For Men Only (1967)

For Men Only (originally titled I Like Birds) was written, produced and directed by Pete Walker and released in 1967. It was almost Walker’s first feature film. I say almost because with a running time of just 43 minutes it’s halfway between a short and a feature film. It’s included in the four-movie 88 Films Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection Blu-Ray set.

For Men Only is very similar in style and tone to Walker’s first proper feature film, School for Sex. Both are sex comedies, or at least they would have been but the narrow-minded puritanical British Chief Film Censor had no intention of allowing the Great British Public to be corrupted by such filth. As a result both movies are so ridiculously tame that they just fall rather flat. But both movies existed in two different cuts - the limp British cuts and much spicier cuts intended for European markets.

Happily 88 Films have included the sexier scenes from the continental version as extras so it’s possible to see what Pete Walker actually intended these movies to be - good-natured, amusing, lively and sexy.

Freddie Horne (David Kernan) is a journalist for Woman’s Vogue, or at least he was until his fiancée Rosalie (Andrea Allan) forced him to give up the job. She didn’t want him spending so much time with glamorous fashion models.

Her father has found him a more respectable job, working for a magazine publishing house that specialises in serious highly moral religious magazines.

Freddie gets a shock when he goes to the country house of the chairman of this publishing house, Miles Fanthorpe (Derek Aylward). He discovers that Fanthorpe’s real business is not religious magazines but girlie magazines. The religious magazines are just a front.

Fanthorpe’s house is full of very pretty very scantily-clad girls. The girlie photography is done here. Freddie knows that Rosalie won’t approve but Fanthorpe assures him she’ll never find out. And Freddie does have an eye for lovely young ladies.

Of course it’s all going to get rather fraught when Freddie forgets about his prospective father-in-law’s silver wedding anniversary party and Rosalie sets off to Fanthorpe’s country house to fetch him. Even worse, her father turns up soon afterwards. To put the icing on the cake the vicar and two very respectable church ladies also show up, to demonstrate their appreciation for Fanthorpe’s campaign for the moral cleansing of Britain.

Rosalie gets in a few embarrassing situations, falling into a bathtub and having to take off her sodden dress only to be mistaken for one of the models.

Freddie ends up sharing another bathtub with a couple of naked young ladies.

This film is very similar to School for Sex. Both have ideal plots for sex comedies but neither film manages to extract quite as many laughs from the situations as one might have wished.

For Men Only is however good-natured and light-hearted and energetic.

Derek Aylward to a large extent carries the film. He was remarkably good at playing characters who were gentlemen on the surface but likeable rogues underneath.

David Kernan is quite OK as the somewhat flustered hero.

It’s a movie that would like to be shocking but doesn’t quite dare to do so.

For Men Only was released as the second half of various double bills and apparently did reasonably well.

The short running time turns out to be an asset. It means that the action keeps moving along and the movie is less likely to wear out its welcome.

It’s interesting as marking the beginning of Pete Walker’s career (if you don’t count the 8mm nudie shorts he’d been making for several years). Walker developed quite quickly. School for Sex in 1969 would be an improvement on this film and it was followed by the rather excellent Cool It, Carol! a year later. For Men Only isn’t great but it’s worth a look.

The Blu-Ray provides a nice transfer but apart from the racier scenes from the continental version it’s bereft of extras.

Deadly Sweet (1967)

Deadly Sweet (Col cuore in gola) is a 1967 giallo directed by Tinto Brass.

Tinto Brass’s career has been interesting to say the least. In the 60s and early 70s he was establishing himself as an art-house director, even being hailed as the next Antonioni. Then in 1976 came his first examination of the link between extreme sex and absolute power, Salon Kitty. It ignited a firestorm of controversy. He intended his next film, Caligula, to be a further exploration of the same topic. Caligula of course had a famously chaotic production history and was savaged by critics who had decided they hated the movie even before they had seen it.

Brass responded by totally reinventing himself, as a maker of erotic movies. He wanted to make high-quality intelligent erotic movies at a time when this was commercially impossible. Brass didn’t care and went ahead anyway and carved out a successful career. What’s interesting, considering the extreme nature of Salon Kitty and Caligula, is that his later erotic movies are cheerful and good-natured.

So a giallo from Tinto Brass is a bit of a surprise.

Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) spots a pretty girl at a night-club. She is Jane Burroughs (Ewa Aulin). She’s there with her brother Jerome (Charles Kohler). Their father was killed in a car accident a few days earlier. Bernard goes to see the manager of the club because he has been refused credit. He finds the manager dead. Murdered. And Jane Burroughs is there but she swears she didn’t kill him.

Bernard is now mixed up in whatever it is that Jane is mixed up in, which seems to include both blackmail and murder. There is a photograph that must be retrieved.

We have no idea who Bernard is. He knows how to handle a gun. He could be a private eye, an undercover cop, a spy, a gangster or maybe just a guy who likes to help cute girls in trouble. We eventually find out that he is an actor, and it’s appropriate that Trintignant is an actor playing an actor since this is a movie in which the line between reality and fiction is constantly blurred. This is certainly not a realist film.

There’s plenty of trouble in store. Jane gets kidnapped. There’s another murder. Bernard finds opportunities to use his gun. He gets knocked unconscious by a midget. He and Jane are pursued by heavies.

They do find the time to fall in love and sleep together.

Bernard is determined to unravel the puzzle. And it’s a nicely convoluted puzzle.

This is a movie set in England, directed by an Italian with a French leading man and a Swedish leading lady. In the case of some Italian movies shot in England you find yourself thinking that they could just as easily have been shot in Milan or Rome. In this case however the setting makes sense. This film is going very strongly for a Swinging London vibe.

There are nods to Antonioni’s Blow-Up and some direct references (Jane and Bernard pass a poster for the movie). Deadly Sweet does have some very slight hints of the flavour of Blow-Up. Deadly Sweet is a very 60s very Pop movie with a Pop Art verging on psychedelia visual style. Brass was aiming very much for a comic-book feel (Guido Crepax was a major influence on the film and drew some storyboards for it).

At times this movie is in danger of being too clever for its own good but for the most part Brass gets away with it because he really is clever and visually inventive and he imbues the film with lots of energy and style. We’re never quite sure how seriously he wants us to take this movie. My feeling is that we’re not supposed to take it seriously at all, we’re just supposed to enjoy the ride. And it is an enjoyable ride. There are some truly inspired visual moments.

When I describe Deadly Sweet as a giallo I have to qualify that a bit. The giallo genre can be divided into two phases. The second and better known began in 1970 with Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage - blood-drenched serial killer films with black-gloved killers and lots of spectacular murders. Prior to that, in the late 60s, was the proto-giallo phase - stylish erotic thrillers with often only one or two murders and often with very little blood. Personally I prefer these proto-giallos, such as Lucio Fulci's One on Top of the Other, Umberto Lenzi's So Sweet...So Perverse and Romolo Guerrieri's The Sweet Body of Deborah but that is of course purely a matter of personal taste.

Deadly Sweet fits into the proto-giallo phase, although perhaps it doesn’t fit as neatly as some other movies. It has some of the elements you find in these early giallos - you have a couple who aren’t really sure if they can trust each other, there are other important characters who may be treacherous, there are hints of sexual perversity, there’s an atmosphere of decadence although it’s not quite the decadence one associates with proto-giallos. This is the decadence of the cultural revolution of the 60s. This is pop youth culture decadence, not old money decadence.

The tone is all over the place, veering from being quite serious to being definitely tongue-in-cheek and then veering off into pure spoof territory. That should be a flaw but it adds to the movie’s offbeat quirkiness. Imagine a giallo made as an homage to Blow-Up but in the style of a Guido Crepax comic and you have Deadly Sweet. Surprisingly it turns out to be a lot of fun. Very highly recommended.

The Cult Epics DVD looks good and there’s an excellent audio commentary with Tinto Brass in which he reveals something rather amusing. There are quite a few shots in black-and-white and naturally you assume this has some deep significance. In fact he had to do those shots in conditions where there was no way to get enough light to shoot in colour so he just shot in black-and-white.

The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

The Mephisto Waltz is a 1971 gothic horror movie with a contemporary setting. I avoided this movie for years because of my allergic reaction to Alan Alda but I have to admit he does OK in this film.

Alda plays Myles Clarkson. Myles is a music journalist with a beautiful wife (Paula, played by Jacqueline Bisset) and a daughter. My most people’s standards he’s a success but he really wanted to be a concert pianist. He studied for years but never made the grade and as a result he’s always felt himself to be a bit of a failure.

He interviews Duncan Ely (Curd Jürgens), the world’s greatest living pianist. Duncan is struck by Myles’ hands. They are hands that any concert pianist would kill to possess.

