German director Hubert Frank is one of the unsung greats of 1970's European softcore sexploitation film. He compares favorably in many ways to some of his more famous contemporaries like Spaniard Jesus Franco, Italian Joe D'Amato, and the Anglo-French David Hamilton. Frank's best films don't compare to Jesus Franco's best, but even his most mediocre ones (like this one) are vastly preferable to some of the un-watchable dreck Franco has foisted on the public. Like the infamous Joe D'Amato, Hubert Frank's films often contain some questionable content that may offend the sensibilities of those who prefer their sex films bland and with nothing but sex, but Frank never goes quite as far as D'Amato, who would often throw in things (bestiality, "snuff", etc.) that are downright appalling and certainly anti-erotic. Like David Hamilton, Frank was interested in coming-of-age stories, but his actresses (if not always his characters) were pretty obviously over 18 unlike those of the more pervy Hamilton. Moreover, while Frank may not have had the cinematographic talents of Hamilton (who started his career as a renowned still photographer), he certainly had a much better grasp of EDITING, and his films always move at a brisk pace rather than the positively glacial one of most of Hamilton's film work.
Like all of these other directors, Frank is certainly guilty of having some pretty insubstantial, if not downright stupid, plots. This movie is the story of a young, rather dim-witted woman "Melody O'Brien" who goes on holiday with s married, somewhat older friend. After some typically gratuitous lesbian fumblings, she falls for her married friend's male lover, and. . .well, that's about it. There are several random subplots, however. The male lover has a friend who is a handsome teacher at a girl's college and is being pursued by three of his obsessed, bicycle-riding schoolgirl students. The teacher character completely disappears from the movie, as do two of the schoolgirls, but the third, most mature-looking one winds up getting entangled with a seedy private detective and gets taken advantage of sexually by him and a lot of the rest of the male cast. She also has the best scene though where she winds up skin-diving (in literally nothing but her skin) in what look to be genuinely shark infested waters.
The main "Melody" plot ends up being less interesting than some of these random subplots. Moreover, the dubbed English version I saw also seems to be missing the most controversial scene involving "Melody" and a pubescent neighbor boy who is always spying on her when she's skinny-dipping or sunbathing nude. Still, this remains a pretty standard Hubert Frank film--breezy and sexy (if occasionally going into some pretty questionable terrritory), stupid but definitely pretty entertaining.
