Valentina: Princess of the Forest

Ed Powers is a notorious pornographer, whose predilection for "testing the talent" (i.e., humping the nublle actresses working for him) is reflected in the surprisingly enjoyable jungle feature "Valentina". Hardly a major discovery, it is nonetheless a pleasant surprise to find as I wend my way through forgotten titles of XXX storytelling as an antidote to watching today's generic, mindless porn.

Powers is irreverent, sometimes throwing in silliness resembling a Mel Brooks approach, but overall this romance is made with a sincerity and allegiance to the simple pleasures that made those Saturday Matinée childish adventure films of my youth so enjoyable. Yes, jungle atmosphere on a low budget, beautiful native girls, animal shots interspersed with the action, even a quicksand scene sure are satisfying, especially in the context of an Adult Movie. Those distributors bringing back "classic" porn (Not) like Vinegar Syndrome would do well to make the effort to seek out unsung gems like this one (and hundreds of others) instead of reissuing stuff others have already resurrected (see: the Something Weird catalog) or awful junk that happens to have well-preserved materials available (most of VS's catalog).

The British husband & wife team of Wilde Oscar and Nici Sterling are featured as the "villains", colonialists of Africa, who send Colt Steele along with unscrupulous Alex Sanders on an expedition to visit an area claimed to be uninhabited, from which they will exploit the forest for its rich lumber. I liked the historically accurate touch here of making Brits the money-grubbing folk raping the Dark Continent.

But Wilde lied - a previous expedition dating back 25 years on the same mission was never heard of again, and its demise was attributed to local cannibals.

Our dashing hero Colt, with his inimitable shoulder length hair and muscular physique, is taken under the wing of title beauty Valentina, played by lovely if obscure actress Malina. She rescues him from a plane crash (reprised delightfully during the end credits) that director Powers stages amusingly with a model plane and tiny blast of flame that are as phony looking as possible.

Powers, with fun body painted face makeup, plays the patriarch of the natives, having led the previous expedition. His little clan is actually from four different families but all look up to him as a father, and Powers has cast a motley but beautiful crew who mainly look to be of Asian descent, but also include Black girl Onyx, Jake Steed in a surprisingly NonSex role as his "son" and Chatsworth's lesbian icon Felecia for hot girl-girl action.

The sex scenes unfold in profusion, with group sex and even a four girls on one cock climax for lucky Colt. Powers could have usefully conjured up the same formula for a tropical island film, with perhaps the same cast, on the order of those later hits starring Tera Patrick.

It's all good, clean & dirty fun, with comical moments in Ed's performance, and the truly old-fashioned (and well-staged) thrill of meanie Sanders meeting his end by sinking in quicksand. A chimpanzee and baby lion rented from a local L.A. animal supplier are briefly shown, and the atmospheric musical score by John Further is excellent.

Topping off the light entertainment concoction is a ballad sung over the end credits by Marcia Lawrence titled "The Spirit of Our Planet" that gives the feature instant credibility in that rarest of XXX genres, the Ecological Porn Film, most famous being Adam & Eve's all-time classic "Search for the Snow Leopard". I'd trade (or throw into the waste basket more likely) 10,000 gonzo videos for one pleasurable escape like this one.