Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens was Russ Meyer’s final feature film. It’s his most outrageous movie and that’s really saying something.

The script was credited by Meyer and Roger Ebert but according to Meyer it was mostly Ebert’s work. Ebert was involved in the writing of several of Meyer’s later films.

For me Peak Meyer is from 1964 to 1968, with Lorna, Mudhoney, Vixen and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! being his greatest movies. His final trio of movies, Supervixens, Up! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens push his vision beyond the limits of sanity and good taste.

Any Meyer movie is going to have insane amounts of inspired visual insanity and energy and this movie has plenty of both.

Meyer has some interesting things to say on the commentary track. This was his final film, not because his movies were no longer popular, but because it was no longer possible to get distribution. Multiplexes would not show his movies.

1979 was a time of flux as far as exploitation movies were concerned. Hardcore had destroyed the softcore grindhouse market. The mainstream market was off-limits. Home video had not yet emerged. Within a few years the direct-to-video market would have been perfect for Meyer’s purposes but by that time he had lost interest.

The setting for this movie is a small town called Smalltown. Lamar Shedd (Ken Kerr) and his wife Lavonia (Kitten Natividad) are having marital problems. Lavonia is disgusted by Lamar’s obsession with anal sex. She looks for gratification elsewhere, in the arms of garbage collector Mr Peterbuilt. As does Lamar looks elsewhere as well. Lavinia also moonlights as stripper Lola Langusta.

Lamar and Lavonia seek help from a marriage counsellor, but he turns out to want to do to Lamar what Lamar wants to do with Lavonia.

Perhaps spiritual guidance can help. Local radio evangelist Eufaula Roop (Anne Marie) is sure she can teach Lamar to pleasure a woman the way Lavonia wants to be pleasured.

Insofar as there’s any semblance of a plot is that in their own mad ways Lamar and Lavonia are trying to save their marriage. But mostly the plot is just a succession of wild crazy vignettes.

The acting is what you expect in a Meyer film - exaggerated to the point of parody and then pushed even further.

The movie’s biggest asset is Kitten Natividad. Apart from her amazing body, her breathtaking lack of inhibition and her manic energy she’s also genuinely funny.

The key to appreciating Meyer’s films, especially his 70s films, is to see them as sexed-up ultra-violent riffs on the classic Looney Tunes cartoons. His films have the same self-awareness, the same tendency to self-consciously draw attention to their own artificiality and filmic-ness, the same wild absurdity, the same manic energy, they treat violence in the same way (exaggerating it to such absurd lengths that it becomes hilarious rather than disturbing), the same wild surreal touches and the same anarchic qualities.

Meyer takes this stylistic approach and adds the machine-gun editing style he first perfected in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And by this time he was utilising an onscreen narrator (in this case Stuart Lancaster) to provide a running commentary, adding even more to the artificiality. Offhand I can’t think of another American filmmakers whose embrace of deliberate artificiality was so total and so radical.

This is softcore but Meyer is pushing the limits of softcore quite a bit here. The nudity is very explicit and the sex scenes get quite graphic.

No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum you will be able to find something here to shock and offend you. But if you do get offended just remember that Meyer has set you up for it - he is yanking your chain. He is baiting you. If you take the bait then that’s on you.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is a bizarre roller-coaster ride of sex and silliness. They don’t make movies like this any more. Highly recommended.

Severin’s Blu-Ray release is an enormous improvement on the old out-of-print DVD release.

Sex and Zen (1991)

Sex and Zen was released by Golden Harvest in 1991 and it is one of the more notorious Hong Kong Category III movies.

Category III was a censorship rating introduced in 1988, similar to the American NC-17 rating. No-one under 18 was allowed to see such films. The NC-17 rating never worked because in the U.S. distributors and exhibitors conspired to wreck the commercial prospects of any film unlucky enough to get such a classification. The Hong Kong Category III rating worked because it was a genuine and honest attempt to allow filmmakers to deal with grown-up subject matter with a reasonable degree of freedom.

