Anthony Spinelli’s classic Talk Dirty to Me was one of the biggest movies of the end of porn’s golden era. It produced a bunch of sequels and spin-offs that found success on their own — in fact, part III may arguably be the most (in)famous, largely because it featured Traci Lords in one of her first underage roles.

Talk Dirty to Me is jailbait-free and — unlike pretty much all of its sequels and related movies — has a grounded story. It stars John Leslie as Jack, a convincingly douche-y character that spends his days creeping on girls at the beach with his slower sidekick Lenny (Richard Pacheco).

How these two manage to support themselves without a steady job is not very clear, but they seem happy chasing girls — particularly Jack, the one who actually gets the girls. Jack is a very confident guy who believes his good looks and charm can work in any scenario. And while the movie initially seems to be a cheap vehicle for Leslie to bang as many blondes as he’d like (all the girls in the movie are blonde; the 80s had arrived!), a bit of a human aspect comes through in the form of old film quotes and references.

You see, in order for Jack to fulfill his “3 days to fuck her” prediction when he first laid eyes on Marlene (Jesse St. James), Jack shows the lonely housewife/film buff that he, too, loves classic movies. So armed with a plethora of cinema quotes, a couple of impressions and a blatant stalking behavior that would get him a restraining order in more recent times, Jack pursues his wooing of Marlene — even breaking into the empty house next door to watch her closely.

Marlene’s old-fashioned husband can not bring himself to talk dirty, not even during farewell sex before he has to go on a business trip. Poor Marlene wants a man who could say, “I want to suck your pussy”, but her shy spouse refuses to come anywhere close to that.

Naturally, Jack isn’t self-conscious about this part at all, but rather than going straight for the needed woman, he takes it slowly, while managing to fuck his share of blondes on the side to keep him satisfied.

Of course, no dirty talk movie from 1980 would be complete without “Aunt Peg” — Juliet Anderson’s most famous moniker and a movie released by Spinelli just two months before Talk Dirty to Me. Anderson’s reputation as a filthy-mouthed MILF doesn’t disappoint on a messy stairway sex scene with Leslie.

Overall, the movie’s not bad. Except for a couple of obvious moments, the plot is simple and believable enough; the acting is fairly decent; the sex in intense; and the pacing of the story feels right. While there are several Spinelli movies I’d rate much higher than Talk Dirty to Me, there are certainly worse things, though it might not be as good as its reputation.