The premise of THE SEX SYMBOL is that Angela Summers is a mainstream actress who has received an offer to appear in an explicit film. Will she accept? If you're even reading this review, you know the answer. After some persuasion from her assistant (Tianna), Angela visits the porno set and watches a scene unfold before she makes her fateful decision.

THE SEX SYMBOL honestly isn't that bad, but it isn't that good either. The word that keeps coming to mind is "workmanlike." It knows why you are watching, and it delivers in a fashion that is never particularly boring or annoying. It's just that there isn't a whole lot else to hang your hat on here. The idea is sort of interesting, but they don't really do a whole lot with it. If they had fleshed it out a bit more via dialogue, it might have been something other than a flimsy excuse for what is going to happen in this kind of video.

No one really stands out as especially memorable. Angela Summers certainly looks like she could have been a TV star, but isn't given a lot of opportunity to express herself until the climactic sex scene. Ironically, everyone comes across as more human and developed in their interplay during the sex than they do during the acting scenes. Come to think of it, maybe it's not so ironic after all.

Until I popped this movie into the player, I had no idea it was directed by Milton Ingley, aka "Golden Age" star Michael Morrison. He also has an extended part basically playing himself. Like I said, this is not that great, but it does its job competently. The video quality is soft, but it's hard to say at this late date if that is how Ingley delivered it or simply a symptom of Gourmet Video Collection's transfer to digital.

THE SEX SYMBOL is passable, and probably should be sought out if you are a fan of any of the performers involved. Beyond that, between the picture quality and the lack of much substance beyond the sex, it's going to be a tough sled for most other viewers. It's mostly an artifact of its time.