The Italian Stallion/Review

Every star has their own first step into the business and usually it's not something they want to be remembered. Take a look at Arnold Schwarzenegger for example. Does anybody think that The Terminator is his first role? Actually, that was Hercules in the schlocky B-movie Hercules in New York. How about Stallone? You might guess "Is it Rocky?", "Is it Death Race 2000?", "Is it Farewell My Lovely?" etc. No, it's a porno that got shelved for six years before it was released to cash-in with the success of Rocky.

Before I talk about the movie, let's take a look at the trailer. First, we see text and the narrator introduces us to Gail Palmer, director of "X" rated films like "Hot Summer in the City", "The Erotic Adventures of Candy", and "Candy Goes to Hollywood" . Then the narrator tells us about her next movie, "The Longest Foot" starring John Holmes (The title is really awesome! Does this one exist? I can't find any information out there). Next, we see her editing the movie in a fake studio. She claims that she spent 30 days editing Italian Stallion but since it's a porno, we can't see the sex scenes. Instead, there's a montage of Stallone running around in the park while a song (sounding suspiciously similar to "Gonna Fly Now") is playing. Then, excerpts of Stallone's Playboy interview appears on the screen. He said: "You know, when you are hungry you do a lot of things you wouldn't ordinarily do!" He's right. This movie is definitely unordinary.

The plot, well, I'm not sure that it really exists or not. In the first scene, we see Stud (played by Stallone) having sex with his girlfriend Kitty. Then, he talks with his friend on the phone and watches two women have sex. Next, he posts a sign on a bulletin board inviting people to...do something while Kitty is dancing naked. After Stud comes home, he is upset because....the plot said so. Then he gives Kitty a blowjob, slaps her, whips her (for about two minutes), and then has sex with her. What wild sex! And the rest of movie is well, nothing but group sex.

Although the film is pretty bad, it has a very very good soundtrack. Seriously, if someone released it on CD I would by it for sure. Also, it gives us a really good definition of what exploitation really is, it's about "exploiting" things. In this case, Stallone was exploited to attract people to see this amateur porno. The film was originally shot in 1970 under title "The Party at Kitty and Stud's". Then, it was re-edited and released in 1976 under the title The Italian Stallion. As noted above, they also wrote a new theme song that sounds like "Gonna Fly Now" and dubbed Kitty's voice to make a subplot that one day Stud will be "The Italian Stallion", which is Rocky's nickname as well.

Overall, you shouldn't watch this one unless you're a big fan of Stallone (like me) or want to find out about the Stallone Porno urban legend. Finally, there's one last thing I want to tell you: Choose your DVD wisely. There are two versions out there. The first one has a TERRIBLE picture quality. I assume that it was mastered from 4th generation VHS. And another one is the remastered version which looks pretty good. Watch at your own risk!

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Nuttawut Permpithak hails from Thailand. He spends his free time watching exploitation films (or any films from the past) writing articles, taking photos and reviewing films for GCDb.