Years before the current trend began of ripoffs called "porn-parodies" took over Adult Cinema, Michael Raven created this oddball drama, which would have to be termed "loosely based on" the Biblical story of Samson & Delilah. Only the names have been preserved.
Herschel Savage is the main character as Samson, delivering tons of expository voice-over narration as a successful businessman in quest of "The Good Life". He thought he had it with lovely blonde Hillary Scott, but his callousness out at dinner with her one night ends their relationship.
Enter Delilah, a strong dramatic role for Wicked contract superstar Jessica Drake, who he meets at her hair salon and falls under her spell immediately. The plot twists that follow are bungled by Raven, whose very sloppy construction of the film indicates lots of re-thinking and post- production tinkering.
Evidence of this is the absence of Sammie Rhodes from the feature, despite retaining fourth billing (ahead of Spears, as the male porn stars generally play second fiddle to the femmes, whose names sell the product. Her lesbian sex scene with Jessica is the Bonus Scene on the DVD instead of the usual cross-plug marketing wherein Wicked features 1 to 3 full scene XXX excerpts from other recent releases to encourage the viewer to run out and buy them (pardon my archaic usage based on the long-gone Video Store era).
Samson's mom is well-played by guest star Veronica Hart in a NonSex Role. She immediately suspects Delilah's motives, as do other perceptive characters like fellow Wicked contract girl Kaylani Lei, brightening up the film a bit as the wife of Samson's co-worker Randy Spears.
Later reels descend into phony melodrama as both Drake's and Spears' true motives are revealed, leading to a sloppy conclusion in which Drake's lead female character is suddenly written out of the script (credited to Jennifer Allison, with Raven typically taking the Editor credit for the film) and a contrived sort-of-happy open ending for Savage tossed in though prior events should have led elsewhere.
Sex scenes are okay but hardly up to the level the fans would expect, making "Delilah" play like a real movie with XXX content featured rather than the porn video which it technically is. There are questionable continuity matters, a contrived religious angle involving both Samson and his mom that seems grafted onto the movie merely to remind us of its remote Biblical origins, unsatisfying lack of any sort of punishment for the bad guys, and some ill-advised soft-focus and near white-out photography during sex scenes by d.p. Francois Clousot.
It was nice to see Drake's acting chops stretched, but her "going crazy" scenes, one set indulgently on a toilet seat, are overwrought and clearly the stuff that only a corrupt AVN could love ("please nominate me for an award" time).
0 out of 0 found this helpful