Mainstream director Serge Korber made a few porn films (usually signed "John Thomas") that stand out as far better than their peers. CAILLES SUR CANAPE manages to pack in so many varied sex scenes it amounts to the antithesis of the usually lazy "let the camera roll & roll" approach. It"s a Walter Mitty story of a young writer (French lookalike for David Hemmings) who imagines sex scenes, and we get to see them. Karine Gambier and a lesbian pal are secretaries in his office who delight in teasing him, all the better to concoct sex fantasies. That"s a simple but workable premise that Korber exploits to the hilt. A talented cast, including genre vets like Syliva Bourdon, Ursula White and Gabriel Pontello, deliver the sexual goods, while Korber varies the formula by integrating explicit XXX homosexual scenes into the storyline. Happy ending has the hero winning the affections of a neighbor lady, who transforms from a plain Jane into a beauty. This very minor, and largely forgotten, film demonstrates how a modicum of professionalism and talent can transform assembly-line porn into watchable porn. It"s not brain surgery, but still few practitioners in the field take the trouble to deliver more than merely a series of XXX shots.
