Back in the 1980s, regional cable providers like PRISM, Wometco Home Theatre, and SelecTV would air unrated soft core movies (no male full frontal, simulated sex) late on Friday and Saturday nights. Most were foreign productions from the previous decade, either British Benny-Hillesque sex comedies or badly dubbed Continental flicks that were the last gasps of non-government funded European cinema. Some of the movies were English language costume dramas that had scripts with actual plots and classical scores, shot on real locations with good lighting and real direction. Examples of these movies included 1985's "Nana", 1977's "Vanessa", and 1983's "Black Venus." French director Claude Mulot helmed this retelling of a Balzac-inspired tale of a struggling sculptor obsessed with a beautiful Caribbean muse in late 19th century Paris. 1979's Miss Bahamas Lolita Armbrister appears as the title character under the name Josephine Jacqueline Jones. Spanish actor Jose Antonio Ceinos plays Armand, the young sculptor introduced to Venus at a party by his patron Jacque (Emiliano Redondo) who also narrates the movie in voice over. Armand invites Venus home where he sculpts her, falls in love with her, and beds her. Armand's pride is his weakness, and when Venus tries to become a dress model to help pay Armand's rent he casts her out on the street. Venus is forced to survive by sleeping around, eventually ending up in a brothel. Armand finds he is unable to shake her memory, and unsuccessfully tries to find refuge in the bottom of a bottle.
Mulot must have had a real budget to work with because it's all up on the screen; sumptuous gowns, top hats and tuxedos with tails, manor houses, cobblestone streets, carriages, ballroom dancing, a classy sounding score, and a bevy of beautiful unclothed females. Jones shows off her achingly beautiful body several times, and virtually all of the women in the cast strip naked at one time or another. Look for 1963's British sex scandal icon Mandy Rice Davies as one of Venus's benefactors. Mulot uses the camera and the storyline to spice up the sex scenes much more than the expected contorted positions and exaggerated huffing-and-puffing. His choice of a character's voice-over works quite well to move "Black Venus" along for its 80-minute running time.
In the 1990s national cable channels like Cinemax and Showtime began producing their own softcore programming (the ubiquitous "cable porn" of today) and the Euro softcore movies were tossed by the wayside. "Black Venus" was available only as a bootleg on ebay or as a previously viewed rental at flea markets, and the bottom of bargain bins for years. It finally got released on DVD in late 2006. As an example of what softcore porn can aspire to and be in an age of Skinemax flicks set in the same Pasadena neighborhoods using the same 30 actors, it's well worth checking out.
