Erika's Hot Summer

After a suitably edifying sun-hazed Californian opening, if one might excuse the pun, we enjoy the perfectly pulchritudinous vision of our uninhibitedly beach cavorting, delightfully unadorned Erika (Erika Gavin), and for one all too brief moment all appears well in the world! We then meet Steve (Walt Phillips) blond-haired Adonis photographer who eagerly 'shoots' his nubile model in a suitably intimate manner, whose ace skill with a camera are neatly matched by his protean dancing ability, since he is one cosmically far out, female form digging, groove frugging dude about town with an insatiably hungry eye for the ladies which frequently goes boundaries beyond mere artistic interest. Ostensibly a corporeally revealing expose of the rigorously hip, young things and their pleasingly permissive attitudes to arbitrary nudity and freely delivered love, these hyper-libidinous, lustrous-haired lovelies never had it so good, and the viewer gets to boggle happily at this singularly joyous, often repetitive, hot-panted hippie hootenanny with its hilariously ribald, amusingly earnest narration a great part of the soft-focused shenanigans dated charm. The film's molten soft and agreeably yielding core is the frequent fleshly congress of priapic photographer Steve, not too subtly intercut with bucolic, beach side sequences of the blissfully buxom Erika and some altogether righteously mellow, pseudo-Donovan sounds as our randy photographer puts his tripod to good use as his wholly understandable obsession for preternaturally bouncy beauty Erika escalates with his increased likelihood of contracting something rather nasty from the frequency of his multitudinous and somewhat casual intimate encounters. Any work of cinema can be greatly enhanced with the exquisite sight of the luxuriously lovely, love-giving Erika Gavin happily frolicking in a sun-slathered park joyfully accompanied by a solitudinous acoustic guitar player. Right on! Gary Graver's unsophisticated nudie-cutie 'Erika's Hot Summer' while quite clearly a museum piece is also a weirdly fascinating affair, with Robert Hirth's delightfully sunny psychedelia being a welcome tonic, adding an additionally groovy haze to these fleshly happenings! 'Steve? I know how I feel, and I think I know how you feel about me, what we do today is important, we'll think about tomorrow when it becomes today!'

Amen, Erika! Amen, Erika!

When it comes to naming the sexiest women I've ever seen, one woman is always mentioned: Mercy Rooney a.k.a. Merci Montello. Mercy was the December 1972 Playboy Playmate but I will always remember her for her appearance on the cover of the March 1973 issue of Playboy where in a series of photos she completely undresses and ends the poses with her tossing her long blonde locks in the shape of the famous Playboy Bunny's ears. It was one of the most stimulating covers ever for any magazine. In her prime, she was perfection personified.

The film, which is pretty short at 65 minutes, is about a sexually active photographer named Steve who does nude photography for a living. He is able to bed women with his good looks and his prowess in the sack. He meets Sherrie (Montello) at a dance club and they have a relationship. However, one day on the beach he meets up with Erika (Erica Gavin) who is the woman of his dreams and has an affair with her and hoping that Sherrie doesn't find out.

That's pretty much the plot. In its short runtime there is a lot of nudity and "philisophical discussions". It's pretty much in the same ratio as today's hardcore porn when it comes to sex content. Not much in the way of acting except for the explicit, sexually suggestive dialog. The music is typical hip 1970's style stuff. The dance bar scenes are cool with the lights.

Of course, the women are very nice. Julie Stone, Steve's first conquest, is very nice. Erica Gavin looks facially like Salma Hayek but with a little more baby fat and has a superb figure. However, it is all about the pre-Playboy Merci, who looks incredible as expected.

This movie airs occasionally on Drive-in Classics in Canada so if you have that channel you should check it out to see Merci and the girls. Great eye candy.

Clearly somebody sought to cash in on Erica Gavin's celebrity after Vixen! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It was a crappy 16mm shoot shot, save for one scene, without sync sound. There's a lot of VO posing as dubbing, yet as some of this inane and vapid "dialog" occurs when mouths are otherwise busy with body parts, it borders of ridiculous.

As softcore it barely measures up because, save for Erica's scenes, you don't see anything new after the first 20 minutes. What's worse, though she has star billing, Ms. Gavin only appears in 1/3 of the movie and has no dialog. It sound like someone else did her "dubbing" (voiceover). If you want nude Erica, watch Vixen! or BVD, because the poor quality of the photography makes this film 65 minutes of wasted time.

After a suitably edifying sun-hazed Californian opening, if one might excuse the pun, we enjoy the perfectly pulchritudinous vision of our uninhibitedly beach cavorting, delightfully unadorned sun goddess Erika (Erika Gavin), and for one all too brief moment all appears well in the world! We then meet Steve (Walt Phillips) blond-haired Adonis photographer who eagerly 'shoots' his nubile model in a suitably intimate manner, whose ace skills with a camera are neatly matched by his protean dancing ability, since he is one cosmically far out, female form digging, groove frugging dude about town with an insatiably hungry eye for the ladies which frequently goes boundaries beyond mere artistic interest. Ostensibly a corporeally revealing expose of the rigorously hip young things and their pleasingly permissive attitudes to arbitrary nudity and freely delivered love, these hyper-libidinous, lustrous-haired lovelies never had it so good, and the viewer gets to boggle bountifully at this singularly joyous, often repetitive, hot-panted hippie hootenanny with its hilariously ribald, amusingly earnest narration being a great part of the soft-focused shenanigans dated celluloid charm. The film's molten soft and agreeably yielding core is the frequent fleshly congress of sleazy photographer Steve, not too subtly intercut with bucolic, beach side sequences of the blissfully buxom Erika and some altogether righteously mellow, pseudo-Donovan sounds as our randy photographer puts his tripod to extracurricular use as his wholly understandable obsession for preternaturally bouncy beauty Erika escalates along with his increased likelihood of contracting something rather nasty from the maniacal frequency of his multitudinous and somewhat casual intimate encounters with his flighty models! Any work of cinema can be greatly enhanced with the exquisite sight of the luxuriously lovely, love-giving Erika Gavin happily frolicking in a sun-slathered park joyfully accompanied by a solitudinous acoustic guitar player. Right on! Gary Graver's unsophisticated nudie-cutie 'Erika's Hot Summer' while quite clearly a museum piece is also a weirdly fascinating affair, with Robert Hirth's delightfully sunny psychedelia proving a welcome tonic, adding an additionally groovy haze to these funky, fleshly happenings! 'Steve? I know how I feel, and I think I know how you feel about me, what we do today is important, we'll think about tomorrow when it becomes today!'

Amen, Erika!