THE NOTORIOUS DAUGHTER OF FANNY HILL (1966)
Director: Peter Perry

THE HEAD MISTRESS (1968)
Director: Byron Mabe
Something Weird/Image Entertainment

After breaking ground with H.G. Lewis' infamous "Blood Trilogy," producer David F. Friedman turned his sites on the "nudie cutie." This term referred to a kind of softcore sexploitation film that was popular from the late 50s to the early 70s, and preceded the hardcore boom that began around 1973. Friedman was sometimes able to furnish the sexual shenanigans in the guise of a historical/period piece by renting costumes from a shop that bought out their inventory from major Hollywood studios. Adding credible (well, almost) locations and sets that appear to be from a time long ago, a series of historical nudie cuties had arrived.

The first film on this double feature disc is THE NOTORIOUS DAUGHTER OF FANNY HILL starring Stacey Walker (real name: Barbara Jean Moore) as Miss Kissy Hill. With her amazing pair of legs, Fanny Hill's promiscuous daughter caters to the sexual desires of various aristocrats, including a chubby Marquis de Sade. The film basically takes place in one well-dressed setting, and it was photographed by none other than Laslo Kovacs! As Friedman relays, he discovered his star attraction on the beach when she asked for a buck to buy a hot dog. Friedman convinced her to act in his movie as an 18th century English courtesan, despite her heavy Texas twang ("Who the hell's gonna be listening to her? They're gonna be looking at her!").

The next film, THE HEAD MISTRESS, was made two years later and is far more explicit in terms of on-screen flesh. Blond and busty Marsha Jordan, one of the top sexploitation starlets of the 60s, plays the director at a school of virgins in 17th century Italy. When the old gardener of the school retires, a young stud named Mario takes over his job by pretending to be mute and dumb. Mario bangs most of the girls (who mainly sit around having nude picnics). Marsha catches one of the girls with Mario, so she whips her and proceeds to make love to her.

Afterwards, Marsha explains to the bewildered girl why she is now a lesbian in a sequence explained as a flashback. Before working at the school, she was madly in love with a young man. While making out with him in a field one night, a pair of cretins lops off her lover's head and buries it in the mud. They then rape Marsha in her bedroom (well, one guy fondles her torso while the other sucks on her feet), and then exit the room without ever removing their pants. Marsha digs up her lover's skull and plants it in a flower pot by her bed. The vines from the plant "arise" to fornicate with Marsha's supple breasts and then smother the two dopes when they try to re-bury the skull!

In comparison to the faded, well worn trailers for these two features (included as extras on this disc), both films look magnificent and are obviously re-mastered from the original negatives. The colors look absolutely gorgeous. What makes the disc is the running commentary by producer Friedman who is interviewed by Something Weird's Mike Vraney. Although Friedman has done lots of these commentaries before, each film has its own story, and it's so gratifying to hear him recall the sensational days of sexploitation films. In fact, both films are light on dialog, so you might just as well play the commentary track on your initial viewing. One of Mr. Friedman's best anecdotes is about an actress in HEAD MISTRESS. She poisoned her first husband, and then attempted to poison her second one and was sent to prison for life!

There are two short subjects on the disc, both showcasing FANNY HILL star Stacey Walker. One is a color short called "But Charlie, I Never Played Volleyball," with Stacey being urged by her pushy agent to be a judge at a nudist camp beauty contest (where she also ends up nude). The other is labeled "Stacey Walker, Dreamgirl," and it's actually an excerpt from a black and white Friedman feature (SMELL OF HONEY). A sleepless young man has a dream that he strips and whips sexy Stacey. Then in a turn of events, he dreams that she's whipping him and castrates him as well (ouch!).

There's also a video clip from 1991, the momentous year when Vraney first raided the Friedman vaults. The video camera captures the moment when the cigar-chomping Friedman unlocked the doors to an enormous collection of neatly stored and clearly labeled 35mm prints. Friedman gleefully responds to Vraney's wide-eyed delight with, "...like a kid in a candy store." If that weren't enough, there's also a number of trailers for "historical" sex films like THE FABULOUS BASTARD FROM CHICAGO (which is extra long), FANNY HILL MEETS THE RED BARON (I guess that "Fanny Hill Meets Snoopy" was un-filmable), and one that I'd love to see: Myron Babe's FANNY HILL MEETS DR. EROTICO, which features an absurd Frankenstein monster (complete with SON OF FRANKENSTEIN-style vest!) chasing naked ladies! (George R. Reis)

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