This forgotten miniature masterpiece came to my attention via an excerpt appearing in Adam & Eve's compilation "Ass Angels", and seeking out the original was most rewarding. They don't make 'em like this no more, not even the "Miss Jackie" director Nick Orleans.
What this Jill Kelly starrer has is a complete absence of pretentiousness (what severely harms Nick's recent films), just eroticism and concise storytelling/characterizations. The big surprise is how beautifully the feature is crafted in all key departments: superb editing (great dissolves), acting, sex performances, compositions, you name it.
Jill runs the title salon, and the six sex vignettes (coming in at under 90 minutes, or half what a new Orleans film might run) are strung on conversations and gossip among the stylists and customers who congregate there. As star, Jill gets to strut her stuff sexually in two of the six.
Many themes that are run into the ground in your typically preachy Adult film are handled entertainingly here in passing. Evan Stone and busty Maya Divine have an open marriage, and after we are introduced to Maya fixing a lady's hair, we see Stone bring home a guy to service her -he aims to please. It would be called "hotwifing" today in any number of silly videos that work overtime to convince us that the practice is widespread, but Nick wisely unfolds this scene matter-of-factly, giving it far more credibility. Lucky guy is Eric Masterson during his young & blond stud phase, and scene gets the film rolling with aplomb.
Stone gets his in a rather amazing BDSM lite sequence, far more entertaining than Orleans' many, many heavy-handed approaches to the subject in recent years (c.f., the deadly dull "Master Bedroom"). He visits Tracey Love, previously mentioned in a salon gossip conversation, and dressed in her red latex fetish-gear she is a harsh mistress, with highly erotic sex and fetish stuff including quite a bit of hot candle wax dripped on her body. This bareback classic was the scene excerpted for "Ass Angels".
A French actress named Eva who I couldn't identify (she resembles Marlene Willoughby from porn's Golden Age) is very effective getting a sexy massage from Keri Windsor, a salon worker who would go on to star in her best career role in A & E's great series "Naked Hollywood". When Keri uses her fingers expertly on Eva's pussy, we get a couple of Golden Showers, or squirting as they're now reclassified in the industry.
Jill's pair of scenes spotlight her nonpareil physique and sexual prowess with such finesse I'm truly surprised this video is so obscure 18 years later (I had to add it to IMDb just now). Mark Davis services her in the salon chair when nobody's around, making for terrific foot fetish action as he paints her nails and she reciprocates with footsie and foot-job, only to be rewarded with a pedal money shot. She returns for the finale, serviced by Brick Majors.
This is not bombastic, "can't wait for the AVN awards to be announced" filmmaking -far from it. Instead we have craftsmanship that could usefully serve as a primer for any aspiring Erotic director, and that includes dear Nick.
