The Click

Original title: Le déclic
aka The Turn-on
France, 1985
Directors: Jean-Louis Richard, Steve Barnett
Stars: Florence Guérin, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Bernie Kuby
IMDB: 4.4

What if you had a remote control that could turn any woman into a shameless nympho at the turn of a dial? That is the central conceit of Le Declic, a film based on the erotic comic by highly regarded Italian illustrator Milo Manara.

Set in New Orleans, we meet a yuppie type who calls himself Dr. Fez (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). He hates his boss, but sticks around because he has a thing for the Boss' hot young wife, Claudia, even though she clearly can't stand him.

Claudia (softcore Eurosleaze starlet, Florence Guerin) is uptight and frigid, believing that sex is for animals. Fez, on the other hand is convinced that everyone has a bit of the animal inside, even her.

Fez spends his nights drinking at the local strip club with his buddy Jackson, who has a theory that his favourite stripper is a mindless automaton controlled by the strip-club owner. Because as you might have guessed, the owner is a professor, who conducts mind-control experiments, on rats, in the basement.

(!)

Of course Fez thinks he has a better use for that technology, so he steals it. The technical details of his method are obviously too advanced to explain to the lay-person, but it involves splicing together poly-rhythmic sex grunts into a hypnotic brand of dance music. Once recorded onto cassette tape (this is the '80s) he surreptitiously switches it into Claudia's walkman (yep still the '80s).

Upon listening to the tape she quickly falls unconscious, allowing Fez to briefly abduct her and implant a receiver capable of activating hypnotic arousal commands via remote control. What's really impressive, from a scientific perspective, is that the modified handheld radio controller (special price, $8.95) has a dial allowing fine-grained control of the arousal level, along with a bunch of snazzy flashing lights to boot. All in all, a pretty awesome piece of kit for 1985.

Now that we've got the ridiculous preamble out of the way, the movie settles into its real raison d'être, which is to show Florence Guerin naked for Fez to subject Claudia to all manner of sexual degradation via remote control.

The device, once activated, causes Claudia to masturbate in a changing room, suck off the salesman, and proceed to fuck whoever is on hand. Fez runs the gamut in his opportunistic exploitation of the young woman, but it really makes you wonder. It's all quite voyeuristic and mean-spirited, what's wrong with him? Surely he'd rather employ the device to his own benefit. Of course ... but first she must be brought down off her high-horse, until she no longer feels she is better than him.

Only then can Fez make his move.

Let me be honest, the movie is not exactly saturated with quality in any of it's core components. There are brief strokes of visual aestheticism, but given the artistry of the source material, I would've expected much more. The acting is average, the story unfeasible. It tries to be part comedy, part thriller, failing at both.

The saving grace for a flick of this type is the debauchery and eroticism. Compared to the original comic, the debauchery has been toned down considerably for this theatrical presentation. But understandably so - I can't imagine many actresses outside of the Porn industry would consent to committing some of the original's deviant acts on camera ...

So it's a saucy concept to be sure, but at the end of the day the film's debauchery is too cartoonish (ironic given the comic is less so) to seriously compete with a myriad of superior Euro-sleaze contenders.

What will ensure this film continues to garner fans, however, is Florence Guerin who looks fantastic naked - and is by turns sweet, classy, and diabolically sexy. It's a rare breed of actress (especially these days) who has what it takes to bare all in erotic roles without crossing the line into base slapperdom. It's her presence here that makes the film worth the time of any self-respecting sleaze-hound.

And to that end, the pictures tell it better than I.

Rating: 5.5/10
A unique concept with a great lead actress, but average realisation.

PS: If you're at all curious about well illustrated adult-themed comics, do check out Milo Manara's original works.

I'll leave the last words to Claudia and her husband ...

Madame de Sade

Original title: Madamu Sado: Mesu jigoku 
Japan, 1986
Director: Yoshihiro Kawasaki
Stars: Machiko Wachi, Kazuyo Ezaki, Isshiki Hikaru
IMDB: 6.8

In the 1980s, Nikkatsu produced a bunch of S&M themed Roman Pornos with distinctive airbrush-style promotional posters such as the one shown at right. Naturally one wonders what kinky delights await the intrepid viewer of such material, so I set out to track one down.

Turned out to be no easy task. Madame de Sade, also known as Madame Sado: She Beast in Hell, has not as far as I can tell ever been released outside of Japan. Yeah I know, probably with good reason right? Well, thanks to dedicated amateur aficianados, this masterpiece of cinematic perversion has been resurrected - and subtitles produced - to allow the film to live on and find a new audience worldwide (if you know where to look, that is).