Category III movies usually had both graphic violence and explicit sex and nudity. Sex and Zen concentrates on the sex. It’s a wild insane sex comedy.

Mei Yeung-Sheng (Lawrence Ng) is a scholar who believes that what really matters in life is the pursuit of erotic pleasure without reference to conventional rules of morality. This has led to a clash with the wise monk known as the Sack Monk who has tried to persuade him to embrace the virtues of self-denial.

The wise old monk assures the young scholar that no matter how clever you might be the pursuit of other men’s wives will lead to disaster. Retribution is a certainty. Mei Yeung-Sheng refuses to listen.

Mei Yeung-Sheng marries Huk-Yeung (Amy Yip), the daughter of a rich and powerful man known as Master Iron Gate. Huk-Yeung thinks sex is shameful. Their wedding night might not be a total success for the young couple but it provides a great deal of amusement for the audience.

Mei Yeung-Sheng continues his pursuit of women aided by cat burglar Choi Kun-Lun (Lo Lieh). His ability to break into homes and pick locks will be useful - Mei Yeung-Sheng will use the most unscrupulous methods in pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Choi Kun-Lun persuades Mei Yeung-Sheng that his problem with women is that his equipment is not adequate for the job. He needs a hardware upgrade.

The movie now becomes steadily more crazy and outrageous. The young scholar finds a surgeon who can perform the upgrade. The operation should go smoothly as long as it doesn’t rain - this surgeon gets very jumpy when it rains.

And as long as the horse co-operates.

The scholar is only too anxious to find out if the upgrade has been successful. He doesn’t get any complaints from the ladies.

Mei Yeung-Sheng embarks on an erotic spree which gets him into a certain amount of trouble.

After their marriage his wife Huk-Yeung (Amy Yip) had quickly discovered that sex isn’t disgusting after all. In fact she likes it very much indeed. But her husband is away most of the time. She finds some very imaginative ways to provide pleasure to herself but it’s just not the same. She needs a man. She needs a man real bad.

She finds one, in the form of the gardener. Which leads to complicated and unfortunate results. For just about everybody.

Sex and Zen is based on Li Yu’s seventeenth-century erotic novel The Carnal Prayer Mat.

The sex scenes are frequent, very imaginatively shot and very very explicit. And at times very kinky. If you are easily shocked or offended you might want to keep right away from this movie.

Sex and Zen might not be for the faint-hearted but on the other hand it really is very funny and it’s wild and crazy. Highly recommended.

Umbrella’s Blu-Ray release offers a lovely transfer. The main extra is an interview with the director.

Erotic Ghost Story (1990)

Erotic Ghost Story is a 1990 Golden Harvest release directed by Lam Ngai Kai. It’s one of those Hong Kong movies that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre. It’s a horror movie, an erotic movie, a sex comedy and a quirky supernatural romance gone wrong movie. It’s a Category III movie, equivalent to a U.S. NC-17 rating.

There’s a strange opening sequence in which bandits take some girls into the woods for some fun but what the bandits get is horror and terror.

Mostly this sequence lets us know that we shouldn’t take any of the characters at face value and that we are going to be dealing with the supernatural.

We might three pretty girls. We assume at first that they are sisters. The way one of them (Pai, also referred to as Big Sis) deals with an importunate bandit suggests that they have some formidable kung fu skills.

Pai meets an old wandering Taoist priest. They have a bit of a fight but he is perhaps trying to tell her something. Something that she will remember later. She will meet the old Taoist master again.

The sisters encounter a shy young scholar. He is being pursued by brigands. He is rescued by the oldest of the sisters. He is horrified at the impropriety when she touches his hand.

But just as the three girls are not what they seem to be so the young scholar is not a shy sexually repressed bookworm. He’s a demon, and a very very lustful demon.

