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Released by: Private Screenings Collection
Released on: 11/14/2006
Director: Gerard Kikoine
Cast: Josephine Jaqueline Jones, Marie France
Year: 1985
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The Movie:
The title of the film, Love Circles, more or less gives away the plot of the picture before it even starts, but here's a quick rundown anyway:
An American visiting Paris decides to head out for the night and he winds up at a nightclub where he meets a beautiful French woman named Suzy (Marie-France). The two hit it off and before you know it, they're getting to know one another in the most intimate of way possible. When they finish, she gives him a cigarette pack and they go their separate ways.
Later on, he meets another woman named Brigid (Josephine Jaqueline Jones of Black Venus fame) and, you guessed it, they hit it off. Before you know it, they're getting to know one another in the most intimate way possible. When they finish, he gives her a cigarette pack and they go their separate ways. See where this is going yet? From there, Jones meets someone else, hands off the cigeratte pack after they get it on, and eventually (SPOILERS!) it ends up with the beautiful French woman from the first fleshy rendezvous.
There's really only one reason to watch Love Circles, and that's the ladies. Each and every one of the female stars who shows up in this picture is a stunner, and each and every one of those stunners manages to disrobe at least twice before the film comes to a close. This is really the only reason that this film has to exist. Sure, it looks pretty in that it's shot well, has some reasonably good eighties soft focus camera work in its favor and makes use of some nice French location shooting but as far as the actual narrative goes, there's nothing here. The title gives away the premise and by the time the cigarette pack is handed off for the second time, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where it's going to wind up when it's all said and done.
Interestingly enough, the movie was directed by Gerard Kikoine, who would later go on to direct Anthony Perkins in Edge Of Sanity and who previously lensed Lady Libertine, also for producer Harry Alan Towers. The movie tries to add some international flavor to the pedestrian script in hopes of spicing things up and making them more exotic - we do voyage across the ocean to Los Angeles and to Hong Kong before the film is over - but it doesn't really help things much. The movie, despite all of the ample nudity, is boring.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe transfer on this disc isn't particularly impressive. The colors are faded, there's dirt and debris present throughout, and it looks like it was taken from an old tape master.
A no frills Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack presents the movie in English without any alternate langauge dubs or subtitles. Quality is unremarkable, there is some mild hiss present in a few scenes and while everything is easy enough to understand and to follow, it doesn't look like there was any effort put in to cleaning up this presentation.
All that's here, aside from a basic, static menu screen, is a chapter selection option. That's it.
The Final Word:
While the movie is reasonably well shot and the ladies are fun to look at, the film takes itself way too seriously and as such, it crawls. The exploitative elements aren't enough to save the movie, and the story is, let's face it, pretty uninspired. The unimpressive audio/video/extras on the DVD don't do Love Circles any favors either.