As Bill Milling entered the latter stage of his fornication filmography, acquiring the adult alias of "Bill Eagle", he seemed to lose interest in the kind of thorough plotting that had fueled his reputation as "Philip T. Drexler Jr." and his fun-loving alter ego "Dexter Eagle". Striking up a mutually beneficial association with producer Bob Bouchard, he would focus all attention on lavish production values and extensive location shooting, tailoring the narrative accordingly. Taking a page from the book of the ingenious European eroticists of the '70s such as Jess Franco or Joe d'Amato who routinely spruced up their sexploitation sagas with travelogue footage, Milling traveled halfway round the world scoring stock shots to be seamlessly inserted between intimate encounters instigated on home soil. Time-tested techniques like rear projection and matte paintings were extensively employed to uphold the illusion.
An ALL American GIRLS entry in all but name, save for the fact that a mere four featured females could see it sued for false advertising if it were, PINK's plot was partially recycled by its director for an official installment, the third entitled UP UP AND AWAY, with an innocent wife unwittingly prompted to explore her dormant sexuality in the wake of her husband's alleged or staged demise. Said spouse is French "child bride" Mariange (curvaceous Jacqueline Lorians, still feeling her way as an actress), pining away in Paris while her international art dealer husband Blake Covington (Scott Baker) is cruising the canals of Venice with his loyal assistant Heather (Joanna Storm) in pursuit of the "Habsburg oils", a series of royal portraits he's dying to get his hands on. Upon his return, Blake's accosted by irate Italian art collector Umberto Trentini (Zebedy Colt, closing a career in hardcore histrionics by hamming it up for all he's worth) who accuses him of surreptitiously taking the maidenhead of his young bride Angelina, the delectably dusky "Gina Carnale" aka Marie Sharp who had starred in lots of loops and made a memorable virgin sacrifice in Stephen Sayadian's 1982 cult classic CAFE FLESH. Pulling a gun, Umberto apparently kills Blake before the eyes of both startled women in his life.
Unbeknown to Mariange, a still very much alive Blake confides to Heather that he has only been superficially wounded but that he can only get to the bottom of this if the enraged Umberto believes him dead. Left in charge of the gallery and gently guided by the resourceful Heather, the widow comes into her own in an excruciatingly erotic encounter at the Louvre Museum, the women's tentative caresses giving way to deeply satisfying separate trysts for each, Lorians with silent stranger Ken Starbuck while Storm gets a lanky beret-sporting sort. Crossing the channel, the girls go wild on the streets of London as Mariange gets a rise out of otherwise imperturbable palace guard Joey Silvera ! If anyone still cares by now, Milling surely didn't, the denouement takes places on the grounds of Salzburg Castle as Blake confronts Umberto with photographic evidence of his wife's past indiscretions, followed by a "clever" twist right out of the blue that's pathetically lame even by less than lofty porno standards, making a mockery out of the preceding plot (such as it is...) meaning the joke's ultimately on the movie's single most sympathetic character as well as the audience.
Picture posits an interesting conundrum, unusual for porn, with regard to male performance ability. Both Baker and Colt, in spite of their solid acting abilities, notoriously suffered from the dreaded adult movie set affliction euphemistically known as "Mr. Softy" as they would valiantly struggle for wood in one humiliating hardcore setup after another. At least, Colt could lay claim on being a confirmed homosexual primarily employed on the straight side of the sex industry, his spindly middle-aged physique hardly fitting the gay ideal, but Baker's nerves frequently seemed to get the better of him. Chuck Vincent, another gay artist working in hetero hardcore, came to his rescue, casting him in a series of attention-grabbing non sex parts. He would ultimately gravitate towards lighthearted fetish fare where his inability to rise to the occasion was no longer an issue. If you pay close attention to camera angles and editing, you should notice that both men's sex scenes here are either simulated or conspicuously stunted.
The hottest scenes have guys doing their own dirty work. Some go unceremoniously unmentioned such as the hunky houseboy with Laurie Smith in Egypt. Bowing out of the action, Baker brings in the hotel help to satisfy his mistress. One of the most lascivious ladies of the blue screen, Smith does a slow and sultry striptease then turns daintily voracious on her male partner, never once breaking eye contact with the transfixed Baker on the balcony outside. Whew ! Joey Silvera comes across uncommonly restrained as the British guard taunted by lovely Lorians in a silly setup that still pays off handsomely in the heat department as does her bedroom burner with the stoic Starbuck, the slender racially mixed performer perpetually pressed into duty as strong silent seducer to obscure his acute discomfort with dialog.
If Milling had sacrificed story by now, with plots of increasing indifference, but still proved a dab hand at delivering the dirty, his primal point of interest seemed to be production, more carefully crafted and glossy than ever before. Depending on the location, he would divide principal photographic duties among two highly talented DoPs, BLONDE GODDESS's Misha and Ken Gibb, who came from the outskirts of mainstream, having lensed Matt Cimber's haunting horror movie THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA, taking a headlong plunge into hardcore porn with Bob Chinn's "Gail Palmer" cycle. Ian Shaw, who scored most of Vincent's crossover classics of the '80s including his landmarks ROOMMATES and IN LOVE, contributes a subtle lilting soundtrack intricately incorporating recurring themes.
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