From the start you’re going to realise that there’s something odd about these three girls. Are they ghosts? Shape-shifters of some kind? Witches? The title (at least the English-language version of the title) might lead you to suspect that they’re ghosts. Given that ghosts in Chinese folklore are corporeal that seems plausible. Chinese ghosts can eat and drink and have sex. But these girls are not ghosts. They’re foxes. Fox spirits. Which are a big thing in Chinese folklore. Such foxes can assume human form. They’re slightly similar to the old European folkloric concept of fairies in the sense that they’re not evil but they can be troublesome and dangerous. Or they can be harmless. In this movie the girls are definitely not the least bit evil. Although they are rather lustful!

These three girls are trying by means of Taoist study to achieve a permanent transformation from their fox forms into human form.

Their problem is that they just can’t keep their clothes on when the young scholar is around.

The movie seems to be settling into being a lighthearted romance with some sex comedy touches. There are plenty of comic moments that are genuinely amusing. And lots of sex. This is a Category III movie. This is strong softcore with very explicit female nudity and fairly raunchy sex scenes. The sex is good-natured and joyous. These girls enjoy a good tumble with a man.

The girls and the scholar are having lots of good times until one of the girls notices something very disturbing about herself. Something is happening to her.

Now Pai remembers the old Taoist master. She may need his help. The girls’ kung fu skills will not be enough to deal with the situation.

The movie now becomes more of an action movie and much more of a horror movie.

The three lead actresses are all good and they’re all pretty and they’re likeable. Pal Sin is very good as the young scholar. All of the cast members are quite comfortable when it comes to handling the comic moments.

And it’s a visually impressive movie. It’s obvious that the aim with the special effects was to make them crazy and fun.

Erotic Ghost Story has plenty of style and energy and entertainment value. It’s a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

If this movie whets your appetite for Chinese folklore and especially for stories of fox-spirits get hold of Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (readily available English translations).

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers a lovely transfer and quite a few extras including two audio commentaries. This is one of those rare cases in which an audio commentary really is useful. To appreciate this movie fully you need to know at least a couple of things about Chinese folklore, and about Category III movies.

Bikini Airways (2003)

Bikini Airways is a 2003 made-for cable skinflick. It’s a sex comedy but essentially it’s a skinflick. But it is directed by inspired low-budget cult auteur Fred Olen Ray so that makes it a more enticing prospect. And Ray knew how to get surprisingly good results on almost non-existent budgets.

It benefits from a basically good central idea.

Terri (Regina Russell) suddenly finds herself the owner of an airline. Which is not as great as it sounds since the airline employs a total of two people and is on the verge of bankruptcy. There is no money, but plenty of debts.

Terri knows that the only thing that can save the airline is publicity, preferably free publicity. Her boyfriend is a photographer and he specialises in nudie stuff. He suggests that hot near-naked babes would provide perfect publicity. And he is sure he can persuade his three gorgeous regular models to lend their talents to the scheme.

Having three bikini babes manning the check-in counter attracts attention but no customers, but the boyfriend still has one idea left. A young oil tycoon, Gary (Brad Bartram), had a bachelor party planned for the day before his wedding but since he has to get to Miami in a hurry for the nuptials there’s no time to have that party. But what if Terri’s airline could fly Gary and his friends to Miami and he could have the bachelor party on the way, on the plane?

Those three bikini babes will provide the entertainment.

The entertainment they provide is in the form of lots of hot steamy sex. These girls have a lot of energy and a lot of imagination, and no inhibitions at all.

There is, lurking in the background, an actual plot of sorts. It involves two relationships heading for the rocks and the chance of finding true love in unexpected places.

Comic relief is provided by the broken-down chief pilot Captain Sam and his incompetent co-pilot Dave. Captain Sam spends most of the flight taking photos of the sexual gymnastics taking place in the passenger cabin. We do have serious doubts about their piloting abilities.

This is a softcore film but the sex scenes get pretty raunchy and there are lots of sex scenes. Fred Olen Ray doesn’t have the genius of a Radley Metzger when it comes to shooting sex scenes but he does know how to make them steamy and sweaty.

