Il porno shop della settima strada

Pleasure Shop on 7th Avenue, The (1979)

** (out of 4)

Euro-crime has a couple small time hoods robbing a store not knowing that it's under Mafia protection. They end up in a porn shop where they kidnap the worker and wouldn't you know it, she just happens to be the mob's girl. The three soon head off and end up in a house with a couple college girls, their dorky male friend and a black pal and sex is bound to follow. Trying to put any sort of logic in a D'Amato movie is a mistake and it'll be a very big one with this thing. At times it seems like the entire Mafia plot gets thrown out because the characters seem to forget that they're running for their lives. Everything slows down just enough to get countless sex scenes in but the movie just isn't sleazy enough to really work. There was apparently a hardcore version of this shot as it's clear that the sex scenes are all shot in a way where inserts could be added. The softcore scenes are all rather tame with just a bunch of nudity and silly moaning. I wouldn't call any of them erotic but some of them are downright hilarious including a sequence where the black man tries to teach the white virgin how to do things. The dialogue in this scene is so incredibly stupid that you're bound to be laughing. I think the film actually got off to a pretty good start with some great locations in NYC being used and I think the movie was moving at a great pace early on. Sadly things start to water down once the sex stuff comes in as George Eastman's screenplay just doesn't have enough going for it to keeps things entertaining. I did wonder how much of the original screenplay was perhaps a crime drama but it got cut out in order for the softcore scenes. Anne Marie Clementi and Brigitte Petronio are easy on the eyes, which is a plus.