Il porno shop della settima strada

I have to say I'm more than a little bit disappointed with this film. It's not that The Pleasure Shop on 7th Avenue is particularly bad for what it is, or that I was expecting it to be brilliant...but somehow, this just feels a bit too empty to be a film from the often proclaimed 'king of sleaze', Joe D'Amato. The film starts off well, with two would be robbers holding up a chemist, before finding out that it's under the protection of the local mob boss and scampering out the back door. The shenanigans continue when the bumbling thieves happen upon a porn shop being run by the mob boss' girlfriend! They then take her captive and make their way to Canada in order to escape the mob. The problem with this plot is that D'Amato doesn't take any advantage of the opportunities for a good thriller, or for humour and instead; we get a barrage of sleaze and nudity, which is OK, but the film could have had so much more if D'Amato had been thinking outside the box. The sleaze on display isn't the most shocking Joe D'Amato fans will have seen from him, but there's a lot of stuff that is bound to please anyone with a mind to see this film. The Pleasure Shop on 7th Avenue isn't easy to track down, and I can't really recommend going out of your way as there are better trashy exploitation films out there….but of course, there's also a lot worse.

Two rather thick stick up artists rob the wrong pharmacy, which turns out to be mob owned. Fleeing La Cosa Nostra's wrath, they take refuge in a porn shop, which happens to be owned by the mob boss's squeeze. Fleeing again, this time taking the squeeze, they hook up with an associate before hightailing it to Canada.

En Route, they stop off for a spot of home invasion fun, unaware that da mob are hot on their trail, thanks to our intrepid porn shop owner leaving a note in the bathroom.

Joe D'Amato usually bores me to tears, and I find most of his films awful, and not the good kind of awful. However, this is one of his more entertaining efforts, with somewhat decent pacing, which is a rare thing indeed for a D'Amato film, for me anyways.

It's chock full of his usual sleaze, with hard core inserts, and also features an inventive way of playing pool, as well as having one of the villains being an effectively creepy sex offender style scumbag.

Not a great film, and more sleazy than exploitative as such, but still an adequate enough time filler, and for a D'Amato flick it's not bad at all, and worth a look for fans of grindhouse sleaze.

In New York City two small-time crooks rob a business, not realizing that it's protected by a powerful mobster. Although it hardly seems like it would improve the situation, they then decide to go to a nearby porn shop (despite the title only a few scenes actually take place here) and kidnap the girlfriend (Anna-Maria Clementi)of the mobster, who is working there. They then decide to flee for Canada bringing along the girlfriend and a black associate (for no good reason other than it will allow for titillating interracial sex scenes later in the movie). Of course, they don't make it to Canada, but instead hole up in an isolated upstate villa where a trio of sex-crazed college students (a virgin, a slut, and a guy) also happen to be staying for some reason. Naturally, this being a Joe D'Amato movie, the whole thing is a set-up for a lot of sleazy sex.

Technically, this is a "terror film"--a small cycle of Italian films, inspired by "Last House on the Left" and the more homegrown Italian sleaze classic "Late Night Trains", where a group of lower-class cretins or petty criminals terrorize and humiliate (usually sexually) a group of hedonistic bourgeois. A lot of people don't consider this a very effective "terror" film because there's just too much sex. Actually though, the cut I saw actually had less sex than some other sex-soaked sleaze-fest "terror" films like "Terror Express" or "Escape from a Woman's Prison" and really no more sex than the most effective (or at least the most harrowing) Italian "terror" film, Ruggiero Deodato's "House by the Edge of the Park". This isn't effective,not because of the sex,but because the acting is extremely weak, the motivations of the characters are unbelievably preposterous,and the three villains are completely un-intimidating (David Hess, the American star of "Last House on the Left" and a couple Italian "terror" entries like "Hitchike" and "House by the Edge of the Park" would have made mince-meat out of all three of these idiots without even working up a sweat).