Overall this is a good-natured movie. The photographer boyfriend is a bit of a jerk but he’s not evil, it’s just that he can’t keep it in his pants. And he is exposed to some pretty extreme temptation. You can’t entirely blame him for having it off with one of the Bikini Airways babes. Gary’s two friends get it on with the other two babes, but the girls are after all being provided as the in-flight entertainment.

And Terri and Gary take quite an interest in each other.

It’s all cheerfully naughty and nobody really gets hurt.

The acting is at best passable but let’s face it the cast members were chosen for their willingness to take their clothes off. Jay Richardson as Captain Sam is quite good fun. Regina Russell is likeable.

If you accept Bikini Airways for what it is, a skinflick with some amusing moments, and you don’t have a problem with naked girls and lots of sex scenes it’s rather enjoyable. Recommended.

The Retromedia Blu-Ray looks very nice. Extras include another much less interesting made-for-cable skinflick.

I Am a Nymphomaniac (1971)

I Am a Nymphomaniac (Je suis une nymphomane) is a 1971 French softcore erotic film directed by Max Pécas who also co-wrote the script.

Carole (Sandra Julien) is a rather innocent very sexually repressed girl living in a provincial town in France. She’s a virgin and she gets nervous if her boyfriend Eric (Alain Hitier) makes even the slightest attempt at physical intimacy.

One thing I liked is that this film doesn’t resort to crude clichés like childhood trauma to explain her previous sexual repression. Her childhood was not nightmarish. It was just boring. Her parents did not mistreat her. They were just dull and conformist and very repressed. Her life was simply stifling.

Then Carole has an accident. She falls down a flight of stairs. She suffers no serious physical injuries but something very serious has happened to her brain. She is now a nymphomaniac! She can’t stop touching herself and she can’t stop thinking about the pleasures of the flesh.

She is of course appalled. Even thinking about such things is wicked.

She now feels like a scarlet woman and she will of course have to leave her home and go to Paris. That’s where wicked women go.

After her boss’s nephew seduces her boss sends her to Paris to work for his sister. Murielle (Janine Reynaud) runs an art gallery so we figure that she is probably sexually depraved. Which turns out to be the case. Murielle seduces her and then sets her up with decadent Roman businessman Bruno (Michel Lemoine).

Carole naturally seeks medical help but while she is assured that nymphomania is curable it sounds like it will be a long cure. She decides to try religion but that doesn’t seem to help.

As a nymphomaniac she’s a bit of an under-achiever. But any sexual urges at all have always horrified her and they still horrify her. She is consumed with guilt. After a bizarre carnival sequence she tries to slash her wrists.

Then kindly handsome young doctor Michel (Patrick Verde). He is sure he can cure her. He moves her into his apartment. Yes, you might think that’s a bit ethically dubious but even though Carole is smokin’ hot and perpetually horny he is never tempted by her. He’s a doctor. No doctor would take advantage of a patient in a situation like this. Even when she takes her clothes off and starts climbing all over him in bed he isn’t tempted. Doctors are so dedicated!

The story is played very very straight. The temptation would have been to take a tongue-in-cheek approach but that temptation is resisted.

In an odd way the fact that it’s played so straight makes it feel more wild and crazy than it would have been had it been played overtly wild and crazy. It’s extremely difficult to believe that the audience is expected to take all this nonsense seriously. Carole is subjected to a battery of physical examinations to determine whether she’s a true nymphomaniac.

Of course it’s also possible that Pécas was trying to avoid censorship problems, much as early 60s American sexploitation movies would offer lots of salacious material but add a preface in which a respectable doctor would warn us that this is a serious film addressing a problem that threatens the nation’s youth and the moral fibre of society. In other words Pécas may be offering what exploitation filmmakers called a “square-up” - presenting titillation in the guise of a public service.

In fact I’m convinced that Pécas is winking at us and assumes that we are not going to take anything in this movie the slightest bit seriously.

