Felicity

by Fuggy

Aw man. This was the one. This was the movie that – whenever it appeared on Cinemax back in the late 80s – I would always make time for. I taped it. I memorized it.  When times changed and it stopped appearing on TV, I kept fond memories of it for years. And when it was released last month on DVD for the first time, I knew I had to own it.

The DVD release of this 1979 movie is through a new company, Severin Films, who seem to be going about resurrecting these late night cable classics the right way. This print of Felicity is fresh from the personal collection of the director, John Lamond. It is gorgeous. It is also complete. There were a few seconds of footage left out of the old Cinemax version, and it’s nice to see them restored here. There’s also a superb commentary by the director and the star herself, Glory Annen, who is now much older and looks back on it as a lark of her youth that she’s very proud of.

Felicity tells the story of a girl named Mabel Finkelstein (kidding, kidding) Felicity Robinson, who is bored out of her mind at a girls’ school in Australia. She’s also bursting out of her body, and is eager to have the sort of sexual experience which is denied her at the schools she’s grown up in, which are described as “always exclusive, and always out of the way.”

She learns that her absentee father has arranged for her to stay with friends in Hong Kong for her summer holidays. She’s excited, but terrified. “I’ve learned to be the perfect young lady,” she sighs, “but nothing’s prepared me for this.”

So Felicity boards a plane for the Far East. If this plot sounds vaguely familiar, well, it’s pretty standard rip-off of the original Emmanuelle.  In fact, Felicity’s reading material on the plane to Hong Kong is an Emmanuelle Arsan book. So, at least they’re honest about their sources. And at the very least they gave their heroine a different name, unlike the Italian copycats who just dropped an “m” and had Laura Gemser globetrotting around the world as “Emanuelle.”

Emmanuelle established a tradition that is perhaps peculiarly French in nature; if you want get down and dirty, go muck it up somewhere in Indochina, then take off and leave someone else to clean up the mess. That’s how it worked for Sylvia Kristel; Laura Gemser’s Emanuelle also had a memorable stop in Bangkok. But where the original Emmanuelle may be off-putting by suggesting a woman’s sexual freedom can be granted by a man, and Emanuelle in Bangkok is definitely off-putting by suggesting that it comes by way of a gang rape (a scene which thankfully was edited out of most Cinemax and Showtime broadcasts), the Australian Emmanuelle Felicity gets closest to right by putting it on Felicity herself to determine her own sexual freedom.

Somewhere in a balance between shame and hedonism, she finds her pleasure. There is no violence and little menace to speak of, and as director Lamond mentions in the commentary, the movie is light-hearted in nature, and nowadays seems like a lost fantasy from a long-gone world.  It’s just a simple story of a girl growing up and finding love and lots of sex.

On board the plane she sees a couple joining the mile high club and she masturbates. When she gets to Hong Kong she spies on her father’s friends having sex. Pretty soon, she’s ready to have sex herself and a wonderfully retro 70s roué by the name of Andrew Jackson introduces her to his stone wall on the hood of his car. His pickup line, by the way: “Do you like fast cars and bright lights? Well then, come with me.” Dammit, were the 70s really this easy?
 
The film acknowledges a common human fact that few other movies ever have: once you start to fuck, you want to fuck a lot. Early in the movie, Felicity bemoans not having a man to come home to every day, to do with as she pleases. And so when Felicity finally finds her lover Miles (played by Christopher Milne), she wants to have sex everywhere. In a movie theater, on a streetcar, in an elevator. “I’m horny!” cries Felicity. “I can’t wait another minute!” Well, Felicity baby, don’t let me stop you.

The sex in this movie is, in my opinion anyway, how sex in softcore movies should be. It’s realistic, it’s energetic; it’s explicit, but not beyond a certain line. One of the moments that didn’t make it into the Cinemax cut was when Miles runs his lips along Felicity’s pubic mound, which she lifts up towards him. Later in that same scene comes a moment where she puts a pillow under her backside to alter the angle of penetration. It’s little touches like this that make this film so very, very sexy, while still remaining a softcore film. If only the softcore movies of today with their fake, repetitive grinding could learn a little something from this. Softcore can be real, and realistic, and not have to cross the line into pornography.

Plus, there’s one other major selling point. Glory Annen is gorgeous.  And she probably still is (apparently she’s been in the news recently). Even in the DVD’s stills gallery, she positively radiates fresh-faced beauty. I was not surprised to find that she had a real acting background, because it shows. In the commentary she mentions she took the role simply because it would be fun to go to Hong Kong. Her enthusiasm for the role makes this movie so much better.

The ending is beautiful. Felicity briefly loses her Miles, but finds him again. “I haven’t exactly been the picture of innocence,” she admits, referring to her experiences in the meantime. Miles is unfazed, and admits to his own dalliances, and they go right on having sex. Now there’s freedom! And happiness, as Felicity and Miles discover their perfect balance. “Some people go through their lives having sex without affection. Others, affection without sex,” intones Felicity in a voice-over. “My time with Miles taught me that the two must go together.” Sigh. Group hug, people. But, uh, careful about the sticky spots.

Currently, Severin’s only other release is another great one: The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak, featuring a young Tawny Kitaen and directed by Emmanuelle director Just Jaeckin. The list of upcoming releases on their website suggests that there are a number of goodies still to come. Their releases should be a worthy addition to the other companies that are championing some of the great softcore directors of the 1970s, such as VSOM with Jess Franco and Jean Rollin, Luminous with the Tinto Brass movies and Retro-Seduction with the Joe Sarno epics. 

It’s a great time for fans of 70s softcore, that’s for sure.

Screens: Click for larger image.