Of course, there IS plenty of sleazy sex. And it's usually pretty gratuitous, such as when one of the creeps stops to watch a very graphic lesbian porn loop in the sex shop, or when the virgin (Bridget Petronnio) watches her friend having sex with her boyfriend and starts masturbating (cue the extreme, loving close-up "insert" footage of what is obviously a very hirsute and skanky body double for the waif-like Petronio). I actually would have liked to see MORE graphic sex scenes though involving the very sexy Anna-Maria Clementi. And while what Petronio really did best as an actress was play an endangered virgin, her horny, self-gratifying character here is totally unbelievable as a "virgin", and she comes nowhere NEAR being as endangered here as she was in "House by the Edge of the Park" in the scene where David Hess runs a straight razor over her naked body. One thing I HAVE always appreciated about D'Amato, unlike most softcore porn (and pretty much all hardcore porn) directors, is that he doesn't let the sex scenes, however ridiculously gratuitous they may be, go on so long that they bring the whole pace of the movie to a grinding halt. The problem here though is there just really isn't much of movie to bring to a grinding halt.

Pleasure Shop on 7th Avenue, The (1979)

** (out of 4)

Euro-crime has a couple small time hoods robbing a store not knowing that it's under Mafia protection. They end up in a porn shop where they kidnap the worker and wouldn't you know it, she just happens to be the mob's girl. The three soon head off and end up in a house with a couple college girls, their dorky male friend and a black pal and sex is bound to follow. Trying to put any sort of logic in a D'Amato movie is a mistake and it'll be a very big one with this thing. At times it seems like the entire Mafia plot gets thrown out because the characters seem to forget that they're running for their lives. Everything slows down just enough to get countless sex scenes in but the movie just isn't sleazy enough to really work. There was apparently a hardcore version of this shot as it's clear that the sex scenes are all shot in a way where inserts could be added. The softcore scenes are all rather tame with just a bunch of nudity and silly moaning. I wouldn't call any of them erotic but some of them are downright hilarious including a sequence where the black man tries to teach the white virgin how to do things. The dialogue in this scene is so incredibly stupid that you're bound to be laughing. I think the film actually got off to a pretty good start with some great locations in NYC being used and I think the movie was moving at a great pace early on. Sadly things start to water down once the sex stuff comes in as George Eastman's screenplay just doesn't have enough going for it to keeps things entertaining. I did wonder how much of the original screenplay was perhaps a crime drama but it got cut out in order for the softcore scenes. Anne Marie Clementi and Brigitte Petronio are easy on the eyes, which is a plus.

PLEASURE SHOP ON 7TH AVENUE is a low-budget sleazy exploit entry from the King-Of-Sleaze,Mr. Joe D'Amato. Not as "powerful" as some of his stronger films, but a relatively fun piece of trash cinema for fans of 70s era crap-cinema...

Two dumb jerk-offs hold up a pharmacy in New York that just so happens to be under the protection of a local mob boss. The two light-weights go on the lam and end up at a porno store that is run by the mob bosses girlfriend. Realizing that they've f!cked up royally, the stick-up guys take the girl and go on the run from the mob. They meet up with the guy that set up the job - and the three guys and the girl run north to Canada to escape the wrath of the mobsters. Meanwhile, at a rest-stop, the mob-boss's girlfriend drops an "S.O.S." note in the bathroom at a gas-station. Unknowing of the girlfriend's efforts, the kidnappers stop off at a New-England residence and have a bit of "fun" there while the mob is on their tail...

Not as strong as D'Amato's other sleazy films, but still an OK bit of exploity fun. Not sure if the copy I got was chopped, but it seemed like there should have been some "hardcore" scenes and there weren't...but don't fret - even a sh!tty copy of this film has plenty of tits, ass, and 70s era bushes that should be of interest to fans of grindhouse cinema. Not a great or notable film by any means, but worth a look to exploit completists...