best Private movies I have seen recently.  It manages to capture the best hardcore talent of Private and combine it with the more refined elegance of Penthouse.  Unlike most of Private's feature films, you're not left with the feeling that you're watching some foreign movie, and the sex makes sense in context of the story (versus the typical Private plot that often bizarrely ties one orgy scene to another).  The photography and Antonio Adamo's direction are superb and only enhance the already good porn that Private is renowned for.   Most importantly, there are some truly mind-etching visuals in Fashion that you'll probably conjure up whenever you have the need to visualize your fantasies.  That doesn't happen very often, which is why this one is highly recommended.

- Saki (saki@my.adultdvdtalk.com)