Intimate Games

If you wonder why there are so many cameos by reputable actors,the reason is that this was the only film work available as the British film industry was in its usual state of near collapse.The main aim of these films was to get as many girls stripped off and ready for action as soon as possible.It really hasn't one iota of wit.

INTIMATES GAMES is a cheap British sexploitation film written and directed by Tudor Gates, the man whose main contribution to cinema was writing Hammer's female vampire trilogy (THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, and TWINS OF EVIL). This film was produced by Guido Coen, a long-time producer who originally started out in the B-movie crime genre back in the 1950s.

The plot is a lightweight affair about a group of young and nubile university students who are tasked with exploring each other's sexual fantasies by their middle-aged teacher, played by George Baker in a role he preferred to forget about by all accounts. For the first half of the film, there's some mild storytelling as sub-plots featuring each of the students in turn are explored; the men are typically presented as weak and scared, the women carefree and open to exploring their sexual desires.

The second half of the film descends into farce with a serious of random vignettes, such as a guy imagining he's a jockey and riding an obese woman around or Ian Hendry cameoing as a snooker player who fantasises that his playmate is playing naked. And nudity is what INTIMATE GAMES is all about; most of the sexual fantasises just tend to be imagining girl-next-door types naked. There are a couple of stronger moments, like a lesbian interlude between softcore starlets Heather Deeley and Suzy Mandel, but much of the running time is concerned with smut. Baker must have wondered what he was doing here because he's the only recognisable face outside of the sexploitation genre and he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Very watchable UK sex comedy from the seventies. And so very seventies it is too, with tight trousers, bright colours and long hair. Even the extensive motorway sequences ooze the seventies with the dated vehicles and roadside dwellings. The DVD box suggests sex and nudity and the movie supplies this throughout. Once or twice I noticed a strategically placed lamp or vase, but have no idea why because I'm fairly certain that every lovely looking lady in this is seen fully nude, in their hairy glory. The humour is not as annoying as is often with British films of this type and generally the acting is very good. the odd wince making remark or gesture excepted. a little too much pop psychology maybe but all in all a decent effort. mind you when sexual fantasies are the theme it would be pretty poor if something were not achieved without too much effort. I could have done without the crazy ending, however.

The blurb on the back of the Jezebel DVD says that this movie "oozes Britain in the 1970's". Well, it definitely oozes something. . . A professor (George Baker) gives an assignment to male-female pairs of his students to examine sex fantasies over a holiday break. For anybody else, this would a recipe for non-stop softcore scromping, but as usual the Brits have to include WAY too much of a plot and a lot of pretty pathetic attempts at humor. Instead of these attractive young people being content to simply, um, interview each other, one of them interviews an older, unattractive barmaid, another interviews his pigeon-obsessed father (don't ask), and one even interviews an elderly jockey with a serious fat fetish. Needless, to say these people's fantasies usually fall well short of eroticism and are only very funny if you are on nitrous oxide and/or are British.

One Swedish girl with a thumb-sucking fetish (once again, don't ask)played by Anna Bergman interviews her uncle (Ian Hendry) while they are playing a game of billiards. Naturally, his fantasy involves her being a butt-naked while they play. But as enjoyable as it is to see Ingemar Bergman's lovely daughter sans clothing, it's even more sad to see a great actor like Ian Hendry (who was in "Repulsion") reduced to this kind of rubbish. But speaking of "Repulsion" I think there is some kind of homage to that movie here as well with a brief bit about housewife who cures her intense agoraphobia with sexual fantasies (okay, whatever). Of course, the students do have some real sex with each other eventually. One nerdy guy scores with Felicity Devonshire. Marie St. Claire takes all her clothes off for another nerdy guy so he'll be "less distracted". And in the hottest scene Suzy Mandel and Heather Deely discuss lesbianism and decide to experiment with each other. . .

The best reason to see this movie is that it features almost all the British sex stars of the era--Bergman, Mandel, Devonshire, Dealy, etc. (with the exception of Linda Hayden and Koo Stark, who were in a bit higher class, and Fiona Richmond, who wouldn't have been remotely believable as a college student). Mary Millington even shows up in a brief (and uncharacteristically clothed) cameo as a virginal girl who receives an unexpected "back-door delivery" while singing a Cat Steven's song(?) with her church choir. This movie isn't great by any means, but I guess it has its moments.

A previous poster suggested this film may have disappeared because George Baker (a real actor) might have bought the rights and buried it from embarrassment. Sadly for him, that turns out not to be true -- it showed up in March, 2001 on Canada's "Bravo" Cable Network.

Bad in a strangely pointless way.