The acting is mostly OK. Sandra Julien is gorgeous and is able to sell us on the idea that Carole is a sweet innocent girl tortured by her lusts. The standout performer is the always amazing Janine Raynaud as the cheerfully depraved Murielle.

The sex scenes are tame but they’re artfully and imaginatively shot in a manner reminiscent of Radley Metzger’s style.

I Am a Nymphomaniac is most interesting for its odd subtle off-kilter feel. I enjoyed it and I recommend it.

I’ve reviewed a much earlier Max Pécas movie, Daniella By Night (1961), a spy thriller romance staring Elke Sommer and the excellent classy sophisticated juvenile delinquent movie Sweet Violence (1962), again with Elke Sommer.

Adventures of a Private Eye (1977)

Adventures of a Private Eye was the second of the three “Adventures of” British sex comedies. It was Britain’s biggest box office hit of 1977. The previous film in the series, Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976), had been a box-office smash as well.

Stanley A. Long was both producer and director and he owned the production company and he owned the distribution company as well. Which meant that he made a great deal of money out of these films. And they were very low-budget movies so the box-office receipts were mostly pure profit.

Bob West (Christopher Neil) is a private detective. Or at least he works for a very successful private detective, Judd Blake (Jon Pertwee). Bob West is just his assistant. Judd considers that Bob is just about capable of making the coffee and that’s it (and he’s right). When Judd heads off for a holiday with his gorgeous dolly bird secretary he gives Bob strict instructions not to try to handle any cases on his own.

Needless to say Bob ignores these instructions and when glamorous blonde Laura (Suzy Kendall) asks him to take on a case Bob agrees.

Laura is being blackmailed over some salacious photos, which is a problem because a scandal could cost her her inheritance, and that inheritance is enormous.

Naturally Bob proves to be a totally inept private eye.

The members of the family of Laura’s deceased husband might be behind the blackmail but Bob convinces himself that the culprit is photographer Scott Radley (Robin Stewart).

The case gets complicated by murder and Bob’s crime-solving efforts cause mayhem.

It has been said that the trouble with the British sex comedies of the 70s is that they’re not sexy and they’re not funny. That’s a bit unfair, but it is true in some cases. It’s certainly true here.

The basic premise is fine. One can certainly imagine a private eye getting into situations with the potential for sexiness and humour. But it all falls flat.

This is the least sexy sex comedy in motion picture history. In fact it’s a movie that gives the impression that Long was going out of his way to avoid being sexy. Time and again a situation is set up with overwhelmingly obvious potential for sexy shenanigans and absolutely nothing happens. In the entire movie there are about three very brief very tame nude scenes which occupy in total about 15 seconds of the film’s 96-minute running time.

This is a sex comedy without the sex.

There is some comedy. There are some amusing scenes. There is some amusing dialogue. But nowhere near enough. There’s plenty of frenetic action but comedy requires frenetic action and gags, and the gags are few are far between. There's too much plot and not enough fun.

Of course comedy is very much a matter of personal taste and I have to lay my cards on the table here - I am not a fan of slapstick. And this movies relies heavily on slapstick. I just don’t think that a hero who keeps falling over things is particularly funny. This was apparently deliberate. Stanley Long disliked double entendres and tried to avoid them. Which is a problem, double entendres being pretty much an essential ingredient in a sex comedy. Long loved slapstick. If you share his enthusiasm for slapstick you might enjoy this movie a lot more than I did.

Stanley A. Long was a major player in British sexploitation cinema for two decades. Which makes it intriguing that Adventures of a Private Eye is so incredibly coy.

Christopher Neil handles the lead role extremely well. I like Suzy Kendall as an actress but she was an odd choice as the female lead. She had obviously made it clear that she would not do any nude scenes or sex scenes. Since she’s not given any really funny lines either it was hardly worthwhile casting her.

