Made during the first porn period in the career of Joe D'Amato, this here is only available in a very precary print, and I doubt a better copy will ever surface, given the little attention received by the films signed as "Alexandre Borsky" by the director.
According to the book Luce Rossa, it was shot in February 1981, with the shooting title "Pensione Amore". However, due to problems with the censors, the movie had to wait until June 1982 to get a release, renamed then as "Super Hard Love", a title so banal that makes ones think that it is a plotless flick. To my surprise, there is a lot of dialogue scenes, and although we can't talk about a solid story, the result was satisfactory for a XXX production. It is much more elaborated than most of the porn directed by D'Amato in the 1990s, at least.
The story is about the sexual adventures of a group of people in an inn located in the countryside. The tone is humorous, but the script never falls into the lapstick field, probably (and thankfully) due to D'Amato's lack of interest in the comedy genre. The adding of an intrusive kink element involving a gay couple certainly will put most viewers off, and is totally out of place, but the director probably was trying to bring a touch of shocking surprise to the program. The expression of disgusting by the character played by Roland Carey when he stumbles with them in the middle of a sex act says a lot of what reaction Uncle Joe was expecting from his audience.
Laura Levi, Pauline Teutscher, Guia Lauri Filzi and Sabrina Mastrolorenzi are the stars here, with the latter delivering the best erotic performance, in my opinion, especially a scene where she masturbates while spying Laura Levi and Paolo Gramignano having sex. In the male front, the absence of Mark Shannon is something to be celebrated.
Despite the aforementioned atrocious quality of the print, it is still possible to see how talented Aristide Massaccesi was as a cinematographer, even when working strictly for the money. His use of handheld camera has a very unique charm and is one of my favorite aspects of his cinema.
Some of the music used here are quite good, but they are clearly library stuff. No one is credited in the music department, but Luce Rossa attributes part of it to Stelvio Cipriani.
