Urban Heat

One of Candide Royalle's early efforts; no hard core action, but that doesn't distract from the fact that these couples are engaged in actual sexual love making.

Much has been made of the elevator scene, celebrating the lust of an older woman for a younger guy. However, I think the most erotic scenes include the couple on the roof, applying lotion, massaging, and making love, as well as the hot scene of a couple on a couch watching a sex movie (Candide Royalle's 'Femme') while using an ice cube to tease and arouse the other. Another arousing scene is the movie opener showing the stirrings of a waking couple, just like real life!

All the actresses in this erotic collection of vignettes are attractive, with natural breasts not pumped with artificial enhancers.

No dialogue, just erotic viewing; a good introduction to erotica for couples not ready to move on to explicit hard core camera work.

Collaborating with Lauren Niemi, Candida Royalle's second feature for her Femme Prods. Banner survives as a tone poem to Manhattan from an erotic point-of-view. Previous IMDb review submitters claimed it is not hardcore content, which is incorrect as the auteurs blend softcore and explicit sex tastefully, yet another argument for my long-advocated suggestion to IMDb that an Erotica genre be added to the website, as "Adult" does not adequately describe both soft & hard romantic content.

Viewed nearly 40 years later, I was struck by the underlying starting point for the show, anticipating Spike Lee's oh-so different "Do the Right Thing" made five years later in Brooklyn. "Urban Heat" is set on a summer day during a heat wave, entirely shot MOS, with music replacing any dialogue or direct sound, as a series of seven couples make love on various Manhattan locations -strictly pantomime.

Striking opening scene is set at Kamikaze club with many extras (including Candida) dancing and sporting evocative 1980s styling, before Marita Ekberg and Klaus Multia head for the basement for a quickie sex tryst (based on real-life behaivor of the staff at the club, per Royalle's commentary provided during the Slide Show on the DVD reissue). The explicit blow-job spotlighting Multia's big dick is clearly hardcore, but there are no money shots in this "Couples-friendly" flick.

Familiar porn lovelies including Taija Rae, Trish Ambrose and Carol Cross appear in the other vignettes, all presented with a positive, hedonistic and romantic approach uncommon to the usually grittier NYC brand of porn filmmaking.

The second film from Candida Royalle's Femme production company despite what it shows on her filmography page, this very similar to Femme in that there is little or no dialogue in the scenes. Also, there are no hard core porn shots. In fact, the BBFC made no cuts for the UK release so this is definitely soft core. It was the interaction between the actors that Miss Royalle concentrated on in her productions.

The couples in this film replicate the sort of scenes that would take place in any urban setting with, of course, the sex. We get the couple getting out of bed in the morning; The meeting of two people in a lift; a woman getting more than just suntan lotion on a rooftop; a couple in a disco getting turned on by the beat - and each other; a couple in a hotel. Candida is not afraid of using the more mature woman in her films, probably to show that everyone can enjoy carnal delights. Miss Royalle makes these films for couples to enjoy and in this film she acquits herself admirably.