Three Daughters

In the useful commentary provided on the DVD reissue of "Three Daughters" auteur Candida Royalle explains how personal this project was for her. Tale of a family with matriarch Gloria Leonard (excellent in a supporting role), whose 3 offspring have romantic encounters including especially the sexual initiation for teen played by Siobhan Hunter is warm, positive and pleasant, in a way contrary to the stereotype (and unfortunately actuality) of the lion's share of Adult Cinema.

With her husband Per Sjostedt as producer and uncredited ass't director, I may not be far off in finding the movie in a similar vein to Ingmar Bergman's family sagas, e.g., Fanny and Alexander, but without the genius filmmaker's powerful dark side dealing with guilt and sexual repression. Siobhan as Michelle is a breath of fresh air in the lead role, with fine acting by her older beau Robert Bullock, and always tasteful sex scenes (explicit but mainly shot from softcore angles). Ensemble cast of mostly East Coast talent does a fine job, and the photography, shot in Deal, New Jersey, is quite striking, making use of seaside locations.

Some info of interest from Candida is that this was the costliest of her Femme productions, budgeted at nearly $100,000 for its 4-day shoot and that she dedicated it to her friend Laurien Dominique, who died tragically while Candida was writing the screenplay (I recall making many a phone call to industry figures ranging from Paul Thomas to Ron Jeremy when preparing Laurien's obituary for Variety newspaper on deadline). Also, it was the most popular of her releases back in the day, putting Candida on the map as an Adult Cinema director.

I have not seen all of Candida Royale's offerings, but this is the best of the four I have seen. (I would also recommend Christine's Secret). Candida Royale makes adult movies for women but men will find them exciting and erotic as well.

The story, as the title suggests is about the loves of three young women, the youngest of whom has yet to learn the joy of lovemaking. All the sex scenes are handled tastefully without the Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam of other adult movies. The one female we don't see enough of is Gloria Leonard who plays the mother. She has a superb body and lovely legs and surely deserved more exposure. (pun intended).

There was a fault that should have been spotted on set or at least in the editing suite. When Siobhan Hunter is exploring her body, there is, on the wall the shadow of a member of the film crew moving about. I call it The Phantom Voyeur but not noticing this was inexcusable.

Candida Royale also follows other movie makers by using too much music for the sex scenes. In my opinion, there is nothing as erotic as the moans and gasps of the lovers. For a lesson in filming love scenes see the opening scene in Betty Blue or Jane March and Tony Leung in The Lover.

On Labor Day weekend 1987, the satellite uplink carrying the Playboy Channel showing of the soft core version of this film was jammed and the video replaced with text of a biblical quote.

Within a week, FCC investigators suspected that the signal came from the Virginia Beach, VA facility of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. At the time, Robertson was running for the Republican presidential nomination and the Justice Department assigned a low priority to prosecuting the case -- even though it had asked Congress to make satellite jamming a felony a year earlier.

The operator on duty, Thomas Haney, denied any involvement and CBN management supported his claim. His was convicted of a federal felony for the jamming after a 1 week trial. He received a fine and suspended sentence as the crime occurred prior to the new federal sentencing guidelines which now permit jail time for nonviolent crimes.

After the trial, one of the FCC investigators said, "The nuns were wrong, I didn't go blind!"