Sex comedies were being made in lots of different countries at this time, for the same reasons - film industries were going down the gurgler and sex comedies at least had a chance of making money. There were Italian sex comedies, such as The Nurse (1975). Japanese sex comedies, such as Nurse Girl Dorm: Sticky Fingers (1985). And Australian sex comedies, like Alvin Purple (1973). For my money the Italian, Japanese and Australian efforts were a lot sexier and a lot funnier than the British efforts.

I’ve also reviewed Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976) which I think is a marginally better film. For comparison I’ve also reviewed the first of the Confessions movies, Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974). And I’ve reviewed Come Play With Me (1977) which is one of few British sex comedies that I’ve really enjoyed (and it really is very very sexy). Interestingly, Stanley A. Long despised that film. Mary Millington's other notable sex comedy, The Playbirds (1978) is also worth seeing.

I have a high tolerance for 70s British sex comedies but Adventures of a Private Eye is a bit disappointing. It’s worth a look if you’re going to buy the boxed set anyway.

All three Adventures movies are included in a Powerhouse Indicator Blu-Ray set. This movie gets a good transfer, and extras include a director’s commentary track and a fine video essay by Simon Sheridan.

The ABC of Love and Sex: Australia Style (1978)

John D. Lamond’s 1978 ozploitation opus The ABC of Love and Sex: Australia Style was very obviously a follow-up to his 1976 success Australia After Dark so you might assume that this is going to follow the same formula. To a superficial extent it does (they’re both a collection of erotic vignettes) but it’s actually quite different in some surprising ways.

Australia After Dark is very much a mondo movie and it has all of the weirdness and all of the idiosyncracies of that peculiar genre. It’s deliberately outrageous and not intended to be taken the least bit seriously.

The ABC of Love and Sex is a sex education film. Well, sort of. Of course the intentions are entirely commercial. It is in reality a sexploitation feature. There were reasons for choosing the sex education film format, which we’ll get to later.

As the title suggests the movie goes through the alphabet, giving us brief snippets of information/entertainment on various topics related to sex. A is for Anatomy, C is for Contraception, etc.

The actors and actresses give visual demonstrations. For example, for Anatomy they take their clothes off.

There is an extraordinary amount of both male and female frontal nudity. And lots of sex.

The film was shot mostly in Melbourne but with some shooting in Sweden (including scenes in a live sex club).

This is a movie that tries to be whimsical and lighthearted but also tries to convince us that it’s a real sex education film (in fact most of the information about sex is quite factual). As a result the movie has an odd mixture of tones which gives it a certain offbeat charm.

It also tries really hard to be positive. F is for Fun. Yes, sex is allowed to be fun. Fun was legal in 1978.

Don’t expect to be convulsed with laughter but it does have a few amusing moments.

Given that it was made in 1978 you won’t be surprised to learn that it’s deliciously and gleefully and uncompromisingly offensive, dated and problematic.

It’s also entertaining in its own odd way, and erotic in a strange sort of way.

The most startling thing about this movie is that many of the sex scenes are clearly, obviously and very visibly non-simulated. Yes, these guys and gals are actually getting it on. There’s lots of visible penetration. We’re not talking about blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpses. There’s even very obviously non-simulated fellatio. This movie is certainly borderline hardcore. Well, actual hardcore.

Presumably the producers figured that if they presented the movie as educational they would be able to get away with a lot more. In fact they didn’t get away with it and the censors made quite a few cuts. Those cuts have been restored for Umbrella’s DVD release.

These kinds of sex education movies released as sexploitation were moderately common at the time, the best-known being the Swedish The Language of Love (1969). The Swedes of course managed to make sex seem like a dreary but necessary biological function, about as exciting as brushing your teeth. But The ABC Of Love is Australian so it suggests that sex is something you might actually enjoy doing.

The ABC of Love and Sex: Australia Style has an oddball appeal. It’s so very very 70s, and very very Australian. Recommended for those reasons. John D. Lamond went on to direct Felicity (1978), one of the best softcore erotic movies ever made.

