There's something ingenuous about TATTOOED LADY, a hardcore porn film built in 4 vignettes concerning tattoos and their power to inspire one or change one's life (read: sex life). It was made in the era just before tattoos became commonplace: I recall a female classmate at Heights High in the mid-'60s whose tattoo was a genuine novelty in Cleveland Hts., the trend then being relegated to denizens of Frisco, Manhattan or the U.S. Navy.

A blond guy running a tattoo parlor (porn vet Jesse Adams) tells a female customer tales of women who he's fixed up with the permanent scars. First one is about a girl with a cat drawn on her abdomen (in the style of Sandy Dempsey's tattoo), having lesbian sex on a water bed. It's accompanied by a Muzak version of Herbie Hancock's classic "Maiden Voyage".

Story #2 concerns secretary Ruth who wants to be more alluring to men. Even before they see her new artwork two guys are fighting over her, with the winner treated to some sixty-nine action.

#3 concerns the tattoo artist seeking refuge, hobo-style, in a railroad car where he finds a tattooed lady lying in the straw. He's treated to a round of anal sex with her. This is his first encounter with tattoos and definitely changed his life, causing his choice of profession.

Finale has the heroine's backside tattoo of a flower nearing completion, causing her to fantasize a soft-focus outdoor screwing session, comped by New Age music. This is well-staged, with stand-up sex. At its conclusion, she comes back to reality, seeing her tattoo complete and announces: "That's it, I know who I am".

If you can stomach that sort of hippy-dippy philosophy then TATTOOED LADY is the film for you. Now where's the SWV porn epic devoted to body piercing?