Duncan and his daughter Roxanne Delancey (Barbara Parkins) become very friendly with the Clarksons. Myles is flattered. Myles is really an overgrown adolescent blinded by his hero-worship of Duncan. Paula, who is a whole lot smarter than her husband, is puzzled and suspicious.

Paula is very suspicious indeed of Roxanne. Her suspicions intensify when she sees Duncan kissing Roxanne at a party. It is not exactly a fatherly peck on the cheek. It’s a long passionate kiss. Paula has also noticed that Roxanne’s interest in Myles seems to have definite carnal overtones.

Paula also comes to suspect Roxanne of having odd interests in the occult.

Duncan Ely is an old man in poor health. His career as a concert pianist is all but over and he may not have long to live.

It won’t come as a great surprise that Duncan and Roxanne have hatched a plot. Their plan will necessitate making a demonic bargain but they’re OK with that. As Roxanne’s ex-husband puts it, they’re spoilt rich people who use the occult as an excuse for doing whatever they want to do without any regard for morality. What Duncan wants is to keep living, with a young body, preferably a young body with the kinds of hands a concert pianist needs. What Roxanne wants is to keep Daddy alive, bask in his reflected glory. She also has reasons to want Daddy to have a healthy young body, and not just so he can play the piano.

It’s a movie that is very much a part of the late 60s/70s wave of Hollywood movies dealing with Satanism and there’s an obvious Rosemary’s Baby influence.

There’s nothing remotely original here but in a horror movie the execution matters more than the originality of the concept. The execution here is certainly spirited. Director Paul Wendkos goes to town with spooky trippy visual effects and over-the-top dream sequences. The spooky creepy stuff is done in shamelessly excessive style. It’s all rather schlocky and totally lacking in subtlety but it’s fun.

You could say the same thing about Alan Alda’s performance. There’s zero nuance to it and he overacts outrageously but his performance works in the context of the movie’s overall style.

Jacqueline Bisset makes a bit more of an effort to do some real acting, with some success, and she looks stunning. Barbara Parkins as Roxanne oozes wicked depraved evilness.

This is a movie about Satanism but it’s not about world domination or the triumph of evil or the lust for power. It’s all about sexual desire, and not always healthy sexual desire. Paula is entirely obsessed sexually with Myles. Roxanne is sexually obsessed with Duncan. Duncan is obsessed with Paula. It’s a movie dripping with the decadence and depravity of the rich and fashionable.

Visually it’s very gimmicky in a very 70s way but that’s a large part of its charm. It also has a very TV movie feel, or rather the feel of a TV movie trying to look cinematic but not quite making it.

Whether you like the movie or not depends on your expectations. If you’re hoping for full-on horror you’ll be disappointed. If you’re hoping for something ground-breaking like Rosemary’s Baby you’ll be disappointed. It’s a movie with lesser ambitions which it doesn’t always achieve.

That’s not to say it’s a so-bad-it’s-good movie. That would be an unnecessarily harsh judgment. It’s competently made. The acting isn’t great but it’s right for the movie. It does have some spooky moments, and a few mild scares. The ending works pretty well. It does create an effectively decadent atmosphere - these are people using dark forces purely to enhance their own sensual pleasures. It has its flaws but it’s consistently entertaining and watchable.

Paul Wendkos made a few feature films (including the charming Gidget in 1959) but worked mostly in television, directing an astonishing number of TV movies including the rather good Fear No Evil (1969).

With all its flaws this movie is thoroughly enjoyable. Recommended.

In Hot Blood (1968)

In Hot Blood is a wild and crazy 1968 New York-shot sexploitation roughie. 

Nobody seems to be entirely sure of the identity of the director.

It takes a stock-standard exploitation plot line as its basis. It’s a warning of the dangers lying in wait for innocent girls trying to pursue a career in modelling. Such a career inevitably leads to sex, sin and degradation. Innocent young girls should stay on the farm rather than head to the big city in search of fame and fortune.

In this case the innocent girl is named Rita. She quickly finds out that she’ll not only have to take her clothes off, she’ll have to sleep with the photographer. And she’ll have to attend orgies.

Orgy scenes very rarely work since even in the softcore era of the 70s there was a definite limit to what you could show. The orgy scene in this film is quite bizarre. Our heroine spends most of her time eating a banana in what is supposed to be a very suggestive way but the actress just doesn’t seem quite sure how to achieve the intended effect.

