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7/10
Sleazy Roughie film
chribren19 October 2013
"San Francisco Ball" is a Roughie/Softcore/Crime film from 1971, directed by Jack Gerero.

Basic plot: Two girls get kidnapped and raped by a group of three thugs, who demand 50,000 dollars from one of the girl's sister. And the story gets a little bit worse when razor blades are performed on the girls. One of the girls' boyfriend Bob (played by Gerard Broulard) sets out to save the girls.

This film might not be everybody's cup of tea, because of the long shots of Softcore rape scenes. But the acting seems to be amateurish, while the dialog tend to be silly sometimes. You can even tell, just by watching this flick, that parts of the film reel seem to be slit (notice lots of dark brown spots in the first minute of the film). Most of the opening credits are just unreadable. To be honest, the rape scenes itself actually remind me a little bit about Wes Craven's controversial debut film "Last House on the Left", which was made a year later.

This film is not available in Norway. But if you are a fan of Roughie film in general, no matter if it's Hardcore or Softcore, then this film might be for you to find and watch. Otherwise, if you get easily offended by long rape scenes in general, or simply don't like poorly made films, then I suggest you to skip this film.

Because of the action itself and the silliness of the film altogether, I give this flick a rating 7/10, despite the fact this film is poorly made in general.

Some of the other Roughie films I've seen include: "A Climax of Blue Power" (1975), "Forced Entry" (1973), "Snatched Women" (1974) and "Wet Wilderness" (1976).
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9/10
Wow. Action and great scenes and the Mitchell Brothers playing cops.
option61927 April 2005
I see the famous "Behind The Green Door, " producers, Artie and his younger brother Jim, in this film playing police detectives. This was years before they made any of their famous x rated movies.... What a laugh. Jim, 20 years later murdered his brother, Artie. Jim served only 2 years. Now he is back at his X-rated movie house located in San Francisco. The O'Farrell Theater. The photography was great. The story was extra. it was the action that was unexpected. Like a scene where a guy is being chased in San Francisco, near the bay and ends up jumping into the water. Great Scene. A lot of rack focus shots, which added a lot to the suspense, especially in a junk yard. The music was also binding. I would rate this "a locate this film and watch it."
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Badly made roughie
lor_6 September 2011
I enjoyed Jack Genero's 1971 porn film CLIMAX, but his timid attempt at a roughie SAN FRANCISCO BALL is terrible. Contrary to the pidgin English, highly misleading previous review posted on IMDb, it has nothing to offer.

It's about a kidnapping, with details completely garbled by poor storytelling. The sister of the kidnapped girl gives a horrendous performance, meant to fool the other characters (and the audience) into thinking "everything's all right".

The thugs abuse the kidnapped girl and her best friend from L.A. who's traveled to S.F. to be with her and ends up searching for her. With obvious red paint splashed all over the women, fake "cuts" by a blade and idle slapping around, this softcore rough action is unconvincing and unexciting. Similarly, the sex scenes are shot softcore and have zero arousal impact.

Hero is played by porn vet Gerard Broulard, who is far less interesting than usual. The touted action scenes are completely inept. A backyard elementary school movie project with cap pistols would probably be far more effective than the "clutch one's tummy" amateur shootout climax staged here in an auto junkyard.

Simplest scenes and connectives, such as the heroine's lost purse leading the hero to finding her, are completely bungled. Even the most basic details of the kidnapping plot make no sense whatsoever. Why this was shot softcore is beyond me -it reeks of 1-day storefront wonder designed just for displaying explicit sex.

The "Inspector Mitchell" who shows up at the finale looks like Charlie Sheen. Previous poster identifies the actor as being one of the Mitchell Bros., and sure enough, Sheen played Artie Mitchell in the TV movie "Rated X", but I cannot confirm the identity of these cameos.

Final dialog reads: "I guess it's all over now"; "I sure hope so", inadvertently summing up the audience's reaction.
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