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Released by: One 7 Movies
Released on: January 7th, 2014.
Director: Eddy Naka
Cast: Valérie Boisgel, France Nicolas, Daniel Foucault, Alain Tissier, Jean-Louis Tristan
Year: 1974
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The Movie:
Directed by Eddy Naka and originally titled Le Corps A Ses Raisons (and using an Italian title card reading Rivelazioni Di Un Governante - where Erotic Blackmail come from is anyone's guess), this 1974 French sexploitation/crime picture follows a couple comprised of Hugo (Jean-Louis Tristan) and Valerie (Valérie Boisgel) who invite another couple, Max (Gérard Franí§ois) and Delphine (France Nicolas) out to the countryside to vacation with them. Max and Delphine agree but don't realize until they arrive that the other couple have got more in mind than just hanging out and enjoying each other's company.
While all of this is going on in the countryside, two men named Etienne (Daniel Foucault) and Julien (Alain Tissier) decide that they should be able to get in on all of themselves and so they make their way in and force themselves on the two women. All of this is told in the context of Valerie recounting these exploits to a newspaper reporter but so much of it seems to happen without much rhyme or reason that it's hard to make a whole lot of sense out of any of this insanity. The two rapists do take some racy snapshots of the action and send them to the girls later in the movie, but it never really quite delves into blackmail territory.
Clocking in at just over an hour in length, it's probably safe to assume that given the unusually short running time of the movie and the fact that it appears to have been edited by a chimp with a straight razor that the version presented on this DVD from One 7 Movies has been heavily edited. This may very well be the only version available but that doesn't mean it's an ideal way to watch the movie. As it stands, in this version it's a sloppy mess of a story that really only manages to offer up some nudity and marginally sleazy kink. Cheap thrills, sans much in the way of plot or character development.
To the movie's credit, the two leading ladies are quite fetching. Blonde France Nicolas is a bombshell clad in tawdry leopard print on the hunt for sex while fetching brunette Boisgel is every bit her equal in the looks department. It might seem cheap to bass most of a film's merit on the attractiveness of its lead actresses, but we haven't really been given a whole lot more to work with here! Bonus points for some obvious stock footage of a burlesque performance being thrown into the movie to pad things out and for a sex scene that takes place in a barn next to a voyeuristic hog who winds up with more than an eyeful.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe transfer is as soft and fuzzy as the tape source it was culled from, so that means you can expect lousy detail, flat and faded colors and a few tape related defects visible throughout. This is a rare film, so who knows what source elements even exist for it, but this really doesn't look so hot.
The Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack, which is in Italian with optional English subtitles, also suffers from source related issues. Expect some minor hiss, a drop out or too, and some pretty lifeless sounding dialogue.
Extras? No, just a static menu and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Erotic Blackmail offers up some nice looking naked ladies and a fair bit of softcore sex but the story is a mess and the presentation on this DVD leaves a whole lot of room for improvement. French exploitation enthusiasts might want to see it just to check it off their lists but you can definitely do better than this.
