Right from the opening stills montage setting the San Francisco scene, THREE SHADES OF FLESH showcases a talented pair of filmmakers (director Hans Christian and producer William Dance), who demonstrate the ability to make a real movie. They deliver actual composition, careful lighting, editing, and even a modicum of storyline, but as the reels unspool it seems as if they lost interest. Hence the result, a forgettable (and forgotten) XXX programmer.
The same year they cranked out the superior melodrama NIGHT PLEASURES, demonstrating versatility, but that one, too, should have been a whole lot better. Perhaps the incentive of crafting a rewarding film, in a genre where nobody cared as long as the "sex is hot", was missing.
Premise is three girls from different races vowing to behave like men, having sex freely and controlling their destinies in the sack. It's a natural gimmick coming off the '60s Free Love revolution, but the contest to see which girl can score the most points (25 for a money shot, 25 for a marriage proposal, etc.) in 15 days becomes tiresome and we never even find out who's the winnah.
Even more disastrous is the casting, unless one subscribes to a "one out of three ain't bad" philosophy. As the natural redhead heroine and instigator Lynn, Spring Finlay's terrific, in not only the sex & beauty departments but also her acting. I don't see why she didn't earn a mainstream (non-porn) acting break, and would nominate her for cult status ahead of so many artificially revered (and manufactured by the video companies) retro stars like Suzanne Fields.
But her two co-stars in the front line are terrible. The anonymous Black performer playing Diane can't act and is unattractive. Christian and Dance employed the fabulous Desiree West in NIGHT PLEASURES, and she could have put over this crucial role.
China Leigh is a complete blank as the tiny Oriental girl Alice in the threesome, who is given far less to do (and say) than her co-stars, probably because she's awful. Basically, Finlay's fellow femmes here are mere sex performers who should have stayed in loop land.
Male cast is a who's who of Frisco talent of the time, minus Joey Silvera. The filmmakers' gimmick is to maximize the number of ejaculations delivered, I counted a full eleven money shots by film's end, and none of them faked. The emphasis is on mixed combo action, with Black porno vet Jonathan Younger getting to sample both the Black heroine and Finlay. John Leslie wearing a funny hat is amusing as a motor mouth guy who gets his licks in early on.
IMDb has the film's credits all garbled (hopefully I will be able to correct some of them). A "Rick Shell" is credited as director, even though screen credits clearly list Hans Christian, and the matching of the actresses to their roles ignorantly had Finlay in the Black girl's slot.
