An apparently none too ambitious "graduate from Prague film school", as the IMDb so proudly proclaims in its one line biography for the filmmaker, Czech Alan Vydra wound up churning out slightly better than average flicks for Germany's Empress of Erotica Beate Uhse in her attempt - bearing in mind her nationality - to take over the world, or the international porn industry at any rate. Not much hope for that with superficially impressive yet impersonal outings like EXTREMES, LOVE DREAMS or, probably the best of the lot, SOUND OF LOVE. All of his movies, starting with the convoluted and subsequently hopelessly botched 1976 ABFLUG BERMUDAS (which tried to be a kick ass action flick as well as a hot fornication film some two decades before Private struck upon the unholy idea with Nic Cramer's uneven OPERATION : SEX SIEGE), may have boasted upper echelon production values and all the genre greats - mostly Americans, as the "Golden Age" was still in full swing - Deutschmarks could buy, Vydra's directorial expertise clearly did not extend much beyond the "point and shoot" approach. Covering up his tracks with flashy tricks like hazy lighting, slow motion and stutter edits, most of the remaining heat in any of his works was solely the result of whoever happened to be in front of the cameras at the time.
GOLDEN GIRLS proves par for the course for this technically proficient but otherwise uninspired filmmaker : a beautifully mounted (!) yet disparagingly empty celebration of female beauty at its most shallow. Yep, you have guessed right, it's a beauty pageant flick, written (how brave of him to admit it) by Vydra himself. Better fasten your seat belts right now then. Sleazy huckster John Leslie comes up with the idea of staging the Miss Fantasy contest as a means for a group of wealthy middle-aged men to acquire youthful playmates. Lots of lovely ladies apply, all of them perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to win the coveted crown. In the end, the whole set-up is exposed for the hoax that it is, leaving the girls in tears. The end.
Though the movie wastes far too much time in its first half setting up a plot that doesn't exactly need a hurricane to blow it apart, it ultimately makes rather good use of its then fresh new faces featured in nearly non stop sex action from the halfway point onwards. Tragic Shauna Grant was still billed as "Callie Aims" at the time and, as usually, receives the most romantic treatment at the hands of a clearly eager Leslie in front of a large picture window. Seems like filmmakers always turned protective with this most fragile of porno princesses, willing to go that extra mile to make her feel comfortable, knowing full well that this was the only way to get a passionate performance out of the shy siren. The year before they burned up the screen together as husband and wife in Edwin Durell's superlative EVERY WOMAN HAS A FANTASY, Leslie and Rachel Ashley (credited as "Rhonda Vanderbildt") already pull off a scorcher of a scene, memorably starting with Rachel seductively sliding down the staircase banister sans panties ! Another carnal casualty, Tina Ross (a/k/a ALEXANDRA's "Lauren Wilde") who was killed in a car crash, pops up all too briefly, bestowing enthusiastic oral favors upon photographer Jamie Gillis but the pair of them had a much hotter scene together in Svetlana's BAD GIRLS IV. Equally wasted is blond amazon Rose-Linda Kimball (once described by dearly departed genre critic Jim Holliday as a "6ft version of Serena") who disappears after the rushed opener.
One shot colored cutie Blackstar performs an interesting S&M tinged number on bearded Rick Ardo (star of Damon Christian's odd RHINESTONE COWGIRLS and Sven Conrad's hit 'n' miss BODY MAGIC), marred by the latter's customary lack of wood. Rather surprisingly, sexual focus largely rests on seldom seen Adrienne Bellaire (billed as "Terri Benoum"), a gorgeous girl of assumed Middle Eastern descent who was also in Ron Sullivan's BETWEEN LOVERS, who does a weird scene with she-male Beverly Hills (definitely NOT Gina Gianetti who would use the same pseudonym at times) and a pulse-pounding threesome with buff Billy Dee and the very hairy - front and back, and I'm in a minority for actually getting off on this ! - Jeff Lyle, best remembered for portraying Paul Revere with Kristine Heller in Stu Segal's excellent SPIRIT OF SEVENTY-SEX.
GOLDEN GIRLS proves par for the course for this technically proficient but otherwise uninspired filmmaker : a beautifully mounted (!) yet disparagingly empty celebration of female beauty at its most shallow. Yep, you have guessed right, it's a beauty pageant flick, written (how brave of him to admit it) by Vydra himself. Better fasten your seat belts right now then. Sleazy huckster John Leslie comes up with the idea of staging the Miss Fantasy contest as a means for a group of wealthy middle-aged men to acquire youthful playmates. Lots of lovely ladies apply, all of them perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to win the coveted crown. In the end, the whole set-up is exposed for the hoax that it is, leaving the girls in tears. The end.
Though the movie wastes far too much time in its first half setting up a plot that doesn't exactly need a hurricane to blow it apart, it ultimately makes rather good use of its then fresh new faces featured in nearly non stop sex action from the halfway point onwards. Tragic Shauna Grant was still billed as "Callie Aims" at the time and, as usually, receives the most romantic treatment at the hands of a clearly eager Leslie in front of a large picture window. Seems like filmmakers always turned protective with this most fragile of porno princesses, willing to go that extra mile to make her feel comfortable, knowing full well that this was the only way to get a passionate performance out of the shy siren. The year before they burned up the screen together as husband and wife in Edwin Durell's superlative EVERY WOMAN HAS A FANTASY, Leslie and Rachel Ashley (credited as "Rhonda Vanderbildt") already pull off a scorcher of a scene, memorably starting with Rachel seductively sliding down the staircase banister sans panties ! Another carnal casualty, Tina Ross (a/k/a ALEXANDRA's "Lauren Wilde") who was killed in a car crash, pops up all too briefly, bestowing enthusiastic oral favors upon photographer Jamie Gillis but the pair of them had a much hotter scene together in Svetlana's BAD GIRLS IV. Equally wasted is blond amazon Rose-Linda Kimball (once described by dearly departed genre critic Jim Holliday as a "6ft version of Serena") who disappears after the rushed opener.
One shot colored cutie Blackstar performs an interesting S&M tinged number on bearded Rick Ardo (star of Damon Christian's odd RHINESTONE COWGIRLS and Sven Conrad's hit 'n' miss BODY MAGIC), marred by the latter's customary lack of wood. Rather surprisingly, sexual focus largely rests on seldom seen Adrienne Bellaire (billed as "Terri Benoum"), a gorgeous girl of assumed Middle Eastern descent who was also in Ron Sullivan's BETWEEN LOVERS, who does a weird scene with she-male Beverly Hills (definitely NOT Gina Gianetti who would use the same pseudonym at times) and a pulse-pounding threesome with buff Billy Dee and the very hairy - front and back, and I'm in a minority for actually getting off on this ! - Jeff Lyle, best remembered for portraying Paul Revere with Kristine Heller in Stu Segal's excellent SPIRIT OF SEVENTY-SEX.