– XXX is Celluloid Dimension’s latest weekly column featuring the hottest and naughtiest side of cinema. –
Directed by Morton Lewis
Written by Milton Lewis
Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone as Stud
- Henrietta Holm as Kitty
- Jodi Van Prang as Jodi
- Nicholas Warren as Nick
- Frank Micelli as Frank
Rating: 
Stallone’s notorious skin flick might boast some of the hottest taglines a trashy re-release ever slapped on a poster. Sensational stuff like: “Sylvester Stallone, star of Rocky, goes X-rated,” “Exclusive!!!! Sylvester ‘Rocky’ Stallone goes nude!!!” “Stallone in his most revealing film,” “Stallone gets physical!”—and so on and so forth. And for a rushed softcore cheapie, I’ve got to admit: that’s the only thing they got right. Before our favorite fictional boxer shouted, “Yo Adrian, I did it!” and became an American action movie icon, he was delivering a $200 performance that got him off the streets for a while. Most of his screen time is spent flaunting his scrotum and orgiastic vigor—naked and euphoric, except for the few scenes where he’s wandering the snowy streets of NYC fully clothed.
Rumor has it that a hardcore version exists. But like most of the myths surrounding Stallone’s ignominious involvement in this film, it’s a tale stoked by sensationalist speculation. What actually survives is the version loaded with sex, but minus the infamous inserts. Whether those ever existed or not, the film does manage to grasp one thing quite effectively: its countercultural framework. Watching it, you don’t just glimpse the libidinous air of the sexual revolution—you see it being wrestled with, head-on, through unashamed and feverish erotic display. As you’d expect from something in this vein, the majority of the film’s arousing moments are utterly plotless and indulgently perverse; it’s as if the pornographers were still figuring out what to do with all this newfound freedom.
One must bear in mind: The Italian Stallion stands at the pornographic crossroads, nestled between Warhol’s languid Blue Movie and Damiano’s explosive Deep Throat. A post-Warhol softcore curio, yet still years away from the seismic jolt of mainstream XXX, it emerged in an era when sexploitation flicks ruled and hardcore cinema had not yet breached the cultural gates. Porn had yet to bloom into the ubiquitous industry it would soon become.
The Italian Stallion is abysmal on many levels, but given the context, it escapes complete condemnation. It’s drenched in absurd non-diegetic noise and loosely stitched together by voiceovers that do little more than inflate Stallone’s cocky bravado. Grimy thoughts blur into fevered imaginings, each ending in some sweaty climax. As sex cinema, it’s barely functional. But the film’s trashy cool is oddly hypnotic: its raw reliance on lingering takes, threadbare editing, and spontaneous carnal posing gives it a visual grime that feels strangely foundational—a rough draft of Porno Chic before the polish arrived.
The film traffics in the bluntest expressions of sexuality: a perfunctory nod to lesbian desire and an endless parade of heterosexual coupling, ending in a riotous bacchanalia of writhing bodies. Yet amid the absurdity and crudeness, something strangely sordid emerges. Stallone beats his lover with startling cruelty, only to awaken a latent hunger for domination, while she, aroused by both force and blood, drifts into a masochistic reverie. It’s an eerie sequence—one that skirts the grotesque without fully embracing it—and feels like an uncanny foreshadowing of the freakish fetishes that would later animate the Porno Chic era. And no, it ain’t exactly watchable. But if you squint and pretend it’s Rocky in his early years—getting his freak on—it becomes a hilariously deranged watch.
