I piacevoli giochi di Monique, ragazza alla pari

Ok, I'm tempting comment with the title...but Joan Alcorn is better looking then Sybilla Kay to me.

Released on DVD in the slap & tickle series by Screenbound you'd be forgiven for expecting a 70's sex comedy - which while it has amusing moments it isn't.

At best it's a of it's time pot-boiler of a suburban couple finding sexual satisfaction with the 'help' of an au-pair.

At worst it's bloody dull.

A new and more liberal censor was appointed in Britain in the 1960's, and one of the results was a rash of 'sexploitation' productions. (But only in the sense that they were able to show some nudity and suggest sexual activity - even by current 'soft core' standards, they were rather tame.) These films were cheap, tacky, and forgettable. But this one is different.

For a start, not only does it actually have a proper script, but the photoplay is literate and rather witty. The characters and the setting (suburbia in South East England) are believable. The acting, although not memorable, is good.

The approach is unique to the genre, in the sense that the sex is placed in some kind of context, whether it is the problematic marriage, the wife's hidden bisexuality, or the free spirited nature of the au pair. It includes a picture of ordinary family life,including the relationship between parent and child. And it appears to be the first British film to tackle the then hushed subject of 'troilism' (which was being featured in some of the tabloid papers at the time).

You will see very little sex in Monique. But you will see sexual tension that almost makes the screen crackle, genuine eroticism, and very witty observations. (All three of them are in bed, and drift into a conversation about the abstract painting on the wall. Perhaps it's hung at the wrong angle...so they all lean to one side.)

In panning the mud, a gold nugget has been found.

When a film captures the spirit of its time as magically as 'Monique' it deserves to be remembered. More in the realm of Pinter than the sex romp it is still described as this slow moving contemplation of an eternal triangle in suburbia is mesmerising and fascinating in its 1970 setting as the threesome explores the evolving allure between them. Most beautifully is the lacing of this quirky vision with the music of Bach modulated through various jazz style arrangements. This austere and noble accompaniment lifts the whole enterprise into the level of poetry. Appreciation of this film will grow I believe.

A British couple with two young children decide to get a French au pair because the wife wants to enjoy a more rewarding life outside the house (and the husband wants to enjoy a more rewarding life INSIDE the house). They both get all that they bargained for and more when "Monique" shows up in the shortest of mini-skirts and knee-high go-go boots.

I find British the sex films of this era strangely endearing (and more enjoyable at least than the 16-mm cellulite-and-pimple extravaganzas of low-budget American filmmakers of the era like Harry Novak). Still, they are usually pretty incompetent, and it's not fair really to compare them too much with other films. As British sex films go, this one is most similar to "Baby Love" with Linda Hayden. But while that film was a rather preposterous melodrama, it did show what would no doubt really happen if a stranger moved in and sexually seduced every member of a family; this film, on the other hand, is more of a pure sex fantasy where everything can be papered over with a menage a trois at the end (which the British censors of the day mostly edited out). The lack of any drama here might not be such a problem if there were plenty of sex, but this film is only slightly more racy than "Baby Love" (which had been made a couple years earlier and when its star Hayden was only fifteen).

Rather than being too young like Hayden, the actress here Sybille Kay has the opposite problem--she looks way too old to be an au pair (she looks even older than the couple). She is definitely not unattractive, but she is not a seductive, teasing minx like Hayden. The actress playing the wife, meanwhile, is a pretty nice crumpet herself, which kind of makes you wonder why her husband is so anxious cheat on her.

This is OK but certainly a not a great movie. It's not any more sexy than "Baby Love" and it's A LOT more boring. It's a lot easier to find these days than "Baby Love", but I'd still recommend the latter movie instead which is very similar but much more entertaining.