It must be said that this film is a xxx-feature, and also the first that I was able to stomach for its entire running time.  The reason I rented this film was rather academic; Ive heard about Candida Royalles films, and how Royalle herself hyped her Femme Productions as making adult films that were more suited for couples, and were absent of the excesses and the really gross stuff that normally accompanied such "films".  So I decided I would rent it to see for myself.

The story is simple.....(!).    A woman (played by Royalle) goes to the thrift store to sell off her sexy blue dress that was given to her by her creep of a former boyfriend.   This dress has apparently been involved in many adventures, and will play a part in a few more adventures as the film progresses.   First, a woman comes in to the store, and notices the dress, saying that she had a dress just like that  given to her by a former boyfriend.   She leaves for work, but can't get that first wild sexual encounter out of her head, so she races back to the store to buy the dress.  But Oh No!  The dress has been sold to a sexy Italian lady, who had already discovered the charms of the dress because the storekeeper and her had a little romp in the dressing room!

 Later on, both women meet at a friend's house.  Turns out that they all know each other, and they soon discover that this blue dress has affected a number of women's lives. Nina Hartley plays another friend, and she has her own story about that blue dress, and it too involved a romp with the first woman's supposedly faithful boyfriend.   The rest of the movie involves the assistant of a friend (a talent agent), and her own romp (wearing the blue dress, of course) with a struggling actor, then, finally, the Italian chick gets down to business again (blue dress, again) with a boyfriend.

 Unlike in most reviews, I've managed to actually reveal about 95 percent of the entire visual and story content of the film.  A few more paragraphs and I will have written all of the dialogue of the film as well.

 This film is supposed to be arousing to couples, but somehow, I imagine they will be laughing rather than loving.  When I say laughing, I'm not giving the film a compliment, because this film is so  amazingly cheap and amateur, it makes some stupid teen sex comedy look as if it was written by Billy Wilder.   The best joke this film can come up with is the shot of the storekeeper snatching the dress from a short, frumpy woman to give to the sexy Italian, as if it is naturally funny that a short frumpy woman would actually want to check out a sexy piece of wardrobe.   Wow, this film is amazingly progressive!   Royalle's film's are supposed to be different, but what are the odds that a short and frumpy woman would be a star of a Femme production!    Probably about as much as a porno film would have a script!

 But the script is nothing compared to the production values.

 Back in the bad old days of British TV, everything was shot in video tape.  This included sitcoms and costume dramas.  So a series like Elizabeth R, in which everyone was dressed in fancy costumes, and were in stories involving intrigues, crisis, and other everyday activity involving the throne of England, was shot on videotape, somewhat lessening the visual impact, and giving the production the air of a respectable if very dry and static stage play.   Yet Elizabeth R looks like Lawrence of Arabia compared to One Size Fits All!   If Candida Royalle were hired by the BBC back in the 1970's, she probably would have been fired for making its shows look cheap.

 This movie looks as if it was shot by a camcorder, albeit a very good edition.  Why! Surely, there had to have been some money in the bank; the porn industry is a big moneymaker.  I've seen real films that cost 50000 that look better than this.   I think all they did was take the camcorder and follow these people into cars, houses, etc., got the performers to say a few lines before having hardcore sex.  Yea, that's real film making.

 Of course, this is all my fault, because I naturally assumed that there would be some measure of quality in this production, as Royalle, on her web site, makes such a big deal about the differences.  I don't actually rent hardcore as a rule; I've only done it once under fairly similar naive circumstances and was thoroughly appalled after about 7 minutes.  I wasn't really disgusted with Royalle's film, as all the really vile typical bits didn't exist in this film.   Still, this film is not a film -- it's still pornography.

 The problem is that the people involved in this film are porno stars.  Royalle used to be a porn star, and Nina Hartley still is, and so they know all the little clichés and expectations of a porn film.  Let's face it, no matter how progressive you think you are, you cannot tell me with a straight face that pornography is never, ever a degrading enterprise.  The little pornography that I've seen is just vile and pointless.   Women are degraded in these things -- the high point is how many penises can be inserted into numerous orifices simultaneously, unless of course the high point is the amount of bodily fluid dumped over the woman's body.    People who actually watch this on a regular basis, and actually enjoy it, need some help.   Sex is one thing, even explicit sex, but there's just a nagging feeling of ugliness that surrounds these so-called mature videos.

 Royalle's film doesn't have the really nasty stuff, but it feels more like an editing job than a revisionist project.   By cutting out most of the really nasty stuff, and by hyping the films as being for couples, then pornography has just found a new and unwitting audience.   Other than that, things are still pretty much the same; women scream and moan, there's the occasional close-up of all sorts of penetrations, etc., and the sex takes up most of the running time.  And this is still the sort of movie where you really have to wonder if perhaps it is safe to eat while watching, lest you see something that forces you to vomit (I was eating a Stouffer's chicken and vegetable meal at the time, myself).  However, at least with Royalle, such possibilities are somewhat rare.

 The only way to make a really good explicit, adult film would be to get in talent who  have experienced things other than pornography.  You know, the sorts of people who know how to write, who have wit, who know how to set up scenes, who know about narrative,  who've read some books and watched some real movies, who know how to manage a film budget.   Just the little stuff.

Rating: **