Psychosexual cinema, the directors work has been described as. Its hard to overlook that a large portion of the film is spent in the sack. Even by 70s and 80s french film standards, this would be a pretty raunchy affair. Still, there is much more going on in this film, and I would reclassify it for modern audiences. After all theres no genitalia on show or unsimulated sexual intercourse. The performances from the photographer and girl he lets stay over in his store room are pulled of fantastically, with a lot of heart. Its a movie driven by characters and sexual tensions. Mature modern audiences would get this movie I think, time for of a revival Joseph W. Sarno.

The European-style title is a bit misleading but that's exploitation marketing at work. This proto-porn sexploitation film by the great Joe Sarno bucks the 1964-1970 tide of roughies that flooded American adult theaters. There's no physical violence against women (like the Olga and Findlay Flesh trilogies) in this basic story of a New York City photographer who screws all of his models in his studio-apartment, falls for one in particular and then makes the mistake of allowing a homeless aspiring model to crash in his spare room.

They eventually have sex that leads to conflict. But there is psychological violence that the loose cannon inflicts on everyone. The girl is a Machiavellian schemer with an odd, erotic appeal who seduces two of his models and him then leaves town but not before ruining his major photo project. This gives him a nervous breakdown at the fade-out. She has an almost supernatural look about her, something I've seen in other Sarno films. The somewhat monotonous sex scenes are shot above the waist in traditional sexploitation style and the stark setting (starkly filmed as well) is claustrophobic. Sarno breaks out of this hermetically sealed environment with a drive to the beach by the photographer and his main squeeze (the girl in the poster) in a fantastic sports car I couldn't identify and a scene in the street outside his apartment.

There's never any understandable reason why his models are all sexually into the shooter, who has more body hair than Sasquatch. The women are erotic but the film as a whole is not erotic. I wonder if Sarno was inspired by Antonioni's Blow-up in the basic set-up. It's a total male fantasy story as pbutterfly writes in her review. What I found most interesting of all was the nearly constant outside background noise of Manhattan's streets, the traffic and the car horns, on the film's soundtrack. This added an immensely strange tone to the entire film because if you have ever lived in a heavily populated urban zone, this is what daily life is like 24/7. Whether this movie was recorded with live audio or was dubbed in a non-soundproof dubbing booth in mid- town Manhattan is something I couldn't find out.

Soft-core erotic film ace Joe Sarno crafts one of his strongest and most impressive pictures from his late 1960's New York period with this brooding tale of obsessive photographer Henning (a sound performance by Dan Machuen),whose fixation on his favorite model Leslie (an appealing portrayal by the fetching Maria Lease) and determination to finish a book of steamy photos gets undermined by the intrusion of mysterious homeless gal Joyce (nicely played to the seductive and manipulative hilt by alluring brunette Sue Akers),who Henning makes the fatal mistake of letting crash in a spare room in his apartment studio.

Sarno utilizes the compellingly sordid premise as an ideal means to explore how men try to control women by objectifying them and tackles his recurring motif of an enigmatic black widow type who's a catalyst for trouble and turmoil with strikingly effective results with Joyce initially serving as a muse for Henning prior to bringing about his ruination. The crisp black and white cinematography by Bruce G. Sparks and Steve Silverman makes neat use of stark shadowy lighting and the cramped claustrophobic confines of Henning's apartment studio. Moreover, Sarno also delivers a satisfyingly substantial amount of sizzling soft-core sex and yummy female nudity. Sarno's wife Peggy Steffens acquits herself well in a sizable supporting role as Henning's concerned assistant. Recommended viewing for Sarno fans.