Despite a latter-day career of over 100 hardcore porn films, Joe D'Amato proved he could still make a decent movie with SEXY PIRATES, a rollicking adventure tale that plays as well as many Hollywood '50s B pictures from the major studios. It has finally been released in America, though misleadingly sold as "erotica".
The nudity and sex scenes in this 90-minute movie last only seconds and would qualify for a soft R rating. The production is oddly credited to La Idra Musica, a music publishing outfit familiar from Joe's XXX films (e.g., THE JOY CLUB), but evidently backing a modest budget "clean" movie this time as a flyer into that end of the business.
Shot in Hungary, film boasts porn star Anita Rinaldi in the leading role, and Joe photographs her very flatteringly -she is a treat in this movie. I've seen some of her XXX work (VISIONS and Joe's MIDNIGHT OBSESSION), both as director and star, and it is routine compared to this mainstream outing.
She plays Lady Elena Hamilton, stopping at nothing to rescue her husband, Lord Hamilton (stolidly played by erstwhile stunt man Menyhert Dutombe) from pirates. Plot twists are conventional but worth describing as they demonstrate Joe's commitment to making a real movie for a change, even dusting off his "straight" pseudonym David Hills for the occasion.
When pirate George Rackham captures Lord Hamilton, killing his entire crew but saving him for ransom, King Charles of England rejects Elena's plea to save him. The king won't negotiate with pirates (sounds familiar hundreds of years later) and won't waste the treasure to mount a rescue mission.
Elena organizes her own mission, getting Captain Graham (Zoltan Kiss) to take her to Tortuga to enlist legendary "gentleman pirate" Thomas Butler (Carlo De Palma, not the Antonioni/Woody Allen cinematographer who uses the "Di" spelling unfortunately but another bloke).
De Palma resembles a macho version of Fisher Stevens (if one can imagine that) and is less than optimal casting for the lead role, but D'Amato makes do with a colorful cast of companions.
Elena agrees to give herself sexually to Butler if he succeeds in rescuing her hubby, but he proves to be a real gentleman, never forcing her to deliver on this promise. I was glad to see Joe toning down the rush-to-sex groove that he had become locked in for over a decade, and substitute good, old-fashioned story values.
In one plot lapse, Butler's beautiful and tempestuous girlfriend Pilar accompanies them on the mission, even though she and Elena have had a cat fight due to his divided attentions. This is all cleared up by film's end, but rather sloppily handled en route.
They discover that Hamilton has been sold by Rackham to the evil Don Diego de la Vega (sounds like a Zorro character, hammily played by Laszlo Mandrasz) so they recruit a motley crew to head to Maracaibo to assault De La Vega's fortress.
In an homage to Italian Westerns (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY to be specific) they find a sharpshooter who turns his confederate in for reward and then saves him from the noose with a well-timed shot, a tough way to make a living. An explosives expert Jean (Gabor Kun) is brought aboard and in a clever comic relief scene the hulking bald Gallon (Istvan Hangos) becomes Elena's protector. Oriental martial arts expert Kato (Whu Tang Tung) comes along for the ride.
The team defeats a Dutch ship in battle to arrive at Maracaibo incognito, but De La Vega smells the trap and puts them all in irons. After some escaping, sword-fighting, explosions and other derring-do the happy ending is achieved in a whirlwind finish.
This is low-budget film, but importantly it's adequately budgeted, as Joe photographs the women with lovely back-lighting and beautiful orangey hues, and all the shipboard footage is convincing. His many fans should be pleased at this return to form (copyrighted 1999, the year of his death), and undoubtedly regret that he toiled in the porn wilderness for so long instead of cranking out more quality Bs.
