A title that goes to far even for someone like Joe D' Amato that has never give up anything. The porn shop of the title that create many hard images is only a side place in this movie that even taking things from "The Last House On The Left",remains out of the "Rape & Revenge" and it's an erotic thriller .

As a good craftsman who was, Joe works with many elements, he changes them at his will and creates an interesting movie but little honored by critics, partly demolished by the title and especially from the classic porn inserts of the post production.

The basic idea is not too bad and even the few pictures of New York are very interesting. Also the characters are not bad not for the features that are always those of the "Rape & Ravenge" , but for a kind of balancing between good and evil that involves both the victims and the executioners.

Unfortunately, after a decent start, the story moves into a house, the classical house, where there are moments of extreme slowness  and of a little inspired eroticism and (D' Amato has done much, much better). The actors fail to give depth to their characters except Ernesto Colli, in the role of a psychopathic sex addict. The end raises a little ' everything but it is very fast.

We are in New York, where two criminals, or rather two poor criminals, Rico and Bob, rob five thousand dollars in a store protected by the Mafia. Then they refuge in an porn shop where where works Lorna (homage to the Meyer movie ) who is the girlfriend of the boss Archie Moran. In addition to finding interesting the store's merchandise and bother Lorna  , they decide to kidnap her and with their friend Sammy, commonly called  "nigger" as criminal characters want, they  run away in Canada. On the way to, they stop in a villa which, however, is occupied by three students : Sue, her boyfriend Frank and the little innocent Faye.

The first two who have intense sex life, upset Faye and the arrival of the three criminals and Lorna raise the level of sexual impulses.

From here, the film slows down in a long series of erotic moments consist palpate, masturbation, sexual intercourse of various types, broken by the arrival of Moran's men.

The criminals between malice and escape plans, also show a human side, especially Sammy, who decides to preserve the virtue of Faye (doing other with her...). But the victims are perhaps not as innocent as it seems and the  result is that Joe D'Amato brings home another movie.

Released in 1979, "Il porno shop della settima strada" has some legal problems, because, as says Annamaria Clementi in this good interview, the actresses had signed an agreement for the hardcore scenes, shot as usual by stuntmen, for a export version . At first in Italy was released only the soft-core version, then, wase released also the hardcore one (poor as always). So, Brigitte Petronio and Annamaria Clementi  sued the production company. Joe D' Amato said that the extra scenes weren't shot by him but there was a lot of doubts .

In this movie we see the beautiful Annamaria Clementi whose life choices have definitely clipped a career in genre films, that could be very profitable. With her Annj Goren that plays in some hard movie by D'Amato and Brigitte Petronio seen in several films always in "innocent" roles. Finally, the male are Christian Borromeo and the aforementioned Ernesto Colli.