The Sexy Secrets of the Kiss-o-gram Girls

Unquestionably 80's from its shot on videotape origins down to its titular profession, Sexy Secrets of the Kissogram Girls was a star vehicle for Pauline Hickey alias Zoe Lee, a Mayfair centrefold and popular nude model of the period. Mother Nature was overly generous to the sweet, large bosomed Ms Hickey.

After computer generated titles that appear to have been written by someone who couldn't spell to save their life (unless we're meant to be watching a film 'staring Zoe Lee'), Zoe/Pauline arrives at the door of 'Grimballs Kissogram Agency' looking for work. Of course Grimballs owner, who resembles a young Bob Carolgees, is only too happy to offer her a job, but there's a problem 'I've never done a striptease before…in fact I've never even seen one' Pauline tells him, a somewhat unlikely claim from a woman whose breasts appear to rest on her knees. The solution is for our Pauline to be shipped off to a country manor for the weekend on a 'kissogram training course', along with several other women all of whom sport equally huge breasts. Here 'training' to become the crème de la crème of the Kissogram profession consists of the girls taking showers, early morning jogs and lots of running on the spot, all under the supervision of a prim and proper 'schoolmarm' type called Jenny who promises Pauline 'plenty of exercise and gym will get you moving around'. Indeed it does, the dubious highlight of these excuses for showing the girls' breasts bouncing all over the place being the exercise sequence which takes place on the grounds of the manor and has the girls topless lifting weights, doing push-ups and other such aerobics. The girls all look freezing cold and tired out but manage a few fake smiles for the camera; only an Englishman could have concocted such a miserable, desperately unsexy spectacle.

A vague sense of a plot is established when Jenny bursts into a striptease rehearsal to bitch about the girl's less than flattering clothes ('you lot are meant to be turning men on, they're gonna wish they stayed at home with the wife when they see you'). Nobly the film draws our attention to the plight of big busted women's inability to find sexy clothes by having one of the girls reply 'they don't make pretty bras for big girls like us, just because we've got big tits, they think we're big and sexless'. Inspired to right this injustice, Jenny goes to a lingerie shop to chat to the manager Matt. When she confronts Matt with Pauline and the other girls' 'special bra requirements' he pulls a shocked face then delivers the film's funniest remark '42 inches that's a yard'. Jenny ends up trying on some sexy clothes herself with a little help from the touchy feely Matt in a plot detour that is actually out of the norm for the film's one track mind given that the actress has normal sized breasts and there's a suggestion, shock, horror, of sex.

In comparison the rest of Kissogram Girls is an asexual little thing, with much in common with a 60's nudist camp production, the girls jog around naked allot but thats about it. In the strange, alternate universe of Sexy Secrets of the Kissogram Girls women with big breasts are held in such high regard that literally anything they do is judged a worthy cinematic subject, resulting in such non-scenes as 'big breasted women examine the contents of a suitcase' and 'big breasted women apply make-up in front of a mirror'. The nearest to an erotic thrill the girls get during the weekend is for a pair of hands to massage their breasts in the bath at one point, but even this is carried out with all the passion of someone kneading dough.

Director Peter Kay made a long (and presumably profitable) career out of tapes that exploited the fetish of well-endowed British girls, shooting more than 60 like minded videos throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. General ineptitude, large breasts, and Top of the Pops-style visual effects are some of the hallmarks of the Kay output, with musical accompaniment that sounds suspiciously like the director's Gran trying out her new electronic keyboard being another. This is not to say Sexy Secrets of the Kissogram Girls isn't entertaining, on the contrary its a very,very,very funny once seen never forgotten viewing experience and if the shelves of a certain music chain are creaking from the strain of countless DVD copies of Doris Wishman's Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73 I see no reason why punters should remain in the dark about the British equivalent.

Kay was obviously proud of his achievement and the tape's sleeve notes-which are a classic in their own right-present the film as if it were the video sexploitation equivalent of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Claiming that the film's shooting 'caused an uproar in staid old Exmouth, front page in the local papers (sic),interviews on local radio and London's capital radio'- clearly this was big news indeed! Seen today the best thing about Sexy Secrets of the Kissogram Girls is of course mascot Pauline Hickey, who's name might still be mud in Exmouth but remains a cute girl next door type with a voice to match, her pigeon toed walking in the opening scene is also …unique. Regrettably this is pretty much the extent of Pauline's film work, although a handful of stripping short films featuring her, as well as long outtakes from Kissogram Girls are out there, not forgetting her appearance in an hysterical 'lets-just-hope-they-were-being-tongue-in-cheek' advert for Electric Blue T-shirts. Of course Pauline was no actress, but she does wear a bemused half smile throughout the film and swings her breasts around in an energetic fashion, both of which seem agreeable under the circumstances.