Deux gamines

As the year 2007 draws to a close, allow me to escort you into the dark bowels of Belgium's (Europe's ? The world's ?) last remaining "old style" adult theater – i.e. showcasing 35mm film rather than DVD or video projection – the good old and ever so slightly decrepit ABC Cinema on the Adolphe Max Boulevard in my country's capital of Brussels. As a dirty movie devotee of 25 years and counting, I feel almost obliged to make the weekly pilgrimage to this relic of what polite society would undoubtedly deem unsavory cultural expression. Supply and demand being what it is nowadays, celluloid carnality has become increasingly more difficult to come by for the grind-house owners, in recent years loads of German-dubbed American movies bought wholesale from Beate Uhse's now defunct warehouses and fair to meddling French features left over from some Parisian passion pit. Having passed through the typically Belgian educational system, I'm fluent in Flemish (my maternal language, virtually identical to Dutch), French, English and German. The ABC's steadily deteriorating sound system, which is only muffled on its better days, renders my efforts in vain however when there's an absence of subtitles to make sense of a screenplay's subtleties. Of course, the very existence of such a place at the time of writing merits a detour from any true blue movie lover traveling through. Seems like they might still be around for some time to come, as the management has only recently invested in (much-needed) new seats from multiplex mogul Kinepolis, with cup holders to boot !

During the year's last holiday-infested week, they were showing a double bill consisting of a Kraut version of Jack Remy's amiable L'AMOUR and this ultra-obscure Claude Pierson confection, or at least most of it. Allow me to explain. As trusty French film magazine La Revue Du Cinéma informs, Pierson (as "Carolyn Joyce") cobbled LES DEUX GAMINES together from his own back catalog (BLONDES HUMIDES and JEUNES COUPLES DECHAINES, both from 1978) with newly shot – circa 1980 – wraparound footage featuring tragic starlet Cathy Stewart and German Barbara Moose as a pair of Catholic schoolgirls exchanging erotic confessions. Now the French possibly had the most stringent porn laws anywhere, with tremendous taxes on any new and especially foreign material as well as a strict veto against any form of publicity beyond exhibition of a film's title. Therefore, any existing footage would be endlessly transformed over years of theatrical screenings, mixed, matched and somewhat dishonestly repackaged into at least partially "new" features. I sincerely doubt if any of the patrons had the guts to ask for his money back upon realization that he was inadvertently watching recycled rubbish ! The "incarnation" of GAMINES I happened to come across undoubtedly dates from such a later stage of its cinematic career, kicking off with a long segment from Francis Leroi's costume classic PETITES FILLES AU BORDEL, followed by an elaborate orgy sequence featuring Ellen Earl and Guy Royer possibly taken from Lazlo Renato's SUPEREXCITATION before settling into the film "proper". Think of it as a "best of" package, except that it's not…

Now all this back story may prove to be more interesting than the flick itself, while nicely shot (no credit but might have been Roger Fellous) an almost touchingly inept wallow in overstated melodrama which was something of a Pierson trademark. Title is even borrowed ad verbatim from a classic Louis Feuillade silent serial, itself a thinly disguised rip-off of that old chestnut "Les Deux Orphelines" about a pair of pure yet put-upon maidens whose hardships are eventually rewarded by true love and subsequent wedlock. The movie's most inspired aspect is the physical similarity between the two actresses, further increased by inflicting identical hairstyles on them both. The always fascinating Stewart (who would frequently reveal herself, and not just literally, as one of French fornication film's most resourceful thespians) remembers having her cherry popped over the Summer holidays by equally inexperienced Dominique Irissou, her real life boyfriend. Moose (now there was a girl who really needed to rethink her porno name !) flashes back on throwing herself, along with her female friends, at pop idol Jean-Luc Ferré in a scene from JEUNES COUPLES. Turns out Babs' guardian (ubiquitous Guy Royer) runs one of those sexual disorder clinics that only seem to exist in skin-flicks, with both girls pressed into duty as naughty nurses. Richard Allan and Charly Schreiner, the male lead from Claude-Bernard Aubert's box office blast VEUVES EN CHALEUR, turn up as bed-ridden patients along with an unannounced but always welcome Brigitte Lahaye in a clip from aforementioned BLONDES. And so it goes, Cathy being subjected to erotica's traditional punishment for demi-virgins intent on remaining true blue – an eventually consensual group violation – before rushing back to the arms of Dominique. These star-crossed lovers share the flick's most interesting instance of intimacy, a heartfelt oral encounter in the school chapel, rudely interrupted by Mother Superior. At least she was down on her knees, Sister !