Consistently one of the most tone-deaf directors in (at least classic) porn, Carlos Tobalina tackles gay conversion therapy in SEXUAL ODYSSEY, a set-up promising a truly epic combination of unpracticed hand and inappropriate subject matter. Alas, Carlos botches this too, delivering some fairly routine F&S with little else to offer (or appall).
Premise finds hunky Jerry Butler, bafflingly shown in flagrante with a woman at film's outset, confessing to his father immediately thereafter that he's gay and has no interest in ladies. Yup, it's the classic Carlos preoccupation of impotence, here expressed through deviation in object choice rather than via Bill Margold's mysteriously limp penis. Why a career pornographer decided to center so many of his films around guys who can't get it up remains an enduring mystery of Carlos, and invites highly entertaining speculation about the director's personal life; nevertheless, with the problem established, Butler's father offers to take him to a psychiatrist.
What's surprising about this development is how sensitively it's handled given the circumstances. Considering the time period (mid-'80s) and the target audience (straight men), it's impressive that Butler's father doesn't fly off the handle when Jerry makes his confession. Ditto the psychiatrist (played, as in so many of his other films, by Tobalina himself), who patiently explains that there's no shame in being gay, it's just a harder life. The doctor says he'll be happy to convert Butler, but only if he chooses. While still not a paragon of positive affirmation by today's standards, for a mid-'80s (straight) porno to stake a claim for homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle choice nevertheless stands as surprisingly progressive. Again, Carlos zigs when you expect him to zag.
Unfortunately, that basically wraps up the plot, and after these 15 or so minutes of setup, the next two-and-a-half reels find Carlos back in THREE RIPENING CHERRIES mode with a single long-form phantasmagoric orgy. After first drugging and then hypnotizing Butler, Carlos has a couple female assistants come in and make love to him, while, in a typically convoluted touch, we intercut to Butler simultaneously having sex with two *other* women in his dream. This lasts for most of the rest of the film, until we finally return to Butler and the first girl in bed, where it's revealed the whole thing was a flashback. Again, the chief pleasure to be found in Tobalina's incompetence is its inadvertent interrogation of film form, as the director unwittingly invites analysis of just exactly how a flashback story *should* be structured by botching the job so badly.
To that end - and also typically - Carlos isn't quite done with us yet. Despite the film's entire dramatic arc being resolved around the 70-minute mark, Tobalina throws in a baffling 10-minute coda, revealing that Butler's brother (Damian Wolf) had been suffering the same "ailment" and was also cured. The blonde woman Butler's sleeping with is, in a pointless addition, his brother's girlfriend, but the two decide they have better chemistry, and Wolf happily capitulates since *he's* happier with the lady we see him boffing. All's well that ends well, I suppose - but what the hell does it have to do with anything else that came before?
Perhaps as a result of its cheapness, this is unusually cohesive for a Tobalina film. The action is limited to Butler's house and the doctor's office, with none of the random minute-long digressions or 30-second outtake-derived "cameos" by adult superstars that so consistently bedevil Tobalina's '70s output. Instead, we're treated to more rear-projection sex a la I AM ALWAYS READY, as Butler and the dream women cavort on a bed in an otherwise empty void. Per usual, cinematography is inept, but the lighting, which makes extensive use of very '80s gels, is gorgeous. Butler, in one of only two appearances in the Tobalina canon, carries 95% of the film like a champ, with Wolf performing decently in his abbreviated final scene. Unfortunately, despite its '80s gloss, the film doesn't offer much to maintain interest; even its marathon sex session pales next to the one in CHERRIES, which itself only works as a result of some incalculable magic I've yet to decode. The result is pure sex fodder from the Tobalina assembly line - desultory for the general masses, but doubtless fascinating to his weird cadre of Internet sycophants, for the reasons outlined above.
Premise finds hunky Jerry Butler, bafflingly shown in flagrante with a woman at film's outset, confessing to his father immediately thereafter that he's gay and has no interest in ladies. Yup, it's the classic Carlos preoccupation of impotence, here expressed through deviation in object choice rather than via Bill Margold's mysteriously limp penis. Why a career pornographer decided to center so many of his films around guys who can't get it up remains an enduring mystery of Carlos, and invites highly entertaining speculation about the director's personal life; nevertheless, with the problem established, Butler's father offers to take him to a psychiatrist.
What's surprising about this development is how sensitively it's handled given the circumstances. Considering the time period (mid-'80s) and the target audience (straight men), it's impressive that Butler's father doesn't fly off the handle when Jerry makes his confession. Ditto the psychiatrist (played, as in so many of his other films, by Tobalina himself), who patiently explains that there's no shame in being gay, it's just a harder life. The doctor says he'll be happy to convert Butler, but only if he chooses. While still not a paragon of positive affirmation by today's standards, for a mid-'80s (straight) porno to stake a claim for homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle choice nevertheless stands as surprisingly progressive. Again, Carlos zigs when you expect him to zag.
Unfortunately, that basically wraps up the plot, and after these 15 or so minutes of setup, the next two-and-a-half reels find Carlos back in THREE RIPENING CHERRIES mode with a single long-form phantasmagoric orgy. After first drugging and then hypnotizing Butler, Carlos has a couple female assistants come in and make love to him, while, in a typically convoluted touch, we intercut to Butler simultaneously having sex with two *other* women in his dream. This lasts for most of the rest of the film, until we finally return to Butler and the first girl in bed, where it's revealed the whole thing was a flashback. Again, the chief pleasure to be found in Tobalina's incompetence is its inadvertent interrogation of film form, as the director unwittingly invites analysis of just exactly how a flashback story *should* be structured by botching the job so badly.
To that end - and also typically - Carlos isn't quite done with us yet. Despite the film's entire dramatic arc being resolved around the 70-minute mark, Tobalina throws in a baffling 10-minute coda, revealing that Butler's brother (Damian Wolf) had been suffering the same "ailment" and was also cured. The blonde woman Butler's sleeping with is, in a pointless addition, his brother's girlfriend, but the two decide they have better chemistry, and Wolf happily capitulates since *he's* happier with the lady we see him boffing. All's well that ends well, I suppose - but what the hell does it have to do with anything else that came before?
Perhaps as a result of its cheapness, this is unusually cohesive for a Tobalina film. The action is limited to Butler's house and the doctor's office, with none of the random minute-long digressions or 30-second outtake-derived "cameos" by adult superstars that so consistently bedevil Tobalina's '70s output. Instead, we're treated to more rear-projection sex a la I AM ALWAYS READY, as Butler and the dream women cavort on a bed in an otherwise empty void. Per usual, cinematography is inept, but the lighting, which makes extensive use of very '80s gels, is gorgeous. Butler, in one of only two appearances in the Tobalina canon, carries 95% of the film like a champ, with Wolf performing decently in his abbreviated final scene. Unfortunately, despite its '80s gloss, the film doesn't offer much to maintain interest; even its marathon sex session pales next to the one in CHERRIES, which itself only works as a result of some incalculable magic I've yet to decode. The result is pure sex fodder from the Tobalina assembly line - desultory for the general masses, but doubtless fascinating to his weird cadre of Internet sycophants, for the reasons outlined above.