The girls try their hands at body painting, a very 60s thing to do. Apparently you get better results if you suck the paintbrush first. Judging by what Rita does to her paintbrush she’s almost certain to create a masterpiece.

It has to be said that Rita doesn’t put up much resistance to temptation. It’s almost as if she enjoys sex and partying and orgies. She makes a couple of friends, Roberta and a black girl named Sandy. These three seem to be a welcome addition to any orgy.

Rita hasn’t realised that Roberta likes girls. She will find out. She doesn’t exactly seem concerned by this revelation. Rita doesn’t seem to be shocked by anything.

There’s also drug-taking at these orgies and that’s what leads to trouble. It leads to some bad craziness.

When danger threatens you’d think Rita and Roberta would take steps to avoid it but instead they take time out for some sapphic love-play. If you’ve ever wondered what lesbians actually do in bed this movie provides the answer. They rub each other’s nipples with ice cubes. It’s one of this movie’s more memorable WTF moments but it’s not the only one.

And then there’s the ending. I definitely didn’t see that coming. I won’t spoil things by even hinting at what happens except to say that it’s pretty wild.

This was 1968, when frontal nudity was still a bit of a rarity in sexploitation movies. That would start to change radically within a year or so. There’s no frontal nudity here but there is a great deal of kinkiness, much of it with an S&M flavour. The kinkiness comes across as bizarre rather than erotic.

The unknown director might not know how to make a coherent movie (or even a technically proficient movie) but he does have a reasonable awareness of how to achieve an atmosphere of decadence. And the movie does have a certain offbeat eroticism. The girls take their clothes off, then they get dressed, then ten seconds later they’re getting undressed again. Because seeing girls undressing is in fact pretty erotic.

There might not be frontal nudity but there’s an abundance of boobs and bare bottoms. The nice thing about this and other 60s sexploitation movies is that what the girls are displaying is what Mother Nature gave them, with (thankfully) no assistance from silicone.

There’s no discernible plot but things keep happening. Those things make no sense but they give the movie a certain crazed energy. Whatever its flaws this movie is not boring.

This movie, like almost all roughies, was shot in black-and-white.

In Hot Blood offers wall-to-wall T&A and some inspired lunacy, and of course it has that wonderful 60s sleaze vibe. It’s pretty entertaining. Highly recommended.

Something Weird released this on a triple-header DVD with The Lusting Hours and Michael Findlay’s The Ultimate Degenerate. The transfer is very good. Happily this DVD is still obtainable (some of those Something Weird discs are now very difficult to find).

Savage Streets (1984)

There’s nothing like a sleazy 80s Linda Blair exploitation movie and Savage Streets is a very good one.

It belongs to the female revenge genre which had taken off in a big way in the 70s (not just in Hollywood but in other countries as well).

You have to remember that this movie was made in 1984 when hysteria about violent crime, youth crime and gang crime was still at its height. And that’s the background to this movie.

Brenda (Linda Blair) leads a girl gang. They’re pretty wild but they’re not evil. Brenda has a kid sister, Heather (Linnea Quigley), who’s a deaf-mute. Brenda is devoted to her sister.

Brenda’s gang has a run-in with a very nasty male gang led by Jake (Robert Dryer). Brenda and her pals steal Jake’s car and take it for a joy ride. Jake vows to get revenge for this insult.

Jake and his gang rape Heather and leave her for dead. This ignites a chain of escalating violence. It also causes tensions within Jake’s gang. Vince (Johnny Venocur) is more of a hanger-on than a fully-fledged member of the gang but he was the first to rape Heather. Now he’s feeling guilty and that worries Jake.

As an indirect result of this one of Brenda’s gang is murdered.

Brenda is now out for revenge and she’s not fooling around. The stage is set for a series of showdowns with Jake and his cronies Fargo (Sal Landi), and Red (Scott Mayer).

It’s a pretty violent movie and the climactic showdown is both violent and gripping.

The rape scene is fairly harrowing but had it not been harrowing the entire plot would have made no sense. We have to believe that it was so brutal that Brenda has been pushed right over the edge. We also have to believe that Brenda is now so highly motivated that she will have no hesitation in single-handedly taking on three big mean guys.

One thing I like is that Brenda’s campaign of revenge is reasonably plausible. She knows she would have no chance at all against three guys. Her plan, if it works, will allow her to deal with them one at a time. She has the advantage of surprise, and she has acquired some useful accessories which will even up the odds considerably. There’s none of the unrealistic nonsense of one small female beating up a whole bunch of big guys with ease. Brenda is no super-woman. She relies on out-thinking the bad guys.

