A Promise of Bed

Shot in less than three weeks for just £8,500. Despite the presence of Victor Spinetti and a remarkably youthful-looking John Bird and an onscreen caption introducing the film as "A Trilogy of Comedy", Derek Ford's debut British feature is throughout more melancholy than funny. (Most of the men are lonely, and Spinetti is discovered about to commit suicide at the start of his episode). Ford and his brother Donald were well-connected socially, hence the presence of some actresses with respectable c.v.s already behind them like Alexandra Bastedo and Valerie Leon; and their use of a millionaire's home in the Chevreuse Valley, just south of Paris, in which unfolds a bizarre fantasy in Day-Glo colours resembling the work of a heterosexual Kenneth Anger embellished with psychedelic musical effects.

Of the women the late Vanda Hudson - already washed up and making her final film appearance - registers most strongly in a tale reminiscent of Colette in which she initiates virginal young photographer Dennis Waterman after he confesses that there's no film in his camera. Of all the females on show the ripe Ms Hudson displays the most flesh, but like the other women in the film mostly she cavorts in a series of provocative outfits for Waterman's delectation rather than actually does a striptease.

This is another late 60's British time capsule recently dug up and released on legitimate DVD. Some may prefer that it had stayed buried, but I thought it was OK. It is a portmanteau sex comedy featuring three stories--one that is mostly sex, one that is mostly comedy,and a third that is just plain weird. It is another collaboration between British exploitation filmmakers Stanley Long and Derek Ford. It's not as good as the pair's previous effort "Groupie Girl", but it's better than their debut film "Wife Swappers" (as well as pretty much any of Derek Ford's subsequent work).

The stories all involve working-class male slobs getting lucky as the result of a case of mistaken identity. The first story involves a lowly camera assistant (Dennis Waterman) who is seduced by a man-eating actress (Vonda Hudson) after the latter mistakes him for the teenage son of a producer she's trying to get a part from (normally actresses just sleep with the producer himself, but, oh well). The second story involves a pathetic slob who's about to commit suicide when a pretty girl (Vanessa Howard)and a bunch of her swinging friends (including Valerie Leon and Alexandra Bastedo) mistakenly show up at his apartment looking for a party, and think this particular party has a "suicide" theme. The last story has a taxi driver taking a sexy female fare (Yutte Stensgaarde) to a remote location, and after she stiffs him (in more ways than one), he follows her to a strange house (actually filmed in France!)where all kinds of indescribable weirdness is happening.

The voluptuous Vonda Hudson has about 90 percent of the nude scenes here, but she can't really act otherwise. Vanessa Howard, as always, is very cute and adorable--and genuinely talented as an actress--but her character is both underdeveloped and overdressed. Danish pastry Yutte Stensgaarde would become famous a couple years later for "Lust for a Vampire", but she doesn't have much of a role here (except she does swim topless with two girlfriends and lies naked on the floor covered in fruit in a scene that appears to be partly cut). Perhaps, the most memorable scene in the last story (and the whole movie) though might a VERY STRANGE striptease scene involving a woman whose body is covered only with "pasties" in the shape of black hands, which she slowly peels off and then puts them over a two-way mirror through which the poor protagonist is trying to watch her. The music, like with "Groupie Girl", is third-rate British Invasion stuff and consists of only two songs, but it's pretty good actually. I kind of liked this overall.

There was an attempt here to make something better. Now I would say the stories theirself were individually enjoyable. Though odd in the case of the last one. Acting could be better in places but I was happy to see a young dennis waterman, he was good as the photography. Overall not a great film but it did have little bits that could be better explored.

Not a particularly good film but, as a glimpse of London in the last gasp of the swinging sixties, it serves as an interesting historical record.

This-That-and the Other' aka 'A Promise of Bed'. (1969) Derek Ford.

Prolific low-budget smut-slinger Derek Ford's mostly amiable farce might prove to be a wee bit meagre in the rampant nookie department for the more actively degenerated Sinophile. Ford's film-making aesthetic is often crude, luridly garlanded with an occasionally giddy swathe of ersatz psychedelia to add some much-needed visual pizazz. Cast performances prove exuberant, rather than nuanced, while Ford's text is unforgivably flaccid, the consistently lively score remains engagingly buoyant throughout. For all the narrative inanities, Derek Ford's tremulously titillating triptych is fabulously festooned with top tier totty like tantalizing telly temptress Alexandra Bastedo, gamine crumpet Vanessa Howard, and voluptuously vulpine vamp Yutte Stensgaard. The stridently 70s grooviness is absurdly contrived, happily making 'This-That-and the Other' aka 'A Promise of Bed' all the more Kitschy delicious! Recidivist Tadger Tuggers, wanton wang whackers, jaded Jizz lizards, salacious slap n' ticklers, craven knob Jockies and spunky monkeys aught to give it at least 10cc's of their boggle-eyed attention.