Umbrella paired this one with Australia After Dark on a double-header DVD. The transfer is not dazzling but it’s perfectly acceptable.

Horny Working Girl: From 5 to 9 (1982)

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Pacific Banana (1980)

Pacific Banana is a 1980 ozploitation sex comedy directed by John D. Lamond.

When the Australian film industry was reborn at the beginning of the 70s it quickly split into two bitterly opposed camps. On one side was the official respectable industry that made the government happy (these movies were all financed by the government) and pleased critics. These were middle-brow movies with artistic pretensions and everybody knew these were good movies because they were dull and could never have been made unless the taxpayer footed the bill. They were seen as movies that would give people overseas a favourable impression of Australia and of the artiness and seriousness of Australian filmmakers.

On the other side were the ozploitation filmmakers. They made movies that people actually wanted to see, which enraged Australian film critics. Their movies made money, which enraged critics even more. Their movies sold well overseas and made money on the drive-in circuit in the U.S., which was yet another black mark against them.

John D. Lamond definitely belonged to this disreputable side of the industry. In 1978 he had an international success with Felicity, by far the best of the countless 1970s Emmanuelle rip-offs.

He followed up that success with Pacific Banana.

This movie concerns a young airline pilot named Martin (Graeme Blundell). His problem is that after a traumatic sexual misadventure he can no longer perform in the bedroom. This sexual misadventure also cost him his job. He ends up flying an ancient DC-3 for Banana Airlines, a cheap broken-down airline at the bottom of the airline food chain.

His pal Paul (Robin Stewart) on the other hand can perform anywhere at any time. He has two fiancées, Sally (Deborah Gray) and Mandy (Alyson Best). They’re Banana Airlines stewardesses. In fact they’re the airline’s only stewardesses.

In Tahiti Martin’s friends do everything they can to help him overcome his problems. He is offered sexual temptations which no man could resist, but poor Martin fails to rise to the occasion.

Even the amazing Candy Bubbles (Luan Peters) is helpless in the face of Martin’s inadequacies, and Candy has never failed to arouse a man’s interests.

The problem has some connection with the female members of the Blandings family, and especially with the young Julia Blandings (Helen Hemingway) who seems to terrify Martin. And Julia keeps showing up.

The basic idea is fine. Lamond knew how to do this sort of thing. The script is by Alan Hopgood, who wrote Alvin Purple (one of the best sex comedies of the 70s). Graeme Blundell is perfectly cast. There’s an exotic setting. There are lots of lovely ladies. There’s a huge amount of nudity. All the right ingredients are there, and it works up to a point but it doesn’t quite come off.

The voiceover narration is a major problem. Not only is is unfunny, it actually detracts from much of the humour. The pie fight was a terrible idea. The slapstick elements are lame and out of place.

It does have some very funny moments. It has the right playful feel and the abundant nudity and sex are handled in a cheerful good-natured way.

The ladies are not just lovely. They prove themselves to be very adept at comedy. The whole cast is good.

Umbrella’s DVD looks extremely good. Extras include an interview with Lamond speaking very wittily and amusingly about his career plus a featurette which includes Lamond, scriptwriter Alan Hopgood and star Deborah Gray (who seems to have thoroughly enjoyed making this movie).

Pacific Banana is very good in parts but one can’t help feeling it should have been just a little better. It’s still amusing and sexy and it’s worth a recommended rating.

Speaking of Australian sex comedies, I’ve reviewed Alvin Purple (1973) which I highly recommend. I’ve also reviewed Lamond’s Felicity (1978) which is absolutely top-tier erotica.

The Voyeur (1994)

The Voyeur (L'uomo che guarda) is a 1994 Tinto Brass movie based (loosely) on Alberto Moravia's novel.

Tinto Brass has had a fascinating career. In the 60s he was being hailed as the next Antonioni. His art-movie credentials were impeccable. Then in 1976 he made Salon Kitty and all hell broke loose. It dealt with a subject that obsessed Brass at the time - the links between absolute power and sexual excess. It was not a movie for the faint-hearted. He followed it up with Caligula which ignited an even bigger firestorm.