There are plenty of exploitation elements. Linda Blair has a memorable bathtub nude scene. There’s a shower scene with about thirty naked women, featuring a lot of frontal nudity. There’s an epic catfight between Brenda and a blonde cheerleader who thinks Brenda is trying to steal her boyfriend. What makes this scene awesome is all the naked chicks in the background, two of whom are having their own private catfight for no reason whatsoever except that naked girl catfights add a bit more exploitation value.

There’s some memorable dialogue.

This movie had a very troubled production history but surprisingly it ended up being perfectly coherent, well-structured and well-paced.

The acting is fine. John Vernon is good in a small part as the hardbitten school principal. Linda Blair is the star and she displays her star quality. She’s nicely intense and manages to persuade us that for all her swagger Brenda has a good heart. But if someone close to her gets hurt she’ll make the perpetrator pay.

There’s a very very 80s feel to this movie which gives it plenty of nostalgia appeal today.

There is some question as to who actually directed this movie. Danny Steinmann gets the directing credit. Apparently some early scenes were directed by Tom DeSimone but depending on which source you rely on it seems that quite a bit of the movie was in fact directed by producer John Strong.

If you like your 80s exploitation fast-moving violent and sleazy Savage Streets is the movie for you. A must-see for Linda Blair fans. Highly recommended.

The Code Red Blu-Ray (which looks great) comes with a swag of extras - lots of interviews and no less than three audio commentaries.

Miranda (1985)

Miranda is a 1985 movie by Tinto Brass which you could describe as an erotic comedy/romance.

Tinto Brass has certainly had an interesting career. In the 60s and early 70s he had very respectable art-house credentials, even being compared to Antonioni. Then in 1976 came Salon Kitty which ignited something of a firestorm of controversy. Which was nothing compared to the hysteria which greeted his next film, Caligula. At that point he seems to have decided to make the movies he wanted to make and to make them the way he wanted to make them.

He also decided to concentrate almost exclusively on erotic films. That meant being shunned by critics (especially in the Anglophone world) and losing his respectable art-house credentials. He doesn’t seem to care one little bit.

Miranda takes place in the 1950s. Miranda (Serena Grandi) runs an inn. She is, or was, married but her husband was missing in action during the war and is presumed dead.

Miranda likes men and would like to meet that one special guy with whom to share her life but a girl has to be sure of her choice. The best way is to have affairs with lots and lots of men. Having affairs with three or four men at the same time is no great strain for her.

Carlo, who is more or less the assistant manger of the inn, is very keen on her. She isn’t sure if she’s interested in marrying him. Perhaps when she finds the time to try him out in the bedroom she’ll be in a position to choose.

There’s a wealthy politician who would very much like to marry her. He’s much older but he is rich and he’s rather nice and he’s devoted to her.

The arrival of Norman, a young American in the area temporarily while working on a construction project, offers her another potential choice.

That’s pretty much it for the plot.

It’s played as farce and in a very good-natured way. It’s a fun movie. It has no axes to grind. This is not going to be an exercise in misery or self-pity or guilt.

Brass’s erotic movies from the early 80s on tend to be joyous celebrations of sex. And of the charms of the female body. Brass is notorious for his fondness for actresses with amply-proportioned posteriors but the rest of the female body is certainly not neglected.

The movie opens with a close-up of Serena Grandi’s crotch and she’s not wearing any panties. Brass is laying his cards on the table right from the get-go. He’s saying that if this shot bothers you then you should switch the movie off and go watch something else.

It’s a celebration of the female body but it’s also a celebration of female erotic pleasure. Miranda is very much in touch with, and comfortable with, her sexual desires. She feels no shame about sex and the movie never suggests that a woman should feel shame about satisfying her sexual urges. At no time is she punished for her carnal indulgences. There’s a total absence of moralising about sex. To the extent that there’s any message in this film it’s that sex is normal and healthy. That might seem an obvious point but it’s a point that has never been obvious to censors or to film critics.

Miranda is a movie that revels in its celebration of sex and of sensual pleasures in general.

Brass was always a visually uninhibited director and Miranda looks lush and rich. There’s a lot of very explicit nudity and some fairly explicit sex scenes. It’s softcore, but it’s at the raunchy end of softcore. On the other hand the nude scenes and sex scenes have a lyrical playful quality to them.

