Jeux dévorants

INTIMATES GAMES is a cheap British sexploitation film written and directed by Tudor Gates, the man whose main contribution to cinema was writing Hammer's female vampire trilogy (THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, and TWINS OF EVIL). This film was produced by Guido Coen, a long-time producer who originally started out in the B-movie crime genre back in the 1950s.

The plot is a lightweight affair about a group of young and nubile university students who are tasked with exploring each other's sexual fantasies by their middle-aged teacher, played by George Baker in a role he preferred to forget about by all accounts. For the first half of the film, there's some mild storytelling as sub-plots featuring each of the students in turn are explored; the men are typically presented as weak and scared, the women carefree and open to exploring their sexual desires.

The second half of the film descends into farce with a serious of random vignettes, such as a guy imagining he's a jockey and riding an obese woman around or Ian Hendry cameoing as a snooker player who fantasises that his playmate is playing naked. And nudity is what INTIMATE GAMES is all about; most of the sexual fantasises just tend to be imagining girl-next-door types naked. There are a couple of stronger moments, like a lesbian interlude between softcore starlets Heather Deeley and Suzy Mandel, but much of the running time is concerned with smut. Baker must have wondered what he was doing here because he's the only recognisable face outside of the sexploitation genre and he sticks out like a sore thumb.

The blurb on the back of the Jezebel DVD says that this movie "oozes Britain in the 1970's". Well, it definitely oozes something. . . A professor (George Baker) gives an assignment to male-female pairs of his students to examine sex fantasies over a holiday break. For anybody else, this would a recipe for non-stop softcore scromping, but as usual the Brits have to include WAY too much of a plot and a lot of pretty pathetic attempts at humor. Instead of these attractive young people being content to simply, um, interview each other, one of them interviews an older, unattractive barmaid, another interviews his pigeon-obsessed father (don't ask), and one even interviews an elderly jockey with a serious fat fetish. Needless, to say these people's fantasies usually fall well short of eroticism and are only very funny if you are on nitrous oxide and/or are British.

One Swedish girl with a thumb-sucking fetish (once again, don't ask)played by Anna Bergman interviews her uncle (Ian Hendry) while they are playing a game of billiards. Naturally, his fantasy involves her being a butt-naked while they play. But as enjoyable as it is to see Ingemar Bergman's lovely daughter sans clothing, it's even more sad to see a great actor like Ian Hendry (who was in "Repulsion") reduced to this kind of rubbish. But speaking of "Repulsion" I think there is some kind of homage to that movie here as well with a brief bit about housewife who cures her intense agoraphobia with sexual fantasies (okay, whatever). Of course, the students do have some real sex with each other eventually. One nerdy guy scores with Felicity Devonshire. Marie St. Claire takes all her clothes off for another nerdy guy so he'll be "less distracted". And in the hottest scene Suzy Mandel and Heather Deely discuss lesbianism and decide to experiment with each other. . .

The best reason to see this movie is that it features almost all the British sex stars of the era--Bergman, Mandel, Devonshire, Dealy, etc. (with the exception of Linda Hayden and Koo Stark, who were in a bit higher class, and Fiona Richmond, who wouldn't have been remotely believable as a college student). Mary Millington even shows up in a brief (and uncharacteristically clothed) cameo as a virginal girl who receives an unexpected "back-door delivery" while singing a Cat Steven's song(?) with her church choir. This movie isn't great by any means, but I guess it has its moments.

If you wonder why there are so many cameos by reputable actors,the reason is that this was the only film work available as the British film industry was in its usual state of near collapse.The main aim of these films was to get as many girls stripped off and ready for action as soon as possible.It really hasn't one iota of wit.

As soon as I heard that George Baker, an actor not known for comedy, embarrassed himself by starring in a low-budget sex comedy, I had to see the film for myself. It didn't disappoint.

This is one of those sex comedies that doesn't fit into the usual "jack-the-lad has sex with lots of girls" routine found in the CONFESSIONS films and the ADVENTURES OF films, along with films such as CAN YOU KEEP IT UP FOR A WEEK? or THE UPS AND DOWNS OF A HANDYMAN. Like COME PLAY WITH ME, it has a structure and a charm all of its own.

These 1970s sex comedies have a very British charm to them that makes people feel nostalgic due to the depiction of the 1970s as it never really was, but how people who lived in that period love to remember it. INTIMATE GAMES is definitely a film that will make many feel nostalgic about the "good old days".

The plot is as follows - a college professor divides his students into pairs so that each person in the pair can learn about the sexual fantasies of the other and write a thesis on the subject. The film starts off by playing out much like a series of vignettes featuring each of the many couples. It changes course about half-way through, as other characters enter the fray and we see their sexual fantasies. Many familiar faces such as IAN HENDRY, HUGH LLOYD, CLAIRE DAVENPORT and JOHNNY VYVIAN show up in the latter half of the film and their scenes are among the funniest.

George Baker seems to have a good time with the role, despite some sources suggesting he hated starring in the film. His college professor character is clearly a closet lecherous bloke and this stereotypical Benny Hill-type character is always funny to watch.

For those wanting to see plenty of nudity, you'll find quite a bit of it in INTIMATE GAMES, plus sex scenes. The sex scenes aren't particularly erotic, as is always the case with this type of film.

The ending to the film, and particularly what George Baker's character does, along with the results, has to be seen to be believed!

The film is very cheaply put together and makes ESKIMO NELL, perhaps the most competently produced British sex comedy of the 1970s, seem like a work of great art in comparison. But it is well-paced, unpretentious and funny.

Overall, this film would never win an award in a million years but for fans of 1970s British sex comedies, this is an absolute must-see.

A previous poster suggested this film may have disappeared because George Baker (a real actor) might have bought the rights and buried it from embarrassment. Sadly for him, that turns out not to be true -- it showed up in March, 2001 on Canada's "Bravo" Cable Network.

Bad in a strangely pointless way.