After which Brass more or less decided to go his own way. He’d make the movies he wanted to make and if the critics hated them then that was their problem. And the movies Brass wanted to make were erotic movies. Intelligent, sophisticated, witty, arty erotic movies.

The 70s had been the heyday of art porn, a period when it really did seem possible (to a lot of people) to make erotic art movies. Some put the emphasis more on art than eroticism and some focused more on the eroticism. The results were mixed but some genuinely extremely good and interesting movies were made. By the 80s the advent of home video and hardcore killed the softcore movie market stone dead. What Brass wanted to do was simply no longer possible. He did it anyway. And made a successful new career out of it.

Tinto Brass made arty erotic movies but do not make the mistake of thinking that these movies are going to be dull, earnest and miserable (as is usually the case when British or American directors try to do arty erotica). Most of Brass’s erotic films contain a great deal of humour and quite a few are in fact arty sophisticated sex comedies. Brass is famous for his love of the female posterior but there’s a lot more to him than that. He has a playful sense of humour. He has the crazy idea that sexuality is a good thing and that sex can be enjoyable. It can also be amusing.

Which brings us to The Voyeur. Eduardo (Dodò to his friends) is a professor of French literature. He is married to Silvia (Katarina Vasilissa). They live with his bedridden father who is also a professor. He is bedridden due to an accident but is expected to recover. Silvia has moved out but she still sleeps with Dodò. She seems strangely distant emotionally. Dodò thinks she may be having an affair.

Dodò is a voyeur, in a sense. It is partly a sexual kink with him but it’s also a professional interest. The main focus of his academic work is voyeurism in art and literature, but voyeurism in a wider sense than the purely erotic. To Dodò the pleasure of observing is one of the keys, perhaps the principal key, to an understanding of art and literature.

He met his wife through his interest in voyeurism - he used to spy on her through her open window. Then he found out that she knew he was watching and it excited her. Silvia is an exhibitionist so they’re well-matched.

Dodò begins to suspect that Silvia is having an affair with his father. His father is certainly very interested in sex, and he receives certain sexual favours from his pretty nurse Fausta (Cristina Garavaglia). Dodò has watched them together.

Dodò becomes increasingly obsessed. He is insanely jealous. He has to find out what is really going on even if it leads to disaster.

This is a movie about voyeurism but it’s also a movie about secrets, and lies, and fantasies. Some of the secret things may be merely fantasies. Some of the lies may not be lies. And when we observe things we can’t always be sure that they’re true, and if they are true we can’t always be sure what they mean. Fantasies can be difficult to distinguish from reality. Dodò may in fact be living in a world of his own fantasies. On the other hand it might all be true.

So there’s lots of artiness here. There is also a staggering amount of both male and female frontal nudity. And lots of quite graphic sex. It goes as far as it’s possible to go while remaining softcore, and then a little bit further. Not surprisingly it did not get a U.S. theatrical release.

Tinto Brass himself has never made any secret of his voyeuristic obsession with the female form so this is a voyeuristic movie about voyeurism made by a voyeur and watching the movie is an exercise in voyeurism, all of which is exactly what Brass intended it to be.

Brass’s later movies tended to be shunned by critics who refused to consider the possibility that such very sexually explicit movies might be intelligent and emotionally nuanced. They also failed to understand that Brass was deliberately provoking them. In addition they could not possibly grasp the idea that erotica might be done with humour.

The Voyeur is a genuine attempt to grapple with subject matter that other directors with his early art-house credentials would never dare to confront. It’s intriguing and it’s highly recommended.

This is one of three films included in the UK Fifty Shades of Tinto Brass DVD set. The Voyeur has since been released on Blu-Ray by Cult Epics.

I’ve also reviewed Brass’s excellent Monella (1998) as well as Tra(sgre)dire (2000).