La vergine e l'amante

Somewhat interesting cautionary tale(or tail if you prefer) about a young couple leaving the barrenness of their humdrum lives behind in a small English village and going to the big city - a really swinging London in the late 1960s. What they find is that work is hard to come by unless you are really willing to shed your inhibitions and your clothes. While the story probably resonates much of the real-life atmosphere of the culture of that time, the film bogs down really into one sexual scene after another - none of them particularly effective or redeeming in any way. And though the film is considered a black comedy - I think of it really more as a bleak one. I found so little humor in the film. Director Pete Walker - who would go on to do some pretty expressive and decent films of the horror/exploitation genres in the 70s - has obvious skill with the camera. The pace, sets, and dialog are all generally well-conceived for a film of this kind. The two primary acting leads are actually pretty good too as is most of the supporting cast. Watch for Stubby Kaye in a small role! But the end comes on so hard-handed and without warning as to be any bit believable though the film does try to have some moral to this constant parade of sexual encounters surrounding a youngish Carol and her openness to sleep with virtually anyone for a few bob.

Two bored teenagers leave their small town and travel to London to try and live the dream. Soon, it becomes apparent that the boy's claims of a good job waiting for him are false and, so, before long they are destitute. To make money, the girl gets involved in the sex industry, starting with modelling and ending in porn films via prostitution, all of this actively encouraged by her boyfriend. Needless to say, life in the big city does not turn out to be very glamorous.

This is an early film from British director Pete Walker, who is now known mainly on account of his horror movies, such as the impressive Frightmare (1974). In the earlier part of his career he seemed to be more focused on sexploitation, of which this is a pretty obvious example. It is a pretty good film of this type though, especially when you consider how terrible British entries in this category usually are. Funnily enough, a lot of the later atrocious 70's examples seemed to star Robin Askwith, who appears here in the role of the rather unsympathetic boyfriend. Janet Lynn stars opposite him as the girl who the story essentially revolves around and I thought she was pretty good. The film itself is basically a cautionary tale, which is fairly downbeat a lot of the time. The heavier elements actually make it a better film though, as it is sexploitation with at least some substance. A story which looks at the grim reality of aspects of the sexual revolution. Like in all the other Walker films I have seen it has unpleasant members of the older generation interfering aggressively with the young. On the whole, it can certainly be considered another very worthwhile film from Walker.

Carol is quite something when you see her in lingerie or nude. She leaves her boring existence to pursue her modelling career, taking off with childhood friend, Robin Askwith, mostly still filling the boots of his Timmy Lea character in the Confession films. Though the story is supposedly true in this film, one wouldn't really care. A lot of people will do anything to survive. Askwith and co need money in London. Food, like that delectable pastry in the window and accommodation costs money. Someone talent spots Askwith's better half, and soon she's doing some pretty weird photographic nude shoots, and offering sexual services, where may'be a bit of her likes it. She becomes hooked, finding it hard to turn offers down, where Askwith starts getting annoyed. Jealousy? He has a thing for her? She doesn't decline at first. Some tasty nudity, provide momentary erotic entertainment from our title lead, doing it with some 60+ men, some moments of it getting nasty, if demeaning to our lead, despite it being a comedy, that didn't have me laughing. This movie isn't anything special. Bits of it are truly pathetic, and I wonder if the words, "acting lessons", mean anything to Askwith.

Pete Walker is famous primarily for the superlative horror films he made during the 70's like "Frightmare" and "House of the Whipcord" and secondarily for the sex comedies he churned out in the late 60's like "I Like Birds" and "School for Sex". This film, made during the transition between the two periods, doesn't really fit either category. It is more of a serious, realistic drama with occasional comic elements. It tells the story of two naive but extremely amoral young people who leave their boring small town lives for swinging London. After many humiliating experiences--having to resort to pimping, prostitution, and performing in stag films--against all odds (and all plausibility), they achieve their dream of a success, but it proves to be less than what they hoped for.

For much of the running time this is pretty serious and believable movie, but it goes off the rails at the end. The female character, Carol (played by Janet Lynn), is apparently meant to be a homage to Christine Keeler (who the actress uncannily resembles), but while it was easy to see how a liberal-minded party girl like Keeler could find fame and fortune (or infamy and fortune) in the repressed Britain of the early 60's, it seems a lot less likely that this would happen ten years later when all the girls were pretty much giving it away for free. It also seems unlikely that these two shallow grasping characters would suffer all this humiliation only to grow a conscience AFTER they finally find wealth and success.

In some ways this film resembles "Midnight Cowboy", but the characters are much more amoral and insensitive, so the film doesn't really achieve the same tragic, emotional depths. Still the two leads are very charismatic. I always liked Robin Askwith (even if his bare butt often logged more screen time in his movies than his face). Janet Lynn was unbelievably sexy as a schoolgirl who gets felt up by a lecherous schoolmaster in a brief scene in "Assault", so you can imagine what she is like in a meatier role that requires her to shed her clothes every five minutes. Mostly though it is nice to see a British sex film that is not preachy and moralistic, on one hand, or given over to horrible sub-Benny Hill style "comedy" on the other. Pete Walker does it again.

One of a mass of soft-porn films produced by the British industry at that time, catering to the semi-pissed young blokes set who needed somewhere to go between the pub and an early-hours curry, with cinemas showing them suitably late in that 'slot'.

Robin Askwith got typecast in the 'Confessions' films of that 'genre', but those films had a comedy air, and THIS one just seemed to be telling a morality tale, with the main couple returning to the country having got fed-up with debauchery in sex-mad London.

Lots of nudity, as you'd expect, with quite a few shots of female pubic hair, to keep the audience suitably excited.

The film looked like it had been butchered by the editor, and/or the studio, as some scenes didn't seem to follow from the previous one, and the ending looked like it had been glued on in a hurry?

My total admiration goes to the train-spotter geek who noted (see 'goofs') that the couple boarded their original 'to London' train on the Kent/Sussex border, had sex in the carriage (but such rolling stock was used on the Pompey line!), and arrived in London at Paddington, despite supposedly coming from the East Midlands - from where trains do NOT go to Paddington! Clearly he wasn't overly entranced by the gorgeous pert breasts, firm peachy bum and nubile body of the lead actress, let alone the other models on view in the film?!

The lead actress made very few films - as someone said - a shame as she had some talent, and was certainly very attractive. Her character's name (Carol Thatcher) was presumably a coincidence, not a sad jibe at her eventual PM mother Margaret?!