Squarely aimed at the Couples Romance audience, "Roxie" from Jack Remy and Paul Thomas is a shot on (35mm) film Adult movie made around the time of their more famous "Brandy and Alexander". Raven Touchstone's script draws upon "Cyrano de Bergerac" and is heavy on the corn, but overall this quaint approach to a rom-com holds up fairly well three decades on.
The male cast is the main turn-off for me -played by top porn talent but in stereotypically (chauvinist) roles that are hard to watch. But the all-star female lineup makes it all work.
The opening credits list Savannah last, though the movie seems like a vehicle for her (from VCA), certainly capturing her ethereal beauty. As Roxie, she is the Roxanne character from the play, and this movie doesn't resemble the Steve Martin/Hannah version at all.
She plays a free spirit young woman right out of the 1960s, and other than its explicit XXX content, "Roxie" reminds me of those softcore sex movies of that period, especially Gary Graver's "Erika's Hot Summer", which I saw often at drive-ins. She's introduced as a nude artist's model posing for Taylor Wayne, who is featured as her confidante throughout the show. But the central "Cyrano" character is Duck, a prizefighter played by Buck Adams, utterly charmless and impossible to like, even though the role is meant to be sympathetic. As crudely performed by Adams, he's just a womanizer full of himself and even given to self-pity -ugh!
Key roles go to topbilled Jeanna Fine, showing off her deep-throat skills as Buck's ex-girlfriend, and Rachel Ryan, the moive's actual central character as a writer ghosting a biography with Buck, who becomes his romantic helper when she writes love letters in his name to Savannah's Roxie. The famous balcony scene is played as a switcheroo, with Buck up on the balcony and Savannah down on the beach below as unseen Rachel feeds him all his romantic lines.
The beach locations are beautifully filmed by Remy, building tremendous romantic atmosphere. Marc Wallice (double ugh!) shows up late in the movie as Savannah's old flame, and a subplot of Jeanna supposedly teaming up with him to plot against Roxie goes nowhere.
With all its story and casting faults, "Roxie" (alternately spelled "Roxy" in the end credits) provides a version of romantic content that is largely absent from 21st Century porn.
