The Joy of Fooling Around (1978) Online

Oddball production, shot in the Greek islands, looks a lot like an Ilia Milanakos nudie of c1977. Mysterious man washes ashore. Is he a murderer sought by the police? He tangles with cute little blonde beach girl and with townie who does (as HUSTLER noted at the original release) look astonishingly like Alfred E Newman. He has sex with both of them. They have sex with other people, and each other. The police chase him. What really constitutes a happy ending in a film like this?

As a straight nudie this might have been a tolerable offering. As an honest-to-God hardcore it might have had its moments, too. The finished product, however, is a bit of a dog (sorry, Jack). There is a lot of softcore-style groping and grinding, and a fair amount of insert XXX, spliced into the softcore scenes but clearly performed by different people at a different time and often rather crudely matched. This technique does not work one bit better here than it did in any other film where they tried to turn a softcore into a hardcore in the editing room.

My presumption is that the US distrib bought a soft Euro nudie and tried to heat it up for the Pussycat Theater circuit. Locations are picturesque, and production values are about average for a lowbudget Greek islands skin flick. "Monique du Prez," probably a fake name for the actress playing the beach girl, is lovely and expressive, but I've never seen her anywhere else.

A porn-less version of this, entitled JOY OF MYKONOS, used to play on US pay-cable in the late 1980s. I never saw that cut, but would be willing to bet it was an improvement over the version released as "sort of" XXX. I give JOY a 1 in this edition.