Dirty Love (1988) User Reviews

Fairly dull

[SMK-4 · 5/10 · 17 April 2002]

Makers of exploitation films are quick to spot a mainstream trend, give it the exploitation treatment, and make a quick buck. This film clearly results from that sort of thinking, and the bandwagon it is trying to climb onto is led by Dirty Dancing - after all its English title is Dirty Love.

This was not such a bad idea, after all Dirty Dancing was kid's stuff, and so there was an opportunity to naughtify the subject and supply disappointed punters that had been lured by the title with the dirt they were craving for. However, the film fails to implement this idea. Yes, it is soft porn, and yes, it has dancing in it, but the two ingredients remain unconnected. Although Miss Demy is a competent dancer she is let down by an unimaginative choreography. The dance sequences are so dull they would bore anyone's legwarmers off - clearly d'Amato didn't have a clue how to stage these scenes and what to do with them.

Valentine Demy was still fantastic to look at in those days, but she did not have the charisma and energy to carry a film.

Joe does every dance movie

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 13 December 2021]

I mean, this movie is totally Joe D'Amarto making Dirty Dancing and casting Jeff Stryker and Valentine Demy, who went from waitressing to lingerie model to D'Amato star while she was 17.

D'Amato also throws Fame and Flashdance into the ripoff magic blender and emerges with a movie that has the sex those movies were missing and so much more to spare. Demy plays Terry, who leaves behind a small town where her father wants to pick out her husband and doesn't want her to dance, so Footloose too?

This movie packs in all the sleaze you imagine that a Joe D'Amato movie called Dirty Love should have. In a world where movies don't live up to their names or posters, for the most part Joe outdid himself every time.

If you're watching this and wondering, "Where have I seen Robert before?" He's Aimee Mann's jerk of a boyfriend in the 'Til Tuesday video for "Voices Carry."

Bubble-Headed Melodrama Plays Like a Racier Version of FLASHDANCE

[jfrentzen-942-204211 · 2/10 · 3 February 2024]

Also known as FLESHDANCE, DIRTY LOVE stars Valentine Demy as Terry, a young dancer who leaves her boyfriend and journeys to Richmond, Virginia (of all places) to study dance and maybe get a part in a musical. She dances a lot and strips at any opportunity.

She's rescued from muggers by an older man, Robert, who becomes her boyfriend. Being a free spirit, she also makes it with a male stripper and a politician. When her roommate Susan gets hooked on pills and becomes a prostitute before ending up in the hospital, Terry helps her get back on track.

After getting the lead in a "Chorus Line"-type dance show, Terry leaves her boyfriend and is ready to make it on her own.

The film attempts to be about Terry's search for her identity, although the character and the actress are too vapid to be interesting. With its many scenes of Terry bicycling and doing leg-lifts, this film is like a racier version of FLASHDANCE. D'Amato's sidekick Laura Gemser is not in it, but there is a Gemser-lookalike who gives Terry a massage.

It's probably D'Amato's most benign, bubble-headed film. A sequel, DIRTY LOVE 2, did not feature Demy, who went on to star in the VALENTINA series of sexy romps.

Deeper than the surface

[foggiarulez · 8/10 · 28 April 2023]

Dirty Love's originality can be felt only after watching Di Leo's "Being Twenty" (of which this is a kind of mirror).

The premise is the same: a 20 yrs-old girl with a stunning body can do whatever she wants, trick whoever she wants anytime.

While Di Leo's film leads straight to hedonistic sex-drug abuse, in Dirty Love here comes the twist when Terry discovers her flatmate's deviations. She becomes responsible and altruistic thus growing adult and finally quitting the adolescent dream of dancing. American world is potrayed cynically hence twisting Flashdance hints even more.

Great soundtrack.