Around early '70s Los Angeles, increasing numbers of hookers are starting to sport a mysterious tattoo reading "LM," hallmark of The Love Muscle, mastermind behind a successful city-wide pimping scheme. Various characters want to ferret him out, from a mysterious business partner to the police, and they'll stop at little, including going undercover, to discover his identity. It all leads to a confrontation on top of a prominent Wilshire Blvd. Hotel, the film's chief moment of ambition.
THE LOVE MUSCLE is a film where the entire narrative is oblique: it's mainly just scenes of characters in rooms (mostly apartments, though a few in a jailhouse) discussing what's happening offscreen. While scholars like Linda Williams discuss the "integration" of sex into narrative in the golden age of porn, LOVE MUSCLE, far from a classic, thumbs its nose at the concept: almost all its sex is extraneous, yet it still takes center stage. Two characters will spend seven minutes humping, finish, and then one will say, "I want you to call Love Muscle and set up a meeting." No one in this movie can accomplish anything without having sex first. (Honestly, I can relate.)
Production values are poor, but at least competent. The producers, Trojan Productions, seem to have made a home for themselves in this specific niche: one step above the most slapdash of grinders, the types of films usually shot in a single house over the course of an afternoon, Trojan projects are consistently centered around C-level ambition: little more than a series of sex scenes, they'll nevertheless throw in a bit of location shooting (as here), as well as a unique, title-inspired song (the "Love Muscle" one isn't great, but it is there). Result is tolerable though thoroughly un-memorable porn, just barely passable but largely meritorious of its obscurity.
THE LOVE MUSCLE is a film where the entire narrative is oblique: it's mainly just scenes of characters in rooms (mostly apartments, though a few in a jailhouse) discussing what's happening offscreen. While scholars like Linda Williams discuss the "integration" of sex into narrative in the golden age of porn, LOVE MUSCLE, far from a classic, thumbs its nose at the concept: almost all its sex is extraneous, yet it still takes center stage. Two characters will spend seven minutes humping, finish, and then one will say, "I want you to call Love Muscle and set up a meeting." No one in this movie can accomplish anything without having sex first. (Honestly, I can relate.)
Production values are poor, but at least competent. The producers, Trojan Productions, seem to have made a home for themselves in this specific niche: one step above the most slapdash of grinders, the types of films usually shot in a single house over the course of an afternoon, Trojan projects are consistently centered around C-level ambition: little more than a series of sex scenes, they'll nevertheless throw in a bit of location shooting (as here), as well as a unique, title-inspired song (the "Love Muscle" one isn't great, but it is there). Result is tolerable though thoroughly un-memorable porn, just barely passable but largely meritorious of its obscurity.