Pirate Video Deluxe 1: Xtreme Desires

Already an icon on the busy British fetish scene, newly acquired Tanya Hyde proved a timely shot in the arm for the Private porn emporium with this inaugural effort for their Pirate Deluxe line. Founded by Berth Milton in early '60s Sweden, the company had limited its activities to magazine publishing for three decades before belatedly branching out into movies. Marketed worldwide with typical Scandinavian efficiency, their features stood out for a steady stream of pretty young ladies hailing more often than not from Eastern Europe, exotic locations and glossy production values. Yet something seemed to be missing.

For all their amazing sexual prowess, casually accommodating appendages of great girth, these performers lacked passion, rarely showing signs of enjoyment as tireless studs slaved away on top of them. In fact, one could hold Private personally responsible for introducing the dispiriting concept of the cash register cooze (i.e. adult actress charging per expertly performed sexual act rather than per scene) which continues to stigmatize Slavic strumpets to this very day. Meanwhile, directors recruited from all over Europe (including French Pierre Woodman, British Frank Thring and Dutch Antonio Adamo) seemed content ticking off all the little boxes, assuring each scene had a little bit of everything, effectively streamlining them into generic interchangeability. On the cusp of a new millennium, the addition of a female filmmaker (though technically not Private's first, as American Jane Waters had already helmed some of their stateside stuff) would make all the difference.

The first of several high voltage fetish features Hyde bestowed upon the company before she took wing with her own Harmony Films label, XTREME DESIRES provides half a dozen vignettes of varying intensity, albeit usually on the high end of the scales, highlighted by the director's imagination and ingenuity, which in turn seems to have inspired the female cast to perform well above and beyond the call of duty. Nominal star Monique Covet supplies connecting footage, strutting her stuff around London while the breathless female voice-over waxes lyrically about her supposedly depraved desires. Though rarely straying beyond the confines of couples-friendly kink, the first episode (ominously entitled "Dungeon") certainly fits the bill with latex-garbed Covet taking on all comers, the scene's tone suggesting a favor-granting queen bee rather than a submissive cum depository. Hyde similarly sidesteps any attendant misogyny in all subsequent installments.

"Doctors" finds beautiful bespectacled nurse Silvia Saint pleasuring patient Laura Angel, in stir-ups for easy access, until medics Kevin Long and Tony De Sergio (the notorious British bisexual performer billed as "Jay Alexander" on gay projects) join in the fun. Rather more surprising proves the next segment, almost innocuously labeled "Bad Girls", with three girls enjoying a Sapphic free-for-all - with a surprise heterosexual sting in its tail - in matching bright orange clown wigs ! For the record and although you may have a hard time identifying them, let alone telling them apart, they are Saint, Scottish Sirrocca (who was billed as "Maria Glasgow" on Marc Dorcel's LA RUEE VERS LAURE a/k/a AMNESIA) and the scene-stealing Mina a/k/a "Zora Banx" who also appeared in Stuart Canterbury's titillating take on Macbeth IN THE FLESH.

The two strongest installments are up next. Revisiting medical territory, "Nurses" has French John B. Root discovery Fovéa and the returning Mona resplendent in latex nun's habits, exchanging less than pious glances over supine patient Frank Major's bandaged physique, then draining his vital fluids with doc Mike Foster providing an additional appendage before death bells solemnly and irrevocably ring out. "Toilets" takes its visual cues from gay iconography with traces of both Jean Genet and the Jim Bidgood underground classic PINK NARCISSUS as a public restroom becomes the perverted playground for a pair of lascivious leather-clad harpies (Covet and Mina) mauling the totally docile De Sergio whose alternative line of business comes in mighty handy when a sizable strap-on's introduced ! A solid closer, "Chaos" (a cage-set group grope involving Covet, Angel and Sirrocca getting as good as they give from John Walton, Long and Foster) can't help but feel a tad anti-climactic by comparison.

Drowning out the sounds of sex with an eclectic score, marking a welcome departure from Private's customary drop the needle musical accompaniment, Hyde's maiden voyage has drawn comparisons with Michael Ninn, an odd coincidence considering he would take up tenure at the company within the next few years. While Ninn's style frequently hints at something deeper and darker, Hyde happily just skims the surface for the time being with this exquisite piece of eye candy.