Three women are driving cross country to Fort Laramie, Wyoming for a weekend vacation. While en route the driver, fantasies about the trio being prostitutes in the old west. Director Steve Scott relates the absorbing story at a reassuring leisurely pace and makes lovely use of the breathtaking verdant countryside. The three female leads are quite fetching and desirable. The sex scenes are tasteful, yet still passionate and erotic. Tom Howard’s sunny cinematography provides an attractive bright look. The sparingly used gently melodic folksy score does the harmonic trick.
Though hardly adopting a Harlequin romantic novel approach, Coming West is an effective early porn feature told from a woman’s point of view. The nearly 100% male audience at Adult Cinemas back in 1971 probably welcomed this diversion from the repetitive coarser fare in the market.
Story hook is simple: three beautiful women are driving a convertible from Cheyenne to Laramie on a 2-week vacation. Sandy Carey’s behind the wheel, Staryln Simone’s sunbathing topless in the passenger seat, and Maria Arnold in floppy hat daydreams of the Old West in the backseat.
She fantasizes that the trio are whores, left by the roadside in the middle of nowhere when a preacher (scene omitted) objects to traveling with them after he finds out they’re on the way to set up a whorehouse in Laramie.
Venturing to a nearby stream, Kitty (Maria) encounters an old flame, cowboy Matt Timber, riding by on his horse. She remembers them making love years ago (a flashback inside the fantasy). Back to the main fantasy, we see an Indian lying by the side of the road, apparently killed by Matt defending the women (also omitted). Matt escorts the other two women to the stream where he makes love to them.
Meanwhile, the handsome Indian awakes, impressed by Maria’s massive boobs, the duo trek to the stream to watch the trio hump and off comes his loincloth. Maria ends her fantasy declaring “Well, you can’t say we didn’t make ‘peace’ with the Indians”.
Trio drive on to their destination as Maria relates the content of her dreams with a very cornball twist, guess who’s hitchhiking in the present day?
Languourously paced, Coming West is a very effective mix of softcore and hardcore approaches, including the requisite explicitness but presenting people making love rather than the usual clinical body parts in abstract action. Interior flashback scene is well-lit and the outdoor sex is very pleasantly presented, with the gurgling of the stream on the soundtrack meant to be soothing.
This film doesnât overstay its welcome, it presents an attractive cast all quite obviously engaged in their work and itâs got plenty of nice outdoor scenery as well. The print used is in decent shape even if it shows some print damage now and then, and the film goes at a good pace. Fans of Maria Arnold should be quite pleased as she gets a lot of screen time here and she looks great too. Itâs breezy, dreamlike and enjoyable enough.
There is enough to the set-up for the film that I would consider this a vignette film. Scott has done a good job with the film. The film is nicely shot with better camera work than one often sees in adult work at this time period. You can see that work went into the different shots. And you can tell that, despite just being a vignette film, the non-sex portions were done with care as well, including the portions where there isn’t a sex scene at all that were added just for the purpose of the vignette. The brief sex scenes look nice and the cast is energetic in them. Scott has managed to work some variety into the scenes and has done well with the limited budget. Coming West is a fun little film that is worth a look.
