Billed as "Lahna Monroe," a pre-Ilsa DYANNE THORNE — that She-Wolf of the SS herself — starred in the granddaddy of all "suburban" skinflicks, Joe Sarno’s classic Sin in the Suburbs in 1964. Six years later, Miss Thorne returns to the wonderful world of swingers, wife-swappers, and suburbanite sin in Love Me Like I Do — originally rated X back in the day — where every neighbor is a potential home wrecker.
In a surprising turn from her usual screen villainy, Miss Throne plays Sharon Sloane, an upper-middle-class housewife with two kids, a rotten marriage, and a cheating hubby. Poor Sharon — though smack dab in the middle of Swingersville, USA, she actually thinks sex "should be confined to married couples — people who are married to each other, that is." Her husband, Bill (PETER CARPENTER), thinks differently. In fact, in the midst of one of his nighttime-backyard-barbecue-cocktail parties — complete with Marge, the neighborhood divorcee, running around bare-ass naked — Bill leaves to get some ice and ends up atop Mrs. Nanette Nolan (MARIA DE ARAGON, star of the 1973 Filipino sci-fi flick Wonder Women) who is "what a head shrinker would probably call a nymphomaniac." Seeing Bill’s car parked in front of Mrs. Solan’s home, Sharon behaves like a proper suburban lady — she pulls out a handgun and fires it into the house: "I want to kill that filthy bitch!"
Things get similarly violent when Keith Hunter (PAUL FLEMING, who looks like William Shatner’s evil twin), a business associate of her husband, tries to seduce Sharon in the middle of the afternoon. She’s appalled: "Unfortunately, I don’t believe in adultery!" He quickly breaks down her resistance by ripping off all her clothes and attacking her and... well... whaddayaknow...she Iikes it! Before long, Keith owns Bill’s business and Sharon. Bill, of course, handles this like a mature adult: he asks both Nanette and Marge to run away with him and, when they demur, he attacks Marge, shoves her in a closet, and kidnaps his own kids.. ..Oddly enough, for a film so filled with the pain of love gone bad, it all ends as a surprisingly screwball comedy!
Despite being relentlessly unsympathetic here, leading man Peter Carpenter made another attempt at stardom (he following year with two films he also wrote and produced — Point of Terror and Blood Mania. He also must have enjoyed working with his lovely costars in this as he hired Dyanne Thorne to star with him in Point, and Maria de Aragon in Blood. Oddly, the poor guy’s even more unsympathetic in those and he failed to become a household name. Not so with Miss Thorne, of course, who became an instant cult icon with Ilsa and its sequels. (You can also spot her in Blood Sabbath, Chesty Anderson USN, The Erotic Adventures of Pinoccio, and Harry Novak’s Wham! Bam! Thank You, Spaceman.) We love ya, Dyanne!
So be the first on your block to watch Love Me Like I Do — which, at 101 minutes is practically a goddamn epic— and, of course, invite the neighbors....
From a 35mm she-wolf-of-suburbia print. —
Handsome Harry Archer
SKU: 3029
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1970
Color: Color
Starring: Dyanne Thorne
Co-starring: Peter Carpenter
Other cast: Paul Flemming, Maria de Aragon
Directed by: J. Van Hearn