The Movie:

Touted on the front packaging as 'Best Foreign Film of 1979' (a quote attributed to... nobody) this quirky European import starts when a woman in a wooden hut sees a man drowning in a nearby lake. She pulls him to shore and gives him mouth to mouth before taking him into her hut where she nurses him back to health. Later she heads to work where she peeps in on a couple through a keyhole in the door. The unnamed perverts are in the throws of passion, as the hairy dude eats his ladyfriend's hairy pussy before mounting her missionary style and spunking inside her love hole.

Later that night, after getting smacked around by her asshole of a boyfriend (a real player in a fancy yellow shirt) she heads home where the dude she rescued is now quite conscious and concerned about what has happened to him. She fills him in on where he is and how he got there and they head outside for a walk. After that, she heads out to meet the asshole boyfriend at a nearby disco. They head out into the dark and fuck on the ground as he fucks her missionary style and blows his load inside of her.

The next morning she heads over to a girlfriend's house for some company. They kiss and then hop into the tub together and start fooling around but this scene doesn't last very long and before you know it we're back to the asshole boyfriend who is running around town up to no good. Meanwhile, drowning boy finds his blonde savior on the beach. He joins her there and they listen to records on an old gramophone player. A few more subplots evolve and never really go anywhere, and eventually, these two fuck on the beach. You knew it was coming, admit it, so don't act like you're all surprised. He pulls out and squirts on her pelvis. Meanwhile, the asshole boyfriend is getting it on with a chick that he met at the disco, a pretty little brunette with big eyes and perky boobs who gets naked and rides him cowgirl style for a bit before jerking him to a finish.

People wander around villas for a bit and a girl strums a guitar for a few minutes for no discernable reason. Then people wander around more villas while some bad flamenco style music plays over top. Eventually the guy who almost drowned at the beginning winds up on a boat and gets into a fist fight before another boat full of guys with guns shows up and makes trouble for him. A pretty mediocre shoot out ensues and you can't help but wonder why the editor wasn't fired on the spot after watching this scene. Heading back to the beach, drowning boy fucks another buxom Euro slut outdoors before heading inside and getting it on missionary style until he pulls out and pulls off on her mound.

The asshole boyfriend rapes the girl who saved the drowning dude, while the drowning dude fucks a chick under water making for a nifty underwater globby spooge shot. This doesn't further the plot much but it does help to pad out the running time and up the sex quotient and that underwater spooge shot is pretty neat. Have you ever spooged underwater? It gets all weird and mucky but it looks neat on camera. Anyway, drowning boy and the girl who saved him obviously dig one another. They argue a bit in her wooden hut and then spend a fair bit of time wandering around some more villas. It all leads to a not quite so thrilling conclusion where a lot of people wander around more villas and occasionally shoot at each other. The finale does tie up some of the supposed 'plot twists' and the score is cool but the sex is pretty lame in this movie and much of it looks like it was shot with stand-ins, as the skin in the hardcore shots doesn't quite seem to match that seen in the not so hardcore shots.

The film does benefit from some nice European location shots - if you're into 'villas' then this is the movie for you. There's a fair bit of camp value to be gleaned from the bad dubbing and the very dated score but really, this won't do much for most porno hounds as the sex is just barely hardcore and the inserts are pretty obvious and take you out of the film. Cult fans might dig this, but those looking for traditional porno probably won't.

The DVD

Video:

This fullframe transfer, which appears to present the film in its original aspect ratio, looks surprisingly good for a film obviously made sometime in the 1970s. There are some specks here and there as well as a fairly heavy coat of film grain but this looks to be a film sourced transfer and not a VHS or tape source. The unfortunate decision to add a 'Copyright VCX 2008' bug in the bottom of the image during a few key scenes is also a strike against the disc, as it is a little annoying when it continues to pop up (it rears its ugly head at least three times), but other than that, the interlaced transfer is acceptable even if colors are a bit faded and the darker scenes lose a fair bit of fine detail.

Sound:

The Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack, dubbed into English, is a little muffled and not of the best quality, but again, it's taken from an older source so the limitations of the era's technology are going to be there when that's the case. Dialogue is pretty easy to understand, however, and the background music comes through reasonably clear. There aren't a lot of sound effects used in the film, mostly just some random moaning and groaning during the action scenes and these are handled just fine, as are the talkier bits of the movie.

Extras:

Aside from some tacky animated menus, VCX has included three bonus scenes, the first of which is from Dear Fanny (7:03) and features Amber Lynn and R. Bolla. Basically, Bolla fucks her from behind for a few minutes and she finishes him off with a blowjob. The second scene is from Sex The Hard Way (8:18) and it stars Penny Morgan and Peter North. They make out at a horserace track, she gives him head, and he blows his load all over her face. The last bonus scene is from Three Faces Of Angel (11:31) and it features Angel and R. Bolla again. Angel enters Bolla's swanky apartment, he seduces her and then fingers her and eats her out. They move into a sixty-nine and then she sits on his face for a bit before she blows him and lets him fuck her missionary style. She finishes him off with a blow job.

Rounding out the extras are trailers for Call Girl, French Teen, Here Comes The Bride and Naked Afternoon as well as some animated menus, scene selection and a web-link.

Final Thoughts:

The Joy Of Fooling Around isn't quite the sex comedy that the cover would trick you into thinking it is, rather, it's a poorly written crime/drama with hardcore inserts in it. It's interesting in a 'wow is this ever bad' sort of way, so it does have a fair bit of curiosity and entertainment value but it's hard to recommend this one to all but the more devote of vintage porn collectors. Rent it.