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6
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8 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
Gunilla
(Suzanne Fields) is a sexually precocious lesbian
left to her own fantasies when her lover leaves
her alone at an American ski lodge...
Nick
Philips, the director of Les
Chic and Dr. Christina
Of Sweden, directed this lesser-known, but
more intensely fetishistic porn. The story focuses
on an insatiable woman jilted by her lesbian lover.
When she's not actually having sex, or spying
on people doing the deed, she loses herself in
her own fantasy world. Fixated on black leather
boots, she wanders about aimlessly, looking for
love in all the wrong places. This being a Philips
film, the story unfolds without a proper soundtrack,
the dead air filled with badly recorded jazz riffs
and pretentious voice-overs that more often than
not lapse into comic absurdities. ("I
had an insatiable desire to fondle elegant boots.
Boots were indeed a delight.") There
is something to be said for Philips' handheld,
improvisational aesthetic —
at times, the film is reminiscent of some of the
more fascinating examples of Jess Franco's peculiarly
personal brand of off-the-cuff cinema. The director's
personal fixations and hang-ups surface in the
obsessively fetishistic approach to the material
— the emphasis on
boots and foot worship, perhaps predictably, surface
in some of his other erotic films.
The
first sequence is a solo interlude, allowing Suzanne
Fields an opportunity to command the frame. Fields,
who would later appear in the infamous Flesh
Gordon, is a stunningly attractive performer.
In contrast to the porn stars of today, she seems
down to earth, even attainable —
like the girl next door with a kinky side. As
Fields masturbates herself with a black leather
boot, Phillips' camera stares on as if in awe.
Abandoning her stylized footwear, she begins to
use the more 'traditional' assistance of a vibrator
to bring herself to a realistic climax.
Worn
out by her solo interlude, Gunilla leaves her
cabin and wanders around the grounds of the ski
lodge, stopping to observe a couple in another
cabin having sex. Phillips has some fun with this,
the only 'straight' sequence in the picture, as
the husband buries his nose in a pretentious sex
tome while the missus services his member. After
a bit of anal and sixty-nine action, the action
concludes with a pop shot to the mouth. Gunilla's
florid play-by-play concludes with her existential
observation, "I decided to go for a drive
instead of masturbating." (Truly, how
often have we all been faced with this decision?)
The next
sequence allows Gunilla to get in on the action
— she meets a stunning
brunette named Marlene and they hoof it to somewhere
cozy for a little afternoon delight. Gunilla spends
a lot of time sucking on the toes of Marlene's
boots before getting into some down and dirty
sixty-nine action —
Philips' staging of this scene is none too groundbreaking,
but the two actresses seem to be enjoying each
other, making this the standout set piece of the
film.
Just
when it seems that Gunilla has found true love,
Marlene leaves her alone with her thoughts. Gunilla
sleeps fitfully, dreaming of another attractive
brunette in black boots. In a fascinatingly protracted
sequence, the nameless dream girl plays with her
breasts, diddles herself and dons and imposing
strap-on. It all wraps up with Gunilla flashing
back over her erotic escapades, allowing Phillips
to show a few tightly edited highlights before
fading to black.
It may not be high art, but
Gunilla is grand
entertainment for connoisseurs of vintage smut.
The girls are attractive, the sequences are edited
with more pizzazz than the hopelessly repetitious
sex scenes that dominate contemporary porn flicks,
and the voice-overs lend a charming — if unintentionally
funny — air to the proceedings. If it doesn't
quite match Les Chic
(possibly the best of Philips' porno films), it
stands well on its own kinky merits.
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After
Hours Cinema's two-disc release of Gunilla
is bound to overjoy fans of Suzanne Fields. The
film is presented in its appropriate full-frame
ratio, and the print quality is good for a film
of its origin and vintage. Colors are nicely rendered
and detail is as sharp; After Hours has continued
its trend of putting a visible water mark on the
bottom right hand corner of the frame, but on
the upside, it appears only intermittently. Scratching
and other defects are evident, but never distractingly
so. The mono English soundtrack is as good as
one could hope for —
the voice-overs are clear enough, and the score
(sounding as if it were recorded in a men's toilet)
is appropriately funky. The film itself was shot
without sound, however, so don't expect any moans
to complement the viewing experience. Extras commence
on Disc 1, which includes a silent Suzanne Fields
"loop" called Filthy Photographer.
The title says it all: in the space of a few minutes,
titular character John Holmes (looking as if his
massive member weighs more than the sum of the
rest of his parts) lays Fields before shooting
some liquid love all over her stomach. The dismal
picture quality adds to the short's grindhouse
ambiance. Presented full-frame, it is terribly
soft and appears to have been treated very poorly
since its 1972 production date. A series of trailers
for other After Hours retro porn flicks rounds
out the first disc —
since these encompass highlights, as it were,
there is much to be said for compiling these trailers
in such a manner.
Disc 2 includes two feature length films with
Suzanne Fields, both presented in the 1.78 aspect
ratio and looking worse for wear than the main
feature. The first is titled Kinky
Casting Couch (55 min.), and what it lacks
in plot it more than makes up for in a memorable
scene of Fields being boned on a desk. Another
quality scene features a nameless brunette servicing
a customer in a massage parlor, though the climax
is spoiled by the director's odd decision to go
for a subjective shot of the penis squirting inside
a vagina (apparently replicated with a slab of
steak — here's hoping
they thawed it out for the poor actor). The last
sequence is a free-for-all orgy in which a guru
looking like the bastard love child of Orson Welles
and Sebastian Cabot gets in on the action —
the less said about that, the better. The grimy
picture quality —
seriously, the print looks like it was gone over
with a cheese grater —
adds to the sleaze factor. Next up is The
Mind Blowers (48 min.), a slice of psychedelic
sex that lives up to its title. The picture quality
is an improvement on Casting
Couch, though it still looks pretty rough.
Fields gets in on some highly enjoyable lesbian
action, but much of the film is bogged down with
bad acting, worse dialogue and the strange (if
enjoyable) assertion that taking mind-altering
drugs will lead to the oh-so-horrible consequence
of sex, sex... and more sex. The horror...
8/31/06
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