"A legend of the mid-'70s San Francisco adult film scene, fair and alluring Sharon appeared in both twisted roughie classics such as Love Slaves and Femmes DeSade as well more mainstream productions like 3 A.M. and Candy Stripers. She often appeared as the innocent girl-next-door type ripe for corruption by lecherous perverts. This collection includes three rare films starring Sharon Thorpe: The Infidel (a.k.a Wife-Husband-Lover) (1975, 74 min., director Charles Bodine, starring Ric Lutze, Ken Scudder) in which a wife seeks outside action when her husband skips the romance for rough and tumble sex. This is the first time on video for this lost rarity! Next, a handcuffed cop is to watch a lesbian love making session unfold in his squad car in Cadillac Named Desire (1978, 70 Min., Justina Lynne). In Artful Lover, redhead Clair Dia plays with girlfriend Sharon in a colorful digital transfer (1976, 57 min., Clair Dia)."
Detailed IMDB Review: Hide "Unusual soft-core romance with hardcore cast
New DVD release from Alpha Blue Archives stars hardcore porn favorites Sharon Thorpe, Ken Scudder and Ric Lutze in a romantic triangle but is oddly soft-core action all the way. It seems strange for a mid-1970s release, so perhaps an alternate XXX version was also shot.
With classical music helping to set a romantic, often wistful mood, Thorpe stars as an abused housewife named Beverly, who at one point accuses her loathsome hubby Ron (Lutze): "You raped me, every time!" So it isn't surprising when she takes up with hunky sportswriter Ray (fellow Frisco-based star Ken Scudder) and they have an affair.
She spends her free time with gal pal Arlene (unidentified actress, who looks a lot like Thorpe), but it is the romance with Ray that is emphasized. Director Charles Bodine uses an elaborate wall-mounted bookcase Ron is building to chart the relationship symbolically, and the film ends on a very sentimental note, especially for porn.
I admired the acting and serious tone of this all-but-forgotten movie, and would be curious to learn more about its history. ABA lists an alternate title WIFE-HUSBAND-LOVER which in its crass on-the-nose nature suggests the film was sold as exploitation rather than an indie romance for the burgeoning couples audience of the time."
Director : Charles Bodine Studio : ABA
Cast: Sharon Thorpe Clair Dia Stephanie Young Rick Lutze Ken Scudder
Action: Softcore M-F sex with hardcore oral and occasional glimpses of penetration
Video Quality Guide Overall Quality: Marginal Clarity: 4.5/10 Color: 6.5/10 Notes: Soft features, seemingly from some denoise filter during capture/encode, and many age-related artifacts along with slightly washed out colors. Watchable, but doesn't look great.
Technical Info Container: AVI Bitrate: 1.8 Mb/s Video Encoder: Xvid Resolution: 640x480 Audio Encoder: MPEG
Quality Guide Notes: Hide All ratings are of course subjective.
Overall Quality: Poor, marginal, decent, good, or excellent. Poor will be a low-quality scan and encode of a crummy magnetic tape master or a very degraded film. Most vintage films are decent to good. High quality DVD and BluRay releases from VS and Alfa France are often excellent.
Clarity: A subjective rating (out of 10 'points') combining original resolution/clarity, visual artifacts such as noise and tracking errors, and compression artifacts. Common VHS scans typically range from 3 to 5. Good VHS scans and most DVD scans are 5 to 7. Note that very high-quality 480p scans can have 10/10 clarity rating, despite the "low" resolution.
Color: A subjective rating (out of 10 'points') of color accuracy and exposure.
Notes: Major artifacts and any other info worth noting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Note About Duplicates: With vintage films, there will often be another version of what I'm uploading already available on emp. I will always compare my upload against all versions currently available on emp. I will only take the time to upload it if it is either:
-- substantially better quality than what's already available, or
-- a substantially better encode (quality per bitrate), than those already available. Usually this will be an x265 encode of an original DVD or BluRay. I will not re-encode a good-quality x264 or XviD DVDRip just to make an x265 version.
-- I strive to make my original DVD encodes (which will be noted in the description) look as close to the source as possible. I will generally use x265 (slow preset) at CRF 17-19 for SD content and CRF 23 for HD content. I will detelecine film back to 24 FPS when required for film that has been telecined to run at 29.97 FPS. If required, I de-interlace with EDDI2.