Talk about odd ! This mess of a movie consists of a mostly soft core opus of unspecified origin - which I have only recently narrowed down as probably part of the Brazilian "pornochanchada" sub-genre as suspicions of its nationality as being in consecutive order either French (nah !), Italian (unlikely) or Greek (possibly, there's a hint of Omiros Efstratiadis' casual misogyny but little of his customary fatalism) proved unfounded as years went by - spruced up with some very obvious explicit inserts along with several additional hardcore sequences featuring well-known American porn performers.
Main surprise is that the makers responsible for this unholy concoction (who shall, necessarily for the time being, remain anonymous as credited director "Ji'Bourg Jime" proves bogus billing) went to considerable lengths to fit in this new material with the narrative mapped out by the original material they acquired who knows how. Of course, seeing how this disarmingly melodramatic tale plays out against a bordello backdrop, it's probably not exactly the toughest job in the world to throw in a few more hookers 'n' johns encounters.
Time to backtrack to personal experience. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall seeing an original cut (albeit dubbed into English) playing the now long gone Plaza porn palace in the Belgian coastal town of Ostend somewhere in the early '80s, filling out a double bill with a watered down version of Peter "A. Nutty" Savage's 1974 hardcore oddity THEY SHALL OVERCOME. Adding to its mystery, there were no credits on the print but the theater owner had put out stills in the lobby yet instead of a proper one sheet they were accompanied by a hand-written title card claiming the flick was called something like The 12 Priestesses of Love, a title those amazingly knowledgeable folks over at the avmaniacs erotica forum have assured me belongs to a totally different movie. Over time, I have bumped into it on several occasions in its OBJECT OF DESIRE incarnation, playing the Brussels ABC cinema (Belgium's last remaining "old school" adult theater, still in operation as of this writing !) at regular intervals, frequently raising more questions than will probably ever be answered.
Might as well take a look at the evidence then. An exotically located whorehouse for the world's wealthy provides the scene for amorous obsession as virginal newcomer Giovanna (identified in the credits as "Marilyn Du Pré" so DVD editor VCX is, of course, thoughtlessly passing it off as a French film) takes a fancy to regular customer Baroque whose MO is to take up with the new girl, letting her believe he actually loves her as he submits her to ever more degrading behavior and turning them over to his imposing black slave Vargas once he's through with them. Characters of color generally get a bum rap this time out with fearsome, whip-wielding dominatrix Gianna Tiso keeping the girls in check by all means necessary and a belated addition to the fold, a gorgeous Nubian farm girl, is treated like an exotic animal by her clueless colleagues. So much for political correctness !
Breathless female voice over narration attempts to paper over the cracks separating the Brazilian footage from its US extensions, to little avail as the latter are shot in purely workmanlike fashion as opposed to the original's gloriously gauzy cinematography. Best of the surplus scenarios has the late Juliet Anderson playing hostess to a cute curly-haired Jewish guy mistakenly identified by some sources as Herschel Savage to whom he admittedly bears a fleeting resemblance. Mike Horner shows up for a weird S&M fantasy involving a trio of masked women and an early appearance by pouty Robin Everett suffering rear end assault to boot. I have no idea what vision initially drove the aforementioned Nubian nymphet from her village but it has been replaced by a tender loving al fresco romp involving Mai Lin and Blair Harris. While clumsily inserted penetration shots are blatantly obvious throughout, Giovanna's rectal ordeal at the hands and mighty member of Baroque's dusky domestic appears to have actually been hardcore even in its original content, adding another layer of mystery still to this most peculiar hybrid already deeply shrouded in such.
Main surprise is that the makers responsible for this unholy concoction (who shall, necessarily for the time being, remain anonymous as credited director "Ji'Bourg Jime" proves bogus billing) went to considerable lengths to fit in this new material with the narrative mapped out by the original material they acquired who knows how. Of course, seeing how this disarmingly melodramatic tale plays out against a bordello backdrop, it's probably not exactly the toughest job in the world to throw in a few more hookers 'n' johns encounters.
Time to backtrack to personal experience. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall seeing an original cut (albeit dubbed into English) playing the now long gone Plaza porn palace in the Belgian coastal town of Ostend somewhere in the early '80s, filling out a double bill with a watered down version of Peter "A. Nutty" Savage's 1974 hardcore oddity THEY SHALL OVERCOME. Adding to its mystery, there were no credits on the print but the theater owner had put out stills in the lobby yet instead of a proper one sheet they were accompanied by a hand-written title card claiming the flick was called something like The 12 Priestesses of Love, a title those amazingly knowledgeable folks over at the avmaniacs erotica forum have assured me belongs to a totally different movie. Over time, I have bumped into it on several occasions in its OBJECT OF DESIRE incarnation, playing the Brussels ABC cinema (Belgium's last remaining "old school" adult theater, still in operation as of this writing !) at regular intervals, frequently raising more questions than will probably ever be answered.
Might as well take a look at the evidence then. An exotically located whorehouse for the world's wealthy provides the scene for amorous obsession as virginal newcomer Giovanna (identified in the credits as "Marilyn Du Pré" so DVD editor VCX is, of course, thoughtlessly passing it off as a French film) takes a fancy to regular customer Baroque whose MO is to take up with the new girl, letting her believe he actually loves her as he submits her to ever more degrading behavior and turning them over to his imposing black slave Vargas once he's through with them. Characters of color generally get a bum rap this time out with fearsome, whip-wielding dominatrix Gianna Tiso keeping the girls in check by all means necessary and a belated addition to the fold, a gorgeous Nubian farm girl, is treated like an exotic animal by her clueless colleagues. So much for political correctness !
Breathless female voice over narration attempts to paper over the cracks separating the Brazilian footage from its US extensions, to little avail as the latter are shot in purely workmanlike fashion as opposed to the original's gloriously gauzy cinematography. Best of the surplus scenarios has the late Juliet Anderson playing hostess to a cute curly-haired Jewish guy mistakenly identified by some sources as Herschel Savage to whom he admittedly bears a fleeting resemblance. Mike Horner shows up for a weird S&M fantasy involving a trio of masked women and an early appearance by pouty Robin Everett suffering rear end assault to boot. I have no idea what vision initially drove the aforementioned Nubian nymphet from her village but it has been replaced by a tender loving al fresco romp involving Mai Lin and Blair Harris. While clumsily inserted penetration shots are blatantly obvious throughout, Giovanna's rectal ordeal at the hands and mighty member of Baroque's dusky domestic appears to have actually been hardcore even in its original content, adding another layer of mystery still to this most peculiar hybrid already deeply shrouded in such.