Gallery of Sin

I am drawn to vignette-format porn, because I have always liked short stories (in the literary sphere, my favorite author being H.E. Bates, the master) and it fits Adult Entertainment to a t. So Jerome Tanner's "Gallery of Sin" series seems a natural, but this first volume doesn't quite measure up.

His format is a bit strange, hitting me the way Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" did when it first debuted on NBC so many decades ago. It seemed like an oddball followup to "Twilight Zone", but I watched it religiously nonetheless.

For this feature made for Legend Video (a label whose output is only occasionally rewarding), he has two artists, Nick East and a blonde Rayveness, competing to portray sex in portraits based on legend and mythology, which come to life as living tableaux. This makes for an interesting, almost prehistoric type of pornography, reminding me of those risqué stage shows long before I was born like Ziegfeld Follies and Earl Carroll's Vanities, which indulged in semi-nudity that was OK with the bluenoses as long as the girls remained motionless.

This unpromising gimmick is used for five sexual vignettes of varying content and quality, sometimes hitting the spot. Inari Vachs stars in the very first segment, about vampire lore, teamed with Mike Horner, with Ray narrating. The acting is excellent, and the sex satisfying, but subsequent segments come off in less assured fashion.

For example the kidnapping of Helen of Troy is represented by Helen going to Hell, a staging Tanner has trouble enacting on a low budget. Tera Patrick at the beginning of her legendary career (and billed as Sadie Jordan, causing me to jot down as I watched "Tera Patrick clone", little realizing it was the real thing) enacts a Hollywood Scandal of 1932 involving (fictional) director Alberto Rey.

So it goes, until Nick & Ray hook up in the final segment, pretty much calling the artistic competition (now sexual) a draw.

I'll have to watch the many followup videos in this series to decide if it's all worthwhile, but Volume 1 earns a split decision.