Camille 2000 (1969)

I am not sure how much Italy has changed over the years, having never been there (sadly), but I'm pretty sure that during the '60s and '70s it was the sexiest place in the world. Everything was sexy. Seriously. There's a characters in Camille 2000 who dies of some vague disease, and I think even the disease was sexy. If an ebola outbreak had occurred then everyone would have been trying to get themselves infected over the next few years because it would be the sexiest way to die ever.

There's plenty in Camille 2000 that is sexy, apart from the actual sex. The two main characters - Marguerite AKA Camille, played by Daniele Gaubert, and Armand, played by Nino Castelnuovo - indulge in sexy dancing, sexy hide and seek, sexy gambling, sexy parties that allow people to portray slaves and owners, and even sexy clothes shopping. Yet it's all one big game to the free spirit that is Marguerite, despite the fact that Armand is growing more and more in love with her at every turn. Perhaps their relationship is doomed. But at least it will be sexily doomed.

Directed by Radley Metzger, this is a film inspired by a book by Alexandre Dumas fils. It is, in many ways, a very familiar tale. Unrequited love, pure and simple. Yet, thanks to the screenplay by Michael DeForrest, it's also just as much about keeping up appearances in social circles that will tolerate anything apart from personal or financial embarrassment. I can't say whether or not that was taken from the source material, having never read the book, but it's an interesting additional layer here.

Gaubert and Castelnuovo are, unsurprisngly, sexy young people at the heart of all this sexiness, and they're joined by Eleonora Rossi Drago, Roberto Bisacco, Silvana Venturelli, and a number of others. Nobody really makes an impression, however, as they're nothing more than set dressing, helping to up the sexiness quotient in between the many moments when the leads are being sexy with one another.

The biggest problem that this movie has, as I already mentioned above, is that the sex is the least sexy part of it. It's obviously supposed to be sexy, but it's not. Gaubert and Castelnuovo romp around in various states of undress, snogging one another like a pair of teenagers who have just discovered how to kiss with tongue, and this is repeated a number of times, each time dragging the film to a complete standstill. Other people are also shown having sex, and none of them seem to be having a very good time.

I still enjoyed Camille 2000. It's hard to hate something that almost constantly looks so stylish and, yes, sexy. It's just a great shame that the only unsexy part was the actual sex. Still, at least I can thank it for this review, which may just be the sexiest damn thing I've ever written.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Metzger-Sexadelic-Collection-Camille-Lickerish/dp/B000VCTLKM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419761356&sr=8-2&keywords=camille+2000

The Alley Cats (1966)

Directed by Radley Metzger and written by Peter Fernandez, The Alley Cats shows you "the swinging sixties like you've never seen them" according to the DVD cover. Which would be correct if by 1966 people hadn't already seen folk freaking out to crazy tunes and then bedhopping like nymphomaniac rabbits. But isn't that what we've always seen of/associated with the swinging sixties. Those who were around at the time lived it, even if they can't remember most of it, and those who grew up in later years were told and shown just how it was. A mixture of free spirits, free love and freeing fashions.

The Alley Cats gives you all that you would expect as a "time capsule" from this era but it somehow manages to make all of the shenanigans, the sexual encounters and the fluid sexuality incredibly boring. Hard as that may be to believe, this is a dull, dull movie that proves to be about as erotically charged as an episode of Thunderbirds.

Anne Arthur plays Leslie, a young woman who suspects her fiance Logan (Charlie Hickman) of not being entirely faithful to her. Logan, to be fair, isn't being entirely faithful to her as he likes playing around with Leslie's friend, Agnes (Karin Field). Because popular TV shows such as Jerry Springer, The Jeremy Kyle Show, etc weren't around at this time, Leslie decides to solve her problem by "dallying" with Christian (Harald Baerow).  And Irena (Sabrina Koch) isn't looking too unattractive either.

There is nothing I can say about The Alley Cats that really needs to be said. If you see it then you probably won't run screaming from the room, asking for someone to douse your flaming eyeballs. But you probably won't want to ever see it again either. It's just rubbish, quite frankly, but disappointingly bland and inoffensive rubbish. Which, when you think about it, is almost the worst kind of rubbish.

3/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alley-Cats-DVD-US-NTSC/dp/B00000JWWS