I caught ODD TRIANGLE in 1977 at a Cleveland Drive-In. An unusual booking, for a 9-year-old black & white film, but it fit the passion pit format: lengthy, simulated (soft X) sex scenes with plenty of dull stretches for fans to take time out from backseat action for a trip to the concession stand.
Like other Florida-based Sarno efforts (c.f., THE LAYOUT), this is badly made porn, with little of interest to fans of Joe's better work. The bare-bones, uninteresting script is matched to an untalented cast, with four women cast merely for having nice looking, ample breasts but zero acting skill.
Barbara Lance stars as Allison, an unsatisfied housewife who teams up with her married nympho neighbor Janet (unidentified blonde performer) to rent a houseboat where they can have trysts undisturbed. Allison has already accidentally caught Allison dallying with her assistant landscaper (Steve Hawkes), so there is fear of discovery by the duo's lame-brained husbands.
A slacker fisher woman/masseuse Winnie befriends them at the dock, cueing orgies at the houseboat. Film falls apart completely in the later reels as Sarno doles out sex footage, involving the three having lesbian sex with his favorite prop, a noisy hand-massager plus various studs involved, as well as 4-girl action with Allison's slutty housemaid Greta.
Latterly Sarno has been hailed as virtually the greatest director of the American softcore sex cinema, but ODD TRIANGLE shows not only his limitations but also the emptiness of his format. Like the lion's share of his later hardcore films & videos, it is pointless, tedious sex scenes, with the femmes' pretend "ecstasy" coming off as phony as a 3-dollar bill. Minus an interesting, melodramatic script, it's a boring, pointless exercise.
Not helping matters is a very poor music track, featuring rinky-tink solo organ or solo stride piano by Michael Colicchio (who scored Sarno's other Florida junkers) that never fits the action. Usually reliable d.p. Stephen Silverman apparently had problems balancing the interior vs. exterior lighting, and the grading for the print used by Something Weird for the video reissue is defective, resulting in shadowy interior scenes that are difficult to see and several exterior sequences that are pure white-outs. I had to adjust my DVD players (I tried it on two different machines) constantly and even then failed to compensate for the visual problem.
Star Barbara Lance, who is credited on screen as (presumably) Ulla Jensen, alternates between overacting with a face representing consternation (or constipation, take your pick) and non-acting. She has big breasts and huge dark nipples, all the better to see you, my dear. Her co-star, uncredited, is a buxom blonde with buck teeth -she can barely close her mouth around them. This becomes a reminder that the action shown would have played better as XXX hardcore footage.
The maid Greta is personified by a plump non-actress who looks like Diane Keaton (!) wearing a bad wig. Fourth gal Winnie doesn't change her expression at all. The guys are even worse: Chuck Traynor of Linda Lovelace's manager infamy, miscast as Greta's stud boyfriend Harry and Steve Hawkes, a cult anti-favorite, pumping and grinding in the stock muscular stud role that Sarno gave to Sonny Landham in his hardcore assignments. The stars' two husbands are complete blanks -BORING.
