Every Afternoon

Swedish WILDCATS, aka EVERY AFTERNOON, is a British sexploitation movie directed by the notorious erotic film director Joseph W. Sarno in a rare detour to the UK - he spent most of his career making US-based movies. This one's very much a complete waste of time, a surprisingly tame film that focuses on stultifying romantic interludes between waste of time characters.

The action is centred around a brothel presided over by the game for a laugh Diana Dors, who is dressed up in revealing attire and barks orders and does patter throughout the movie. The plot then follows the love lives of various prostitutes who work at the place. There is some nudity which comes from seeing them at work stripping and the like, but for the most of the time we're stuck with long, drawn-out interludes of them falling in love with wooden male actors. There are bit parts for two infamous actors: Alan Lake, Dors's real-life husband, and Swedish starlet Christina Lindberg, of THEY CALL HER ONE EYE infamy.

I recently bought this film as it seemed an intriguing title when teamed up with Diana Dors-my mind was boggling! However, I was even more mind boggled when what seemed the spitting image of Arlene Philips from Dance X fame appeared as a topless Bellydancer an hour into the film.The credit at the end is Simara Wale but is this just a stage name for this film? If anyone can confirm or deny this I'd much appreciate it. The sound taken from the master is a little worn in places with very noticeable 'pops' and 'cracks' making this film seem a lot older than it actually is. I did enjoy the film though as this is from a bygone era when what you saw was what you got i.e. no falsies or plastic surgery etc.

I can't for the life of me recall why I ordered this film from Netflix. Watching it brought me no clue either. Although it features a past her prime Diana Dors the film has little else to recommend it. It is stultifyingly unsexy and humorless so it has neither erotic nor camp value. The DVD even has interviews with some of the "creative" team who claim that there actually was a script. Little evidence of that in the film. If you are interested in pre-hardcore erotica with some attention to plot and great cinematography I would recommend the films of Radley Metzger. They aren't GREAT films but Metzger has a wonderful camera eye and the scripts are a lot more intelligent and sometimes even interesting.

Every Afternoon (1974)

** (out of 4)

Mix of melodrama and sex/nudity from director Joseph W. Sarno takes place in a Copenhagen brother being ran by Aunt Margareta (Diane Dors). Inside the walls the main story focuses on two orphan sisters who find themselves living two different lives with one quickly falling in love with a man. This film, also known as Swedish WILDCATS, isn't really something that's going to appeal to too many people. I guess fans of Sarno will want to take a look at it but I'm willing to guess that the majority of viewers are going to be fans of Christina Lindberg. Obviously she's such a sex goddess that her fans are going to watch anything she's in but sadly she has a very small part here so her fans will probably be disappointed. As for the film itself, I think it's obvious that Sarno wanted to be the Douglas Sirk of sexploitation pictures. There's no question that he has a certain talent in making these sex pictures look a lot better than they probably deserve to be but at the same time the melodrama is just so dry and boring that it's pretty hard to really care about anything that's going on. The love stories involving the sisters really aren't that interesting and even worse is that the film really doesn't have much plot anyways. The performances are pretty much above average for this type of film and that includes Dors who really makes her character a lot more entertaining than it deserved to be since it's pretty one-note. EVERY AFTERNOON really isn't going to appeal to many people but it's slightly well-made and has some nudity to help keep it moving along.

This late-period Sarno opus jettisons the social commentary that made him unique, rendering the plot a mere soap opera. The sappy score makes it seem like one of those limp British sex comedies of the period. However, the artist's vision shines through in the imaginative cabaret scenes. Diana Dors, in my opinion, is marvellous -- (intentionally) funny and professional despite her (knowingly) over-the-top performance -- she's definitely wise to her own persona here.