Delta of Venus (1994) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Are you going to like this movie?

Consider these facts:

1. It is based on some stories and diaries of Anais Nin, who is most famous as one of the rare females who have made major contributions to written erotica. (Here's John Pearson's photograph of the real Anais Nin, just to show you how looks can deceive.) She once engaged in a steamy affair with her father, but it's not what you are thinking. It was initiated by her when she was 31 years old! That gives you some insight into what she was like. Her work is sexually charged, to be sure, but is also literary and ... well ... pretentious.

2. It was directed by Zalman King, whose penis belies the fact that he's essentially the Anais Nin of filmed erotica. He makes the kind of sexy films that appeal greatly to women - swirling colors, sensuous music, elaborate courtships, stolen glances, smoldering looks exchanged across crowded rooms, romantic liaisons in the fog on ancient bridges, etc.

Even if you are still interested in the film after having read to this point, you have much better choices. This isn't the best screen adaptation of Nin's work. That would be Henry and June, directed by the very talented Phil Kaufman. Neither is this the best Zalman King contribution to couples-oriented erotica. That would be 9 1/2 Weeks, which was produced and written by ZK, but was directed by the very talented Adrian Lyne. I recommend that you watch one of those two movies. See Henry and June if you want to focus on the aesthetic aspects of lust, see 9 1/2 Weeks if you want to skip the art and focus on more straightforward erotica that turns women on.

Except for a few good moments of eroticism, Delta of Venus is just plain boring, and the performers are weak.

Tuna's notes in yellow:

Delta of Venus is a Zalman King adaptation of erotica by the same name, penned by Anais Nin, and published posthumously.

Audie Englund plays Elena, an American writer living in Paris on the eve of WWII. In that era, manuscripts weren't selling well in general, and hers were not even very good, so she was struggling to establish her career.

In her typical routine, she writes all night, then goes to the Seine to watch a man (Costas Mandylor) rowing his scull. This has been a daily ritual with her until one night when she attends a party and runs smack dab into her oarsman. She finds that he is also a writer, but is to leave soon for America. She wastes no time at all becoming intimate with him.

After he leaves, she is just as broke as before, so she starts doing some nude figure modeling for rent money, until her publisher makes her an intriguing offer. If she will write erotica for an anonymous client, she will be paid 200 Francs per page. She must, of course, experience eroticism to write about it, which locks in the premise for Zalman King to present whatever sort of sexual cinema he is in the mood for. Elena watches as a hooker is ravished by a huge black man; she attends an opium den where several women, including her, get naked; she sees an exhibitionist have sex with a blindfolded man. From these experiences, she creates fantasies for her mysterious client.

I will leave it to you to guess the identity of her anonymous benefactor, and you will probably be correct.