Take Off

Martin Oaks9/10

Mar 25, 2026

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**Decorative Pornography** In this bold and lysergic 1978 reinterpretation, Anthony Spinelli transports Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" myth to the epicenter of the sexual revolution. The plot follows Darrin Blue (a superb performance by Wade Nichols), a young man of statuesque beauty who, having made a pact with the forces of Vanity, retains his youthful vigor and physical purity while plunging into a spiral of absolute hedonism decade after decade. While he remains untouched by the passage of time and his own excesses, also does exist a hidden film, in the form of a cinematic canvas, functions as a moral mirror, accumulating the scars, decrepitude, and corruption of his soul, and revealing the true nature of his degradation. “Take Off” stands as one of the pinnacles of adult cinema of its era, but also as the masterpiece of its director, Anthony Spinelli, perhaps alongside the masterful “SexWorld,” and not so much for its explicit content as for its conceptual sophistication and cinematic technique. Spinelli undoubtedly solidifies his talent behind the camera, showcasing transition techniques and emulsion treatments in a sensational way. It is a tribute to cinema of all times, from those films by the master William A. Wellman, with James Cagney playing a gangster, to a brilliant parody of Humphrey Bogart's "Casablanca". The film masterfully captures the essence of Lord Henry's cynicism and Dorian's tragedy, but envelops them in the sepia-toned celluloid of the 1920s and the saturated color of the 1970s. It is a scathing critique of narcissism in one's own existence, when one seeks to worship image above ethics. Pure Wildean frivolity.