Showgirl

Eva (Eva Henger) arrives in Las Vegas to work as an exotic dancer (right, stripper!) in a cavernous club. Most of the film is taken up with her erotic (hardcore) encounters with various customers, employees and men hanging out at the club. There are a few artful shots, reminding us that the director was once a superb, sought after cinematographer on many 1970s Italian genre films (WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?, THE COUNSELOR, THE ANTICHRIST). There's also a music score which tries to sound funky, and an Italian dialogue track. In some versions there is overdubbed English language dialogue, mostly narration about Eva delivered by an actress in heavily accented English. Ms. Henger cuts an imposing figure but doesn't have the acting presence of such famous D'Amato performers as Valentine Demy or Laura Gemser.

This looks a bit more upscale and glossy than a lot of hardcore porn but there are no other generic elements, like sci-fi, horror or mystery elements which might make it more intriguing. One wonders if the director, who made over 20 films in the last year of his life, was tiring of the "erotic" genre. He certainly wasn't having any banking problems. I've seen a lot worse than this hardcore time killer. But anyone knowing of his past career as an ace DoP and his impressive directorial work on films like DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER (1973) will encounter, at this late juncture in his life, a busy commercial artist hard at work staging by-the-numbers hardcore action.

There is also an 82 minute softcore version of this title listed here. This review is based on the 90m hardcore version.l

Robert Monell-2018