Serena Grandi is voluptuous in a way that was already becoming unfashionable but that gives the movie an authentically Tinto Brass feel. That’s Brass’s idea of feminine beauty and if you don’t like it that’s too bad. She gives a wonderful performance. Miranda is a character who might have been played as manipulative in other movies but there’s nothing manipulative about her in this film. She doesn’t want to use men. She wants to share fun times with them. She’s a very likeable character.

This is also an uncompromisingly Italian movie, a love letter to the Italy of the past.

Miranda is lighthearted and sexy and stylish and Tinto Brass’s erotic movies have a unique flavour of their own. Highly recommended.

Miranda has had numerous home video releases. The version in the excellent Fifty Shades of Brass DVD boxed set offers a lovely 16:9 enhanced transfer. Both the English dub and the Italian language version with English subtitles are provided. Given that the set also includes Salon Kitty and The Voyeur it’s worth buying.

Nurse Diary: Wicked Finger (1979)

Nurse Diary: Wicked Finger is a 1979 entry in Nikkatsu’s roman porno cycle, the studio’s successful strategy to save itself from bankruptcy after television had threatened to destroy the Japanese film industry. Nurse Diary: Wicked Finger is a sex comedy, and a deliriously crazy one.

It’s one of quite a few nurse-themed movies in the roman porno cycle.

Ryoko (Etsuko Hara) is a pretty young nurse. She has decided to move out of the nurse’s dorm. She’s having an affair with a married doctor, Dr Edogawa, and she feels it may be indiscreet to have sex with him in the dorm.

Young student nurse Emi, who looks up to Ryoko as a surrogate big sister, has been resisting the lesbian advances of her new roommate. Emi does however seem to have discovered an interest in the delights of sapphic love and she’s now desperately trying to get into Ryoko’s pants.

Dr Edogawa has other things to distract him, in the form of a very pretty female patient named Yoko. Yoko is always developing strange symptoms which always require Dr Edogawa to give her a close physical examination. Naturally she has to take her clothes off for these examinations. If Yoko had a headache or a sore toe she would insist on taking her clothes off so that Dr Edogawa could examine her properly. Dr Edogawa is a dedicated physician so he always conducts these examinations very thoroughly, to the accompaniment of much giggling on Yoko’s part.

Dr Edogawa will have a bit of explaining to do when Yoko’s husband shows up.

Dr Edogawa also has some explaining to do when his wife finds out about his affair with Ryoko.

Ryoko has other distractions of her own to deal with, in the form of a young somewhat socially inept male neighbour named Tsugawa. Tsugawa is a Peeping Tom.

All of these sexual dramas become more and more crazy.

If you’re not familiar with Japanese comedy you might be surprised at just how broad much of the humour is. In this movie it’s very broad indeed, but combined with total insanity.

It is however genuinely very funny. Tsugawa’s misadventures with the vacuum cleaner are very funny indeed. As you might have guessed, he has turned to the vacuum cleaner to relieve his sexual frustrations brought about by gazing at Ryoko’s nakedness. It’s an episode that could easily have been merely crude but the craziness level makes it funny rather than crass.

In fact that’s typical of the whole movie. Situations with the potential to be crass end up being lightheartedly amusing instead.

The scenes with the crazy exhibitionistic Yoko manage to be both funny and sexy. The scenes with her husband are insanely over-the-top and including a fire-breathing Dr Edogawa. Literally fire-breathing. He’s been drinking pure alcohol and makes the mistake of trying to light a cigarette.

The movie does spring one or two surprises. We assume that Tsugawa is being set up as a perennial loser comic relief character with no chance of getting the girl (or any girl) but Ryoko decides he’s really sweet and she’s happy to sleep with him, even though she knows about the vacuum cleaner incident. The scene in which she sleeps with him would have been played for laughs in a British or American movie but in this case it’s oddly touching.

It’s these occasional unexpected poignant moments that make this movie interesting.

There’s a lot of nudity but overall this movie is a bit tamer than you expect from a Nikkatsu roman porno film.

Even scenes that might have been disturbing end up not being genuinely disturbing because the movie really is remarkably good-natured and is clearly aiming to amuse rather than to shock. This is an intentionally silly goofy movie and if you take any of it seriously you’ve missed the point.

Nurse Diary: Wicked Finger is totally nuts but it’s strangely likeable and even charming in its insanity. Recommended.

The Impulse DVD lacks extras (apart from some very sparse liner notes by Jasper Sharp) but the transfer is perfectly acceptable.