User Reviews (4)

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  • Everything about this movie is great! The narration, the storyline, and dialogue are fantastic. But the best part of all is the Music. If i could never find any information on the soundtrack though. If anyone can help...
  • Warning: Spoilers
    Several couples from different walks of life are having trouble with their sex lives. All of these couples seek treatment from two therapists at a special sex clinic. Well, that's about it for the admittedly skimpy plot, but fortunately writer/director Carlos Tobalina maintains a steady pace and an engaging earnest tone throughout. Moreover, Tobalina presents the various couples' sexual issues with admirable candor while sex itself is handled with a winning positive attitude as a healthy, natural, and above all essential part of life. The group therapy sessions are quite sensuous and arousing. Moreover, this movie further benefits from a bevy of beautiful women: Luscious Lesllie Bovee, stunning slender fox Bonnie Holiday, lovely Desiree West, yummy Candida Royalle, and tantalizing Sharon Thorpe. The always delectable Annette Haven alas has a regrettably minor role; luckily her steamy lesbian threesome with Sharpe and Bovee rates as a definite scorching highlight. Tobalina's bright cinematography provides an attractive sunny look. Carl Esser's groovy jazz score projects a pleasing mellow vibe. Worthwhile viewing for fans of Golden Age adult fare.
  • I'm glad Sharon Thorpe didn't completely take the fall for this ridiculous white-coater from Carlos Tobalina. She's the star, as a doctor and sex researcher Lizzy Caplan could only dream of becoming, and receives a most unusual credit upfront of "assistant producer- director", but I blame CT for the overall mess.

    He gets things off with a bang by misspelling his own hog-it-all credit: Written, Produced, Directed & Fotographed by.." Thorpe gets an equally stupid credit as "Mss. Sharon Thorpe" - wonder what the extra s stands for? Why the title includes "Haven" but highly billed Annette Haven only has a brief, token cameo role is apparently a marketing rather than creative question.

    Sharon and uncredited Ken Scudder, both wearing those trademark white coats when not nekkid run a sex institute where Sharon especially gives hands-on demonstrations of technique to pep up marriages. Four couples, including Frisco's favorite Black talent Deisree West and Dashile Miguele (billed here as "Miguel Jones", adding to a confusion of him and similar actor Mick Jones), briefly expose their problems and then get cured.

    Tobalina's pretentious but always dumb inter-titles inform us that 30% of the U.S. population is Black ("and increasing"), patently false stats as he ponders the question of since they have larger families does that mean Black couples

    are happier? But that is not the most ludicrous issue on the table here.

    No, it is Tobalina's in-depth examination of the secrets of the Latin Lover, which he posits stem from the legendary Inca Knot - a handily diagrammed sexual motif whereby the man's shaft is positioned at the proper angle to stimulate the clitoris during intercourse. Similarly, Thorpe teaches exercises to tighten those vaginal muscles, in order to please one's hubby.

    The stories of the couples, particularly recidivist crook Joey Silvera, are stupid and just an excuse for them to swap partners at will during the Tobalina-trademarked orgies that pass for sex education classes. About the only genuine laughs are generated when Thorpe, wearing her usual symbolic rose-colored glasses, over-explains things "scientifically", such as: "we shall call it the pussy" or I refer to the clit as "the joy button".

    Least surprising element of this stinker is the end credits, which include lots of written discussion trying to justify why this junker is "protected" by its copious amounts of -no, not that, but rather socially redeeming educational, literary content. And of course by its plentiful supply of white coats.
  • Carnal Haven (1975)

    ** 1/2 (out of 4)

    As our film kicks off we meet a variety of couples who are all suffering from some sort of sexual issue. We then meet Dr. Klein (Sharon Thorpe) who runs a sex clinic where she teaches people the proper way to have sex.

    CARNAL HAVEN is a fairly entertaining film from Carlos Tobalina that tries to be both educational as well as offering the porn crowds what they wanted, which was hardcore sex. The term educational is used very lightly as that there was just a ploy to make the film seem like it had a reason to be doing hardcore since that there was still a bit of a legal issue.

    The film offers up a great number of familiar faces and I thought they all managed to make the film entertaining. The various characters were all put into sometimes funny situations and I really loved the early scenes showing them and their issues. We get the likes of Annette Haven, John Leslie, Joey Silvera, Desiree west and many others and all of them are in fine form here. Thorpe basically is the educator who must show her clients what they are doing wrong.

    is CARNAL HAVEN a masterpiece or some sort of must-see? Not at all but as I make my way through the work of Tobalina it's at least a somewhat entertaining one.