OK, so my liberal employment of the word 'masterpiece' is admittedly playing fast and loose with the Queen's English, and you'd be completely justified in raising an inquisitive eyebrow. I take it back.

So what's it all about? Well hey, it's porno - usually the story would be little more than a flimsy scaffold to support the sexual vignettes, and of no significance whatsoever. Luckily, we're in Roman Porno territory here, a cut above, so actually there IS a story. There's even characterisation, machinations, revelations, and all that other filmic stuff. (In addition to the domination, flagellation, strangulation, fornication, urination, masturbation, etc).

* Note: While Roman Porno is erotic, and contains the word porno, it is definitely not PORN as we would define it in the West. For a start there are absolutely no genitals shown - and along with a reasonable cinematic quality, ensures it belongs more in the genre of Erotica.

The film starts by introducing us to Reiko (Machiko Wachi) as she is jilted at the altar - her fiancee Ryoichi not only failing to appear, but going completely missing. Although she doesn't know it yet, his ex Yumi (Kazuyo Ezaki), in a fit of jealousy has him chained up in her attic, refusing to let him go. Even dressing as a bride to complete her fantasy.

Not only that, as the title implies, she's a bit of a sadistic bitch - dispensing humiliations and degradations on Ryoichi with the aim of forcing him to completely forget his fiancee and become her obedient dog. Hell hath no fury... and all that.

Anyway, months later it seems Reiko has given up on Ryoichi ever returning, and has developed something of a carnal itch. Coincidentally, and rather incestuously, a convenient substitute is on hand in the form of Ryoichi's younger brother Shinji, who works with her in her jewellery business and seems more than a little interested.

Inviting him to a home-cooked dinner after work, soon enough they crack a bottle of wine together and flirt, only to be interrupted by Shinji's girlfriend Midori (Isshiki Hikaru) who has no intention of leaving him alone with Reiko. After all, he's a bit of a dweeb - and Reiko's a certified sex bomb.

After Shinji leaves, Reiko is not only drunk, but moist too. Left with nothing but a half eaten dinner, the dinner table, and an empty wine bottle - what's a poor girl to do?

Get creative! In a completely gratuitous, undeniably redundant, but neverthless astonishing turn of events, she scoops up an unidentified white substance from her plate and lathers it lasciviously over her bright red lips, spilling it all over her chin in what I can only assume is some kind of Freudian metaphor. But that's not all ! After whipping her top off, she spreads the food messily over the rest of her body, before discovering that the table leg is seductively hard, and proceeds to grind up against it.

It's a pretty sexy scene - but that's still not all! Remember the wine bottle? Well in the interest of good taste, I'll leave that to your imagination!

What am I saying? We're no purveyors of good taste here at Twisted Flicks, especially concerning the good bits. Yes, I can confirm that she proceeds to enjoy a rather intimate, extended, and gratifying sexual liaison with the wine bottle - sometimes in close-up, and almost certainly without the benefit of CGI.

I say "almost certainly", because this of course could never be decisively ascertained due to the standard optical censorship that Japan requires by law to cover all genital areas in their films. Consequently this scene, and many others, are blurred by a large foggy patch over the relevant areas which is of no small detriment to the film. Don't get me wrong though, the scene is still hot as hell.

Anyway, Shinji is not going to be denied some of that action, and promptly breaks up with Midori in order to fuck and fall in love with Reiko. Bizarrely, it turns out that Midori works for Yumi (you know, the bitch that has imprisoned Ryoichi?), and has told her about the situation. So Yumi suggests that Reiko and Shinji visit her and Midori to try to find an amicable solution.

But Yumi has an ulterior motive.

Without going into detail - all our main characters (who are all convolutedly related to each other in various ways) end up in Yumi's house together, including Ryoichi of course in the attic. Yumi and Reiko battle it out in a tale of revenge, passion, treachery, and outright debauchery.

By the end of the night, pretty much everyone has fucked everyone else, and in a wide variety of configurations. The imagination involved in cramming so many perversions into one movie is breath-taking, and actually pretty impressive, even if it doesn't always make perfect sense

Interestingly, it is the MEN who are the unwitting pawns of these two powerful women, which makes for an interesting reversal.

For a film containing such highly sexual ideas and situations (of which I've described only a small portion, trust me!) - the story, acting and cinematography is of a remarkably high order. For those who enjoy some titillation in their movies, but cannot put up with the cinematic dross so often exemplified by most adult entertainment, I can most certainly recommend.

Also, and importantly for this type of film, Machiko Wachi is a stone-cold knockout. She not only looks fabulous, but is given plenty of opportunity to show her acting chops as well.

Rating: 7/10

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