Felicity

With no knowledge of what to expect from this film but reading the plot description and having somewhat of an idea, it was certainly more explicit than it presented itself as. There is very much a plot but perhaps a lot more explicit and nude scenes than ought to be. It is very much a coming of age film with the lead title character of Felicity having a very quick sexual awakening.

Everything felt as it, it occurred quite quickly and very easy for Felicity. Where at an instance she was raped by her older driver yet didn't seem to care, notice or tell her friend. The sceneries of Hong Kong look well and are nicely shot. The way she randomly met the love interest in the end was rather odd yet plausible. Right place at the right time type of incident. A lot of the film is quite predictable with the change of an innocent young naive teenager (said to be 17) transformed to very eager craved. The film is very close to soft core but it's presented in a rather art house way.

When I was twelve or thirteen, my family first got cable. One hundred channels right there at our fingertips. For the first time, we had access to MTV (still a novelty), HBO (R rated movies!!!) and Cinemax. It was the latter that would prove to be prophetic in my life, as I soon discovered that on Friday nights, after 10:00PM, Cinemax showed softcore erotica. My parents, I'm sure, would have preferred me not to view these movies, but they trusted me enough to assume that if it was something I knew I should not watch, I'd turn it off. For the most part, they were right. But when it came to FELICITY, I had no choice but to bend the rules.

FELICITY is an obscure Australian/Chinese co-production which deserves a lot more recognition than it has ever received. It is just as intensely sensual now as it was when I first saw it twenty years ago, staring wide eyed at the TV.

It tells the story of a young woman, Felicity (Glory Annen), who is attending a finishing school for girls. Her budding hormones are slowly driving her wild, as she finds herself uncontrollably turned on by watching her classmates in the showers, or even being spied upon by horny local boys and groundskeepers. Her only outlet for these desires are a few unfulfilling trists with her schoolmates. Her salvation comes in the form of a free trip to Hong Kong, courtesy of Dad. She travels to China, where she is shown the sights--and the night life--by a young Asian woman (Jodi Flynn). And so begins an Emmanuelle-esque odyssey of sex and self-discovery.

What is so amazing about FELICITY is how it manages to steer clear of sleaze and seediness without ever shying away from explicit scenes of eroticism. The movie is chock full of sex scenes, including quickies on the bus, in an elevator and a hallway, a very long Asian bathhouse sequence, Felicity spying on her aunt and uncle making love, and an intensely erotic sequence in which she is taken from behind by a man she never even sees, while watching her friend engaged in her own makeout session.

This may all sound extremely sordid, but somehow the filmmakers manage to keep it from ever becoming a sleazefest, as most of the sex scenes are portrayed as innocent, experimental encounters. Felicity eventually meets a nice guy (Christiopher Milne), and soon discovers that, while sex itself is great, it's much better when it's with someone you love. The movie definitely has a more European attitude toward sex; in other words, sex is a normal, healthy part of life, which exists to be experienced and savored, an attitude which has been buried under sensationalism, puritanism and conservatism in America, if it ever existed here at all.

FELICITY is worth seeking out if only to behold the vision of female sensuality that is Glory Annen, a lovely young woman who looks like a cross between Traci Lords and Kate Winslet. Annen is one of those wonderfully likeable actresses of the late 70s/early 80s like Diane Franklin or Judy Aronson whom one wishes had moved on to bigger and better things. Alas, although she currently runs a successful casting agency in London, Annen fell into obscurity after a few film appearances in the early 80s. It's a shame, she should have been a star.

Anyone who enjoys a good erotic movie without the sleaze should try and get their hands on a copy of this masterpiece of soft core cinema. It may seem naive by today's standards, but after such cynical and paint-by-numbers "eroticism" like RED SHOE DIARIES and Cinemax's current After Dark line up, it's a breath of fresh air.

Although it's rarely acknowledged, there are probably few films in history that were as influential as the 1974 softcore French classic "Emmanuelle". Besides the truly countless number of films with the word "Emmanuelle" (or the less legally-actionable variation "Emanuelle") in the title, there were any number of others that borrowed the basic plot of a young woman traveling to the Orient and/or having a sexual awakening. There was, for instance, the German film "Vanessa" with Olivia Pascal, the British film "Emily" with Koo Stark, the French-Italian films "Laure" and "End of Innocence" both with Annie Bell. And there was this Australian film with English actress Glory Annen.

Like "Vanessa", "End of Innocence", and a few others this features a slightly younger female character than the original "Emmanuelle", which allows it to start out in a girls' boarding school with a lot of hot showers and hot lesbian action. But the virginal "Felicity" (Annen) eventually finds her way to Hong Kong. She stays at first with a friend and her lover,and loses her virginity to an Aussie with a walrus moustache after one of her hosts' parties. After that "Felicity" meets a local,"Me Ling" (Joni Flynn),and embarks on an erotic tour of Hong Kong, having more anonymous sex on a Chinese junk. She then falls in love with another, nicer Aussie guy, but his job and the couple's mutual infidelities threaten to derail the relationship.

On the plus side, this movie has very good productions values and the girls--Annen,Flynn, etc.--are all very attractive. The movie pretty shamelessly steals from the "Emmanuelle" series in several places--it borrows the massage parlor scene from "Emmanuelle 2" and the improbable sex on a commercial airplane scene from the original "Emmanuelle". It's also more literary than your usual sex film, referencing not only the original novel "Emmanuelle", but other erotic classics of the 70's like "Histoire de O" and "Fear of Flying" (all of which "Felicity" is reading at some point). "Felicity" is generally odd character. She starts out as the world's horniest female virgin (witness her reading list), and remains a contradiction to the end, complaining about the hedonism of a Hong Kong bar they visit one minute, then having "zipless" sex with the bartender in the back room the next. But that's the 70's for you I guess. The love story is a little annoying and the theme song will stay in your head like a bad flu virus. All in all though, this is a pretty OK Aussie knock-off of "Emmanuelle".

This kooky and kool soft core skin flick I remember seeing as a teenager on the old Private Screenings channel. It's the kickaxe story of a sweet, fresh young thing's sexual awakening in the mysterious Orient. I fell head over heels in love and lust with the main actress Glory Annen in this film when I first saw it. She only did a few films besides this, "Spaced Out", "Alien Prey" etc...but this was definitely her crowning achievement. I guess she stopped acting cos I haven't seen her in anything in years. It's too bad, cos she was so absolutely gorgeous! She wasn't your typically busty, perfect looking Hollywood bimbo, but that's what I liked about her! Who wants to like the girls that everyone likes? Not me! You can keep Pamela Anderson Lee, I like women that look like women, not Barbie dolls. I'll take Glory any day of the week!

I enjoyed this mostly - not for the sex scenes which were par for the course, but as a 70s time capsule. I liked the protagonist, Felicity- she was pretty but not gorgeous, naive but sexy too. The story was a bit silly but I enjoyed the scenes in Hong Kong, especially the contrast between the rich and touristy areas and the poor people living on the water. I imagine too that girls and women would have been treated in ways portrayed here in the late 1970s (I was a child then). In all, it was a decent watch, mainly as a kind of snapshot of those days - I also liked the clothes! I gave a reasonable 6 stars out of 10.