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ONSCREEN TITLE: FLY ME THE
FRENCH WAY. This 1973 Jean Rollin soft-core
sex obscurity has had a number of different titles, including
DAUGHTERS OF THE FRESH FLESH, TOUT LE MONDE IL E DUEX!,
and BACCHANALES SEXUELLES. Rollin fans and Eurosleaze
completists will want to note this 2002 DVD from SYNAPSE, the best and
most complete home video presentation yet of a film which has only been
available in dodgy gray market dupes.
Directing under the name Michel Gentil, Rollin delivers a soft-core sex
comedy-crime-adventure mix imbued with elements of FANTASTIQUE,
that elusive French term for a special atmosphere of fantasy, horror and
the uncanny. It's a sex film for the raincoat crowd with a fairly engaging
story and an attractive cast, especially Joelle Coeur (who played the
ferocious pirate, Tina, in Rollin's LES DEMONIAQUES (1973).
The gorgeous and willowy Joelle is Valerie, a free spirited chick who
wears peasant dresses when she wears anything at all. Joined by her
lesbian lover for some hot times in her cousin's apartment, midnight
visitors in masks and tights kidnap Valerie's friend leading her to a
house in the suburbs inhabited by a strange sex cult under the domination
of Malvina (Brigette Borghese). The cousin, a journalist, is working
undercover in the sect to expose Malvina, who is blackmailing her slaves
with compromising photos of them involved in S & M orgies.
The fact that this film has a story at all is significant. This was the
era when DEEP THROAT and LAST TANGO IN PARIS
were attracting mainstream attention and XXX theaters abounded. Nathaniel
Thompson's informative liner notes even mention a XXX version of this
prepared without Rollin's participation.
There's wall to wall sex throughout, soft-core action and simulated
hardcore. Lesbian encounters, bondage, fetishism and group sex are normal
occurrences in this world. It's all staged with imagination, humor and
gusto, especially an erotic catfight between two women dressed as French
maids. It all ends happily with the freeing of the sex slaves and Malvina
delivered to nudie-roughie comeuppance.
Rex Hilton's buoyant music and Rollin's eye for composition make this much
easier to take than many of the endless bump and grind epics of that era.
It's fun, it's sexy and it's creative. Ms. Coeur makes for a spunky, sexy
heroine and Eurocult fans will note the presence of Annie Briand/Brilland,
later known as Annie Belle in such Italian sleaze titles as THE
MONSTER HUNTER, to name a few titles graced by this talented, now
retired actress. |
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