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Lovers of Arabia, Part 1
Rating: 2 Stars
Written and directed by Csaba Borbély. Videography by Zsolt Teszári. Edited by Alexander Gray. Starring Ray Phillips, Brian Wels, Luciano Endino, Dragan Cszerny, Ron Miller, Fernando Nielsen, Rick Perry, Claudio Antonelli, Gilbert Bosco, Nico Luchini, Jack Laurel, Fabrice Felder, Fred Goldsmith, and Gabriel Stone.
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"We can think, that a sultan never could have a problem," reads the mispunctuated opening crawl, "because of his power and values, so that he can reach all of his desires.... Our story shows you, that this value can't afford everything in the life." Sultan Ali (Ray Phillips), lying wanly on his exalted settee, has value galore, but no boyfriend. Mustafa, his beloved, has vanished. Bereft, Ali dispatches military investigators in funny attire to comb the countryside. "Find him either from the Hell," he commands them at one point (or so the subtitles claim). "Doesn't matter the price."

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The searchers split up, visit well-endowed men in foofy settings, grill them about the missing Mustafa, and pause for sex. There are two threesomes and two foursomes. The sex, which always starts with a maddening jump to full nudity, is mostly robotic, and garnished with fake brays of ecstasy. The pace picks up a bit in the second episode, which introduces Dragan Cszerny and Ron Miller, a pair of muscle daddies adorned with Prince Alberts-- and, in Miller's case, a swirl of tattoos. But Cszerny and Miller, atypically intriguing additions to the Csaba Borbély stable of Euro-clones, get sidelined halfway through their four-man scene.

Director Borbély, a Hungarian, may or may not have been responsible for the misbegotten title. Exteriors were shot around Istanbul; Turkish references abound. Arabia is not, however, Turkey. Any child who saw Lawrence of Arabia knows a bit about the Arabian history of oppression under Turkish rule. Reasons not to call this brocaded folly Lovers of Turkey seem obvious, of course, but the most accurately descriptive title might have been Lovers in Wacky Hats. Costume pieces include bullet-shaped headgear that makes the wearers look like coneheads from the planet Beldar, bonnets fringed with fur, Jackie Kennedy pillboxes, fezzes with stripes, and turban things resembling huge plush doughnuts. We're told the search for Mustafa extends to Istanbul, Ankara, Cappadocia, Pamukale, Pergamon, Lycia, Antalya, and Alanya. That's a lot of searching, but one can hope the quest will be completed by the end of Lovers of Arabia, Part 2.