ONCE UPON A GIRL (1976)
Director: Don Jurwich
Severin Films

Continuing their focus on obscure 1970s sex films, Severin Films has decided to release one of the oddest sex films you’re likely to see: ONCE UPON A GIRL… Though it features a few live-action scenes, the majority of the feature is an animated adult film! Complete with hardcore sex, dirty jokes, and large-breasted cartoon women that give Mary Jane Parker a run for her money, this is a completely memorable viewing experience highly recommended for any viewer who believes they have seen absolutely everything!! Only in the 1970s could a film like this play theatrically across the country!

In a small town in Southern California, the real Mother Goose is being questioned in court for disturbing the peace (?!) and proceeds to tell the true versions of the fairy tales she wrote so many years ago to entertain children. It turns out that her stories were intended for adults!

In “Jack and the Beanstalk”, Jack is a horny teen with an equally perverted frog companion, first introduced peeping on a buxom milkmaid frolicking in a pond, who is promptly surprised and provoked to orgasm when Jack’s amphibian friend jumps onto her breasts, sucks her nipples, and licks at her nether regions, as Jack screws a hole in a tree with his growing hard-on. It only gets crazier from there! En route to take his cow to market after sucking her dry himself (!), Jack meets Pimpy, the 8th dwarf who flashes our hero and then tries to entice him to trade his cow for some dirty pictures, including Miss Muffet posing nude on her tuffet and Hansel and Gretel being dominated by the Wicked Witch in Vampirella garb!! Instead, Jack trades his cow for a never-ending suck session on a gypsy’s heaving breasts, a little humping, and some magic beans. Jack’s mother throws them out the window, but once Jack spurts a huge load out the window one evening, it’s the fertilizer they need to grow a giant beanstalk into the sky. Climbing up the beanstalk and inside a castle at the top, Jack discovers a magical harp with a topless maidenhead who incites everything that hears her singing to sexual excitement (birds make out, rats have an orgy, wine bottles poke into cheese). The lady of the house, a breasty giantess, lets Jack suckle her nipples and uses him as a dildo before her husband comes home and he must hide inside her noony…except that the giant decides to pork his wife with Jack inside!!

Continuing her storytelling, Mother Goose regales the courtroom with “Cinderella”. Cinderella’s father was a dirty old man who slept with all the women in his village, except for one bony old crone who seeks revenge through help from The Wicked Witch of the Wang, who owns a porno shop inside of an old tree. The witch’s love potion leads to a speedy marriage; however, once the spell wears off, Cinderella’s pop runs off, leaving her to slave for her wicked stepmother and her two equally wicked stepsisters, who spend their time masturbating each other. The king announces a ball will be held to choose a suitable wife for his son, the prince, and of course the stepsisters doll themselves up for the occasion. Cinderella is left to toil performing her chores until her fairy godmother appears to help her out. Instead of dressing her in a gown and sending her to the castle in a coach, she wills a giant cake to the palace ballroom and Cinderella pops out of it in a bikini to enchant the prince! She flees as the clock strikes twelve, and the prince must search the land for a virgin, inspecting each girl’s naked body along the way. Love conquers all, as the prince finds his true love and takes her virginity in the great outdoors. Do they live happily ever after? “Bullshit!”, screams Mother Goose, as the kingdom goes bankrupt because the prince and Cinderella can’t stop screwing, resulting in numerous babies, the stepmother and stepsisters move in when they run out of money, and the prince begins sleeping with other local girls as Cinderella loses her figure further with each new baby!!

Mother Goose comes to her final story, “Little Red Riding Hood”, in another outrageous adults-only version of this classic tale. Little Red Riding Hood awakens bright and early to dress for a wedding. She pushes her enviable figure into a tight, clingy red gown, and begins to trek through the woods towards the chapel. As she makes her way down the path, a mustachioed hunter with a gold tooth demands payment to pass, and as she has no money or anything to trade, he rapes her!! But her troubles are not over; further down the path, she runs into another muscle-bound redheaded hunter who proceeds to rape her as payment…except that she begins to enjoy it, and has a fierce female orgasm that gives her the dizzies. When Red encounters another hunter on her path, she herself demands that he screw her to allow her passage! With each escalating sexual adventure, she loses a bit of more clothing, before she is completely nude running through the woods. Troll Bridge is guarded by a flaming queen troll, but Red is able to cross when he is distracted by the return of his gay lover Cyril. Arriving nude at the wedding, Red’s bodacious bod incites an erection in the groom, leading to a show-stopping orgy finale!

Adult and XXX versions of cartoons and comic books are nothing new, though they seem to have developed a cult following on the Internet these days (type Disney Porn into Google and marvel at some of the imaginative and filthy images you can find! Disney Porn Land will give you whiplash!). The films of Ralph Bakshi and THE EROTIC CARTOON FESTIVAL seem to have influenced the success of this feature, which delights in pushing the envelope as far as possible in the name of an X rating. The animation is pretty awkward, for the most part, and one step below Hanna-Barbara standards, but doesn’t detract from the enjoyability of this unique dirty movie. In the live-action sequences, character actor Hal Smith (known as the voice of ‘Owl’ in Disney’s WINNIE THE POOH features, among other things), with a goose puppet sitting on his lap (and laying an egg to boot), seems to having a grand time hamming it up as a drag queen Mother Goose, and adding narration to the animated poontang. Some may think the jokes wear thin long before the goofy finale, but all in all, ONCE UPON A GIRL is a bonafide exploitation gem and a recommended purchase!

Presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and anamorphic, ONCE UPON A GIRL makes its U.S. home video debut in grand fashion, with the animation looking clean and crisp and the live action scenes are particularly colorful. The English mono audio is great, with the narration and various moaning and groaning sound effects sounding full and clear.

Extras are slim on this disc, which is unfortunate as it would have been interesting to hear from some of the animators who worked on the film and their thoughts on the controversial nature of the project. In addition to a wonderful theatrical trailer, there is an all-too brief interview with executive producer William Silberkleit. He discusses his other films, including LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT, YOUNG LADY CHATTERLEY, DETROIT 9000, THE GLOVE, and ALICE COOPER: WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE, though in 9 minutes, there are few interesting anecdotes to be found about them (he does mention Motown’s unique connection to DETROIT 9000 and recalls Lovelace by saying “she wasn’t the brightest…”). In talking about ONCE UPON A GIRL, Silberkleit reveals that all of the animators were women who worked for Disney and moonlighted working on this film on the side; they in fact came up with sleazier ideas than could be included in an X-rated movie! (Casey Scott)

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