I Jomfruens tegn

Other aficionados have left way more detailed reviews than mine, so you should refer to them for in-depth reviews. The majority of them are truly amazing analyses, probably among the best I've ever seen on IMDB.

While I won't go into as much detail about Danish cinema and it's erotic/porn counterpart as others have, I would highly recommend this film for the virtue of being really well-shot and for presenting the erotic shots in a way that feels natural, free and unburdened from over-acting actors.

Similar 70s films have equally ridiculous plots, which are always fun to watch, but some films really shine in the way they were shot and for skipping the typical "script" of how sexual encounters go.

This movie was simply a feast for the eyes, very pleasant to follow (even though some scenes are way too long, without any reason for them being so), so If you're interested in similar films, definitely watch this.

In the 1970s, Denmark produces a number of sex comedies that somehow managed to combine slapstick humour with hardcore sex. In particular, this applied to the "tegn" series which started with this film.

In many ways "I jomfruens tegn" was less accomplished than the later films. The comedy was given too little room to gather any momentum, and as a result this film is not quite as playful and carefree as the others in the series. Its biggest weakness is that its young female characters appear without any signs of individuality, they are just fresh meat. This leaves the film without a focal point for the viewer. I would not be surprised if the filmmakers simply hired a bunch of whores from nearby Hamburg who did not speak a word of Danish - consequently they weren't given any lines which makes character development somewhat difficult.

Still, despite all these flaws the film still compares favourably with 1990s pornography (which is admittedly not a tough benchmark), due to higher production values and a less cynical atmosphere, and the unusual genre combination gives it genuine curiosity value.

I was exceedingly happy to be able to find this old gem. In the early 70s, there was brief window when porn was where many cinematic experiments were happening. Some of them actually had some promise for being important. Perhaps the oddest is the porn musical. This is the most interesting from a historical perspective.

You have to place yourself in the era: a huge percentage of the population believed that the world was in a time of change for the better and this change had something to do with the overlap of free sex, drugs, some astrological appropriateness and the end of war. At the same time, the American government was hammering back on all fronts, while the Dutch and Danish governments were seemingly alone in supporting all four.

Coming out of Denmark were a series of porn comedies, this being the first. I understand the others are more pornish and less comedic, but this is something else: Woodstock porn.

The story is that some astrological time and place a feeling of love is supposed to occur. Two scientists appear in the town, one with a drug to minimize the effect and another with a drug that enhances it. In fine Shakespearean fashion, the two drugs get mixed up, with the enhancing one ending in the water supply.

Our field of focus is a girl's school which looks a lot like a nunnery. The main action is of the girls after imbibing the drug and attacking the scientists and other males from the town. Along the way is a psychedelic dream and the ending romp in the reservoir straight out of "Hair" except everyone is nude and having explicit sex.

Unlike the porn of today, this is joyful and ecstatic. At the very end, the two scientists spy on the clearly pregnant schoolgirls and are pleased with their obvious pregnancies, ten apiece. The joyful nature of the thing, the drugs, the ordinariness of the girls wouldn't happen today, nor any time outside of that brief period of hippydom.

Sure it is porn, but accidentally. This is hippy cinema first.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This is the first of the notorious Danish "astrological" series. While I wouldn't really recommend this whole series (which eventually turned into latter-day spy spoofs featuring one "Agent 69"), it's definitely worth checking one of them out since you're probably unlikely to see a films like this anywhere else(if you don't happen to Danish anyway), and this one is probably as good of as any. These films are kind of halfway between softcore sexploitation comedy and harcore porn. Like the former they are fairly long on plot and have relatively high production values. They also have some respectable actors in non-sex roles (although since they're Danish no one will probably recognize them). Like hardcore porn films though they do have some obviously unsimulated sex scenes (like one girl with her tongue in another girl's rectum in the first five minutes of the movie!).

Due to astrological events, the planet Venus is going to come very close to the earth, which the state authorities suspect is going to have adverse "erotic" effects on the "innocent virgins" at one particular "school for delinquent girls". (I'm not sure why this event would only affect one single girls' school in Denmark or how these girls can be both "delinquents" and "innocent virgins", but you kind of have to go with it). Unbeknownst to the authorities, the girls at the school are ALREADY a bunch of crazed lesbian nymphos, but an agent is duly sent to deliver a drug that will lower the libido of the girls. Unfortunately, when he gets to town and asks for directions, he ends up at the WRONG "house full of young girls" (the local brothel) and, even worse, manages to get his formula mixed with that of a mad scientist who has invented a powerful aphrodesiac. You can imagine what happens.

Aside from one rather unpleasant girl-on-girl gang rape scene, this movie has a surprisingly innocent tone, not unlike the silly British sex comedies of that era, but obviously it is much stronger stuff as far as the sex goes. The real draw-back of the graphic sex scenes though is the movie has somewhat skankier-looking girls than the Scandinavian lovelies that went to Britain to make tamer British sex comedies or Germany to make the softcore "schulmadchen-report" type films or that appeared in less graphic Scandinavian movies. There is no one in this movie that looks like Christine Lindberg or Marie Lilljhedahl or Yutte Stensgaard (girls that look like that generally don't have to put their tongues in each other's rectums to get movie roles). Interestingly, Anna Bergman, the pretty daughter of renowned Swedish director Igemar Bergman, appeared in some of the later films in this series, but she used a body double for the graphic sex.

This is definitely a weird film, and perhaps worth seeing simply for that reason. As Jack Stevenson wrote in his recent book "Scandinavian Blue" this film and others in this series are kind of like "hardcore porn for the whole family".

Softcore (version that I had seen) romp through a boarding school for troubled girls. Subplot revolves around a scientist and his secret love potion. "Danish Pastries" is yet another erotica classic that plays like a good mainstream B-movie. High production values lends to the entire visual experience. As an American, I would prefer seeing foreign films in their native tongue and/or with subtitles, rather than poorly acted voice-overs. Why American producers insist on doing this, is beyond me. Since it was softcore, far and few scenes were able to achieve the height of eroticism. Once again, if you tire of today's assemblyline of camcorder porn, this film is sure to please.