Panting at the Opera

Okay, it's anonymously made, credited on screen to the non-existent auteur "Monica Fitta". But PANTING AT THE OPERA is a true embarrassment for the late Joe Sarno.

I recently watched a Sarno spoof titled HOT STUFF, which was a fun porn romp in the ROMANCING THE STONE/INDIANA JONES vein. But this lame-brained takeoff on the hit Broadway show is a train wreck.

Chintzy sets are typical of a Sarno shot-on-video production, and here the two main sets, a bedroom at a haunted theater, and the Phantom's underground lair, are beneath contempt. They are merely places for an assortment of bored porn performers to go through XXX motions, with occasional modest amounts of "plot" delivered verbally.

The Phantom in question plays a recorder whose tones act as an aphrodisiac, stimulating any clitoris in earshot. (You figure it out.) That's really the whole junker in a nutshell. Wearing a cheap white mask and equally cheap cape, he's less impressive than similar guys in no-budget horror cheapies, but Sarno never generates the least bit of fantasy here.

Oddest gimmick is casting a pair of twins, Michele and Lisa Gabriel, who do not appear on screen together till the end, for some of that good old Sarno incest action as a payoff. They recite their lines in such a flat manner that you wanted the auteur to yell "Cut" and do it over, but that never happened.

Leads Tanya Foxx and Cara Lott seem bored by it all, and guest star Rick Savage as "Blue Boy", what a joke. I guess Damien Cashmere takes top honors here, delivering two money shots in succession. B.F.D.

There's no continuity, just a random assemblage of sex scenes, and the video conforms to my most basic off/on rule: Dirty Feet on screen betrays a contempt for the viewer and equals a lousy show.

Chalk this one up near the bottom of Sarno's loss column.