French Blue

Technically the first full length feature by legendary "loop" maestro Lasse Braun, the bluntly moniker-ed PENETRATION (renamed FRENCH BLUE for more conservative markets) represents a grab bag of the director's achievements so far, circa 1974, incorporating slightly truncated versions of several shorts which had been selling in huge numbers on the "under the counter" 8mm private collector's market. For the record, their original titles (subject to change) are CASANOVA AND THE COUNTRY GIRLS, the only one credited on screen, with Claudio Rosso as the titular ladies man ; FUNNY PRIEST (a/k/a LE CURE, LE FLIC ET…LA BELLE AU BOIS DORMANT) with instantly recognizable Bent Rohweder (also in Werner Hedmann's popular AGENT 69 movies) portraying the ludicrous cleric ; SWEET LIPS (a/k/a LA Matinée D'UN HOMME D'AFFAIRES) featuring sexagenarian stud Robert Leray, sometimes "Jean Vilroy" of Alan Vydra's SEX ROULETTE and PLEASURE SHOPPE infamy, satisfying the needs of two horny secretaries ; the amazingly elaborate TOUR EIFFEL switching back and forth between various couplings and locations ; the self-descriptive CAKE ORGY, providing early appearances by future French fornication film superstars Claudine Beccarie and Sylvia Bourdon getting messy with pastry. For the uninitiated, this compilation offers an excellent introduction to what separated Braun – actually Italian Alberto Ferro who adopted this Scandinavian moniker as that neck of the woods just happened to legalize porn well before the rest of the world followed suit – from (barely) rival, predominantly anonymous pretenders to his throne as the Old Country's sultan of short subject sleaze.

Interspersed with these recycled featurettes, all provided with specially crafted music and dialog soundtracks for the occasion, are fly on the wall behind the scenes segments detailing the shooting in a Dutch studio in the town of Breda of a typical Braun "loop" (CLOSE-UP) with the director goading muse and girlfriend Brigitte Maier into extending her rectal cavity to the extent she would be able to simultaneously accommodate the penile protrusions of both Willy Braque and Nico Tierlier. Not unexpectedly, the logistics in actually achieving this turn out to be a true nightmare ! Maier was a US porn star of some note in the '70s, though actually German-born, most notably in Richard Robinson's outstanding MARRIAGE AND OTHER FOUR-LETTER WORDS. The bulk of her stateside performances proved astonishingly underwhelming though, given her fan name brand recognition, but apparently Braun saw something other people didn't and her leading role as "Margaret from Minnesota" in his subsequent masterpiece SENSATIONS easily qualifies as her finest hour in fornication films. The giddy Tierlier was a one time Dutch performer but Braque enjoyed a lengthy and varied career in strange cinema not necessarily restricted to hardcore (playing Brigitte Lahaie's harried husband in Pierre B. Reinhard's amusing ENTRECUISSES for example), working with Jean Rollin on various occasions, including a substantial part in his magnificent DEMONIAQUES. If the accommodating "fluffer" identified as "Joan Koehler" seems familiar, valiantly assuring the persistent presence of erectile tissue between takes, you probably know her better as "Dawn Cumming", the toothsome American ex-pat who gained a measure of notoriety in Continental carnal classics such as the late Claude Mulot's entrancing ECHANGE DE PARTENAIRES and his collaboration with then fledgling filmmaker "Michel Barny" a/k/a Didier Philippe-Gérard on MES NUITS AVEC… a/k/a THE KINKY LADIES OF BOURBON STREET.

Often lopped off, as it precedes the concise credits, but gloriously present in the recent DVD release from French company Blue One, gradually restoring its impressive back catalog of Alpha France fare from the '70s through early '80s to digital splendor, is a wildly anarchist bit of animation by notorious cartoonist "Siné" (pseudonym for Maurice Sinet), a well-deserved kick in the groin of both the Catholic faith and the Military. Though its overall quality suffers somewhat in comparison to its companion pieces in this collection, razor-sharp renditions of SENSATIONS and the unjustly maligned BODY LOVE, this early Braun endeavor has been painstakingly restored as well as existent materials would allow. Same goes for the 30 (count 'em !) "loops" editor Francis Mischkind has so generously provided to round out this indelible package, many of which have not been unearthed since their heyday of being screened in dingy storefront theaters or unspooled in the sacred privacy of a collector's den, effectively making this an essential purchase for the carnal connoisseur.