| The Taking Of Christina (1976) 1976 aka Adultress Abduction |
| The Taking Of Christina makes a valiant attempt at succeding as both a hardcore porno and a rape/revenge film. Director Armand Weston succeeds to varying degrees on both fronts, but ultimately misses the mark more often than not. In an attempt to be alternately disturbing and erotic, the film shifts gears several times and is likely to leave viewers more confused than aroused or disgusted. |
| We start out in porno mode, and pretty low rent porno mode at that. Our lead character, Christina is pleasuring herself in the shower. She's thinking of her man, who she hasn't gotten between the sheets yet - you see, she's a good girl waiting for marraige. I'm assuming this virginal motif is supposed to make the impending dertruction of her innocence all the more tragic. Her naivete gets a little harder to sawllow later in the film though as she takes on two guys simultaniously as we switch back into XXX mode. |
| I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. After we establish that we are indeed watching a porno movie, Weston goes to work on fleshing out his characters. We first learn that Christina's boyfriend is a little hot under the collar and not too keen on playing the waiting game. He's a good guy though, so he sticks it out for the time being. We also meet our two baddies. They come into town and break into a nicely furnished and conveniently abandoned house, right in Christina's cozy New England town. We learn about their temperments one night as the head off to a bar and meet up with two prostitutes. One of our baddies is a nice guy, the other is quite foul and rough. The jerk gets too pushy and ends up hurting one fo the nekkid girls. Things start to heat up a bit, but the nice baddie cools things down and convinces the jerk to go back to the bar and have some drinks. Here we're set up for a perfect reminder that his film is part porno, as the nice guy is left on his own to take care of not one but two prostitutes! |
| Up to this point I think Weston has done a pretty admirable job keeping both crowds for this movie happy. I've poked some fun here and there, but for the time I think the XXX scenes are done well enough, and the dramatic scenes are easy enough to take seriously. From here on in though, it's a little tougher on both sides of the coin. The story advances as Christina and her boyfriend suffer a miscommunication that a Three's Company writer would think was ridiculous. To keep things brief, he's waiting to pick her up, and she gets kidnapped by our two baddies. |
| Things are all out control now, as our leading lady is being held somewhat against her will in that wonderful house our crooks have discovered. Her boyfriend is understandably dejected as he thinks he was stood up because of the argument they had earliet. The only only thing he can think to do to help matters is to pick up with one of the prostitutes from earlier in the movie (just how small does Weston think New England towns are?! I'll have him know that there are plenty of prostitutes floating around here.). |
| Now that the plot of the movie's gone a bit buggy, the tone becomes more confused. Christina is raped pretty brutally by the jerk baddie. Shortly after though, she has a heart to heart with the nice baddie and makes love to him sensuously. This could be taken as drama instead of failed eroticism if it weren't intercut with scenes of her boyfriend banging that ubiqitous hooker. It was too close to the rape to be arousing, but too hokey to drive the story anywhere. Perhaps the juxtaposition looked better on paper, but on film it just came off as confusing. |
| Things go from confusing to just plain silly though, when the good baddie convinces Christina that the jerk baddie isn't all that bad because he had saved his life in prison some time ago. That in itself is fine, but soon enough our herione has both of them nekkid in bed showing that even virginal girls can kick it up a notch when romancing two inept ex cons making a pit stop on the way to Mexico. The plot thickens though as Christina just may have some (rather anti-climactic) plans up her sleeve...possibly showing our baddies that they unleashed a dark side when they destroyed this young woman's innocence. |
| There are svereal moments throughout that miss the mark, but the film isn't a total bust. In the end, the most important part is that it was engaging throughout. I didn't once ever consider the film painful to sit through. I admire Weston's attempt here. My guess is that a straightforward porno film along the lines of Deep Throat or Behind the Green Door woudl have been less of a financial risk, but Weston attempted something of more substance. So what if it didn't work out perfectly, he still turned out an interesting, if not somewhat forgettable film. |
| Not surprisingly, the cast is made up of porno vets. Most have a long list of credits stretching well into the 90s. Armand Weston made a few other XXX features in the 70s and even a horror film in the early 80s, The Nesting. I've yet to see any of these, but based solely on this film, I would say that they sound interesting enough to be worth a look. |
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| I give this one 3 hardworking hookers out of 5 |
| review by Joe Canistro 10/22/04 |