Fleshdance

Looking back on adult film from this era, it's easy to pan this if you're too young to have lived the times.

I remember this film as one of the highly touted adult films of the year. The idea that an adult film would copy the premise of a mainstream film was not as prevalent 25 years ago as it is now. I wouldn't say this was a parody. Parodies suggest a lampooning, a send up of sorts, and it allows an excuse to not try too hard. This was not just goofing around with the association. There was a visceral edge in both films, of a man watching an erotic dancer that strikes a nerve beyond the usual dancers.

I think the producers were anxious to get credible attention paid to this genre as an viable erotic alternative to what passes the MPAA ratings for wider release. They knew survival depended on tying in artistic cinema merit with the explicit sexual content to hopefully "normalize" the genre.

This was a very small industry back then. The big projects were still initially done expensively on film, with people that had legit acting aspirations before they fell into skin flicks. This was also the very first big role for a woman of color, and a previously unknown one at that. Vanessa DelRio was big then, but not taken seriously as a belle of the lusty ball. There were name stars in place in help bolster the draw, but make no mistake - Shanna Evans was commanding the full attention of the hottest male adult film star of that time - John Leslie. This paved the way for the idea of brown skinned women as primary erotic muses to not be dismissed so easily in the future.

The movie 'Flashdance' was certain to be used by adult film producers as a basis for parody and this is one of several videos that came out in its wake. Newcomer Shanna Evans stars as Jennifer, a young dance student who bicycles past a strip club every day on her way to the studio. She fantasizes about dancing and stripping onstage there, and when the club sponsors an amateur dance contest, she succumbs to the temptation.

Ms. Evans is very good looking and performs well enough. The film has some other fine female talent including the brunette bombshell Rachel Ashley and reliable Janey Robbins. Kimberly Carson is also on hand but not used very effectively. In fact, no one in this cast of well-knowns is put to their best use. Entirely too much time is spent on pointless dialog, especially during one interminable scene where the club's owners and employees plan for the upcoming dance contest. Less attention seems to have been given to the sex scenes than to the others, and that kind of priority is out of whack in a movie like this. The dance scenes are only passable, as well. There's some hot moments from time to time but given this cast I think the film should have been a lot better.