The top-notch porn director Red Ezra solved one of hardcore's nagging problems in HEARTS & MINDS: How to balance the genre's need for lengthy sex scenes with the serious fans' interest in a narrative/character connection to the performers. Hopefully this forgotten video will inspire others to follow suit instead of just delivering wall-to-wall gonzo sex.
With a sincere (believe it or not) and even patriotic femme narration, film presents WW II soldiers battling in the trenches and daydreaming about the girls back home. This introductory and interstitial "serious" footage is in black & white, and couldn't be further from a typical porn feature.
But the six flashback vignettes are pure XXX sex, involving very attractive actresses who are all styled (hair, makeup and costumes) as very convincing '40s gals. Props and settings also carefully recreate the period milieu.
Ezra's gimmick is to do away with dialog -each vignette is carefully set up but amounts to the now-popular all-sex approach. Yet within each sequence we have economically established a context the viewer can relate to, not just an anonymous "nude people humping" stag loop. This results in a 78-minute video, not padded with extraneous sex scenes nor overlong due to tedious exposition and dialog segments.
Sunrise Adams (quite attractive pre-boob enhancement) is paired with Jay Ashley in the first vignette titled "Love Letter", having sex on a tractor as Dixieland jazz plays. (De Wolfe Music Library is credited for Ezra's excellent period score).
Dillion/Dillon Day is his muscular self (resembling Stephen Lang), looking every bit the soldier in a segment titled "Radio Days" with Luna combining both softcore and hardcore content.
Vignette #3 is named "Pinup", with Tommi Rose very sexy and '40s looking as a pinup girl come to life to service big-dicked Julian. The only problem here is endemic to the recent tattoo craze: Julian's oversize fancy tattoos simply are not credible as the type of tattoos existing on servicemen during WW II.
"Nurses" pairs Isabella and Ann Marie having lesbian sex in nurses' uniforms, with great care taken to present panties and brassieres of the period. They masturbate with dildos to make it XXX content.
"Hot in the Oven" has Bobby Vitale dreaming of home-cooked meals, with Aurora Snow really styled in lovely fashion cooking up a storm.
Finale brings current superstar Jenna Haze early in her career in "Zoot Suit Shoeshine", giving Mario in his best Edward James Olmos period outfit a shine and a blow job.
