"Star Virgin" (1979) d/ Howard Ziehm

This one goes out to those fanatical neck bearded spazoids camped out in front of the local theater for upwards of two weeks or more in anticipation of the latest big budgeted space soap opera from Disney. Never let it be said that Wopsploitation isn't inclusive. I'd have to go back to the video cassette hunting days of the  early eighties for my first memories of this vintage piece of sci-fi pornography, immediately recognizing the luscious blonde Kari Klark from the pages of Hustler on the Betamax box art in the "Adult Room" at the legendary Video World outlet at Kingston Corners. I wasn't nearly old enough to rent it myself yet (I probably shouldn't have had a towering stack of back issues of Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler yet, either, but that never stopped me), so I tossed the box to my old man, a porn hound himself from way back, who obliged my adolescent curiosity. Jealous, you now are, as that ridiculous space muppet might say.


Because...production values.
An inquisitive "space virgin" (Kari Klark) aboard a space ship (or a room inadequately decorated to look like one, complete with obligatory fog machine, if you're less imaginative about these things) discovers the concept of sex from a silver lame' garbage can robot named Mentor ( voiced by Kevin Thompson), through a series of porn vignettes of increasing intensity from that curious planet called Earth. For instance,  there's the innocent Adam (Bud Wise) and Eve (Tracy Walton), tempted by a Snake (J.C. Walton) into some sloppy, gross food sex all over an antique convertible. You've also got star quarterback, Roger Starstruck (Mike Ranger), who goes down with an injury, only to be...nursed back to health, ahem, by his adoring cheerleaders, who cover the unconscious gridiron hero with oil and rape him while he lies unconscious on a locker room bench. Win one for the stripper, buddy.

     
"Get Kissinger on the horn, he can ham slam her in the mouth!", exclaims Igor (Tricky Dicky).
We've also got Count Dracula (Johnny Harden, ha ha.) and his trusty servant-in-a-Richard-Nixon mask, Igor (Tricky Dicky), terrorizing a helpless young blonde in a gothic black and white setting, complete with title cards a la silent films, and by "terrorizing", I of course mean a hot n' heavy menage a trois. Meanwhile, Space Virgin becomes increasingly more hot and bothered by Mentor's illustrations, stripping off her space suit which was barely there to begin with, and furiously masturbating on what looks like bubble wrap. Finally, the robot gifts her a plastic lightsaber from the five and dime, which she naturally inserts into her heavily oiled axe wound, frigging herself until her pussy erupts in orgasmic white froth, as promised by the cosmic one-sheet poster. Battlestar Galactica was never like this.


Eve (Tracy Walton) reaches for a pear, but'll soon be handling a peach.
Director Howard Ziehm, who worked here under the pseudonym Linus Gator,  helmed classic fuck flicks like Flesh Gordon (1974), Honey Pie (1976), Hot Cookies (1977), and even 1990's Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders. Unfortunately, it would seem that Kari Klark, who's the sole reason anybody would ever sit through a mess like this, never appeared in anything else. Her IMDb states that she "is an actress", even though her delivery of dialog in tonight's entry might suggest otherwise. Tracy Walton made several uncredited appearances in things like Teenage Desire (1978), Weekend Lovers (1978), and Sex Mood Ring (1979). Chris Anderson (Jeanette Harlow here) also shows up in 1979's 800 Fantasy Lane and F (1980). Mike Ranger's career in porn spans early seventies loops all the way to feature films in the eighties, from Fantasm Comes Again (1977) and Dracula Sucks (1978) to Rockin' With Seka (1980) and Bad Girls (1981). On the scale, Virgin merits a mere single Wop as one would expect from a low budget porno flick, but Klark is worth a bottle of lotion and an entire box of Kleenex. May the force be with you.


Eat your heart out, "Slave Leia".