Conquest (1996)

This excellent early feature by Brad Armstrong, during his collaboration with Greg Steelberg, is significant for its ambition and execution: no less that a big-budget Adult movie that plays like a real film. Adam & Eve Productions co-produced the picture with Wicked Pictures, and a decade later would make a blockbuster with for reportedly 10 times the budget here, for Digital Playground: "Pirates".

Unlike the DP film and its sequel "Stagnetti's Revenge", "Conquest" is not about costly special effects, but instead a traditional pirate swashbuckler adventure, with Vince Vouyer perfectly cast in the lead as Calico Jack Ransom, captain of a pirate vessel. Filming with a real-looking full-scale ship is key to the movie's success.

Of course it is the XXX content that sets this apart from those fun G-rated genre pictures of mainstream Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenna Jameson in the lead was the great star of her decade, and is paired ably with beautiful Shayla LaVeaux as unlike cabin boys who stowaway on Vouyer's ship courtesy of his mate Alex Sanders. Everyone is out for revenge, and Brad himself does a good job as the villain, a British aristocrat assigned to capture Calico Jack.

Convinicng sword fights and derring-do give the movie action scenes largely absent from more recent Adult movies that have tried to crossover, including a number of large-scale Armstrong features for Wicked made in the following decade or so, though budgets have now shrunk drastically with the decline of the DVD market. To say they don't make 'em like "Conquest" anymore is an understatement.