La veuve

European pornographers, in this case Marc Dorcel, crank out porn videos almost as fast and as ephemeral as their American counterparts. I was glad to stumble upon THE WIDOW, a very well made and stimulating porn drama that stands out in quality compared to its assembly-line peers.

It's a simple story, beginning with the murder of a low-level gangster by kingpin Don Corleone (!) played by Horst Baron, giving a fine villainous performance in the style of Udo Kier. The beautiful widow, played by Oksana, is soon under the thumb of Corleone, who runs a human trafficking operation.

He's forcing her into prostitution, with the suspense being whether she will be able to escape from his dungeon. The great Monica Sweetheart (a superstar in American porn) befriends her and turns against her boss Corleone to help Oksana escape.

But not before we're treated to some amazing XXX sex scenes, all featuring condoms, big dicks and beautiful women. In fact, the casting here is tremendous, as every single actress is a knockout, right down to the smallest femme roles. In an imaginatively staged orgy sequence, there is one huge-breasted beauty (Laura Lion) who is definitely worth a starring assignment of her own.

Oksana, also billed as Oksana D'Harcourt in coming attractions, is a truly beautiful, vaguely resembling Samantha Strong but much prettier. Cast speaks in English, but she is adequately dubbed. Not much acting required, however, for her damsel in distress.

Director Tony Del Duomo has a sense of humor: besides the Don Corleone character he has strains of Nino Rota's THE GODFATHER theme creeping onto the soundtrack in later reels. Photography is excellent and the settings are glamorous. He succeeded in fooling me -the final reel plot twist is a surprise and quite effective.