Hot Stuff

Joe Sarno hit one out of the park with HOT STUFF, an unjustly forgotten porn film with an unfortunately generic title that he made during his hide-behind-a-pseudonym hardcore period. Unlike the dozens of terrible junkers he cranked out in the '80s, this one is a highly recommended winner.

The key differences are a decent budget for a change, shooting on film rather than video, and a level of commitment to the project lacking in the lion's share of Joe's other hardcore offerings. Result is a sort of ROMANCING THE STONE with humping included.

Danielle, looking fabulous, addresses the camera directly, an oft-used Sarno motif. Video box identifies her as Jennifer Nash, but her name is not mentioned during the course of the movie as she portrays a writer of adventure stories who gets her inspiration from f**king.

From this simple premise Sarno has loads of fun mocking the popular fantasy and adventure films of the day, clearly following up on the successful format of the XXX hit BLONDE GODDESS. Danielle's main protagonist is Louisiana Smith, paired with his colleagues Oklahoma Crude (Scott Baker, hamming it up as usual in a non-sex role) and Rhode Island Red (glamorous Jacqueline Lorians). Location footage of the cast wandering amidst the pyramids and sphinx at Luxor in Egypt is quite a shock, with plenty of atmosphere usually missing in porn of this era. The Annette Haven vehicle A THOUSAND AND ONE EROTIC NIGHTS is the closest I can think of, but that film was a big deal at the time, while HOT STUFF made no impact whatsoever.

Structure has Joe cutting back to Danielle with her writing pad, or later at her typewriter, trying to segue Smith from one episode to another globe hopping around the world. She has various male and female assistants (including Joey Silvera) to service her, providing just the right amount of sexual and sensual stimulus to get her creative juices flowing. It's a clever and stimulating gimmick.

After our protagonists watch Arabian slave girls dance and have sex with a guy, culminating in a beautifully shot slo-mo fountain of ejaculation shot, Smith is transported to a German U-Boat, alternately named U-69 and the S.S. Lady Godiva. Sarno's script gets a bit sloppy here, as the Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa films are spoofed via Cody Nicole's show-stopping personification of Bertha von Shtuppe, commander of the sub, but Danielle also calls her Olga Kruger in a transitional scene.

She masturbates with a night stick and then sexually abuses Smith and fellow prisoner Jungle Rot (uncredited superstar Randy West) as we listen to the "ping-ping" sonar noise of so many submarine epics.

Crude and Red are transported to Tanis and later reunited with Smith at the Temple of Anakha, lorded over by the golden goddess (Laurie Smith, truly glamorous here). It's time for Robert E. Howard, as we're back in the Hyborean age to face off with a black chieftain Thul Da Doom. A muscular Cohen the Barbarian (hey, give Joe a break!) saves a blonde slave girl, but is soon put into bondage by beautiful Rhonda Jo Petty, who gives him a blow job. Joe's patented 1960s motif of percussion only soundtrack during sex scenes is well-matched to Petty here.

Golden Goddess gives our trio eight hours to find self-realization and return to the time portal, or else! Crude is sent to the future and changed into an android (so that a sex performer can do the dirty instead of having Baker do it), using okay sets involving many mirrors. Smith is sent to the present on the Brooklyn Bridge to save a girl bent on suicide; no it's not Beverly Michaels in the Hugo Haas classic or even Vanessa Paradis in the equally romantic Patrice Leconte movie, but another guest star Tiffany Clark. Smith takes her on a roller coaster and other Coney Island rides, even making out in an overhead tram car.

Red (Lorians) is sent to medieval England where knights are jousting and a castle setting looks like a budget-buster. With her red pubic hair as a dominant contrast, she uses a British accent to portray a princess. She makes love on a four-poster to Sarno regular Michael Knight cast as a knight, and Lorians' fellatio scene is another highlight.

Film's theme is pronounced as Lorians wishes to be a (love) goddess, if only for an hour, and sure enough, she and Danielle both achieve self-fulfillment, with Danielle concluding "All women are love goddesses, or they would be if they let themselves". This is a fitting conclusion to a very light-hearted romp, convincingly told from a woman's point-of-view.

I have no idea what happened after HOT STUFF was released, or if in fact it got any theatrical exposure -even though it is a film it appears to have been direct-to-video. One thing I can infer with confidence, Sarno's ambitions to make real movies like this one were quashed by the Gresham's Law of the marketplace. Since fans were perfectly satisfied with generic VHS sex videos, why spend the time, money & effort on a HOT STUFF when you can crank out successful zero-budget all-sex videos. Ironically, 25 years later the XXX satires of mainly TV shows similar to this movie satire are all the rage.