Tweet
Sex Night Fevers
Released by: Alpha France
Released on: October 7th, 2014.
Director: Claude Bernard-Aubert (as Burd Tranbaree)
Cast: Brigitte Lahaie, Ursula White, Jean-Louis Vattier
Year: 1978
Purchase From TLA Video
The Movie:
Alternately known as Les grandes jouisseuses and Fií¨vres nocturnes and released in the US once upon a time as Passionate Pleasures, the 1978 Alpha France production titled on this release of Sex Night Fever is a shining example of vintage French smut at its very best.
Once again pairing prolific dirty movie director 'Burd Tranbaree' with the first lady of French smut, the lovely Brigitte Lahaie, the movie follows a guy named Pierre (Jean-Louis Vattier), a married man living in Paris. Although his wife, Janine (Ursula White), is a stunner their marriage has obviously seen better days. Is the spark that once was starting to fade? Tough to say for sure but what is firmly established in the narrative is that Pierre has a very active sexual imagination and that his fantasies frequently involve Marianne (Lahaie), the stunning blonde who has moved in downstairs. When he first spots her in a book store his mind starts going into dirty, filthy places and in his head, they waste not time getting it on.
Later that night he goes home and dreams of sharing Marianne with Janine - and given that in the real world Janine has recently taken to bumping and grinding with another woman named Rosette (Liliane Lemieuvre), maybe his fantasy isn't so far out this time around. Janine's not stupid, however, and she knows that Pierre doesn't seem to be as into her as he once was. To fix this, she books him a session with a shrink, an older woman named Madame Gabrielle Dullan (someone credited only as… Amanda). Well, as it turns out Madame Dullan is a full on cougar with needs of her own, or so Pierre begins to imagine as he buffs her maid (Marie-Dominique Cabanne) while she watches. He goes home but is back the next day to tell her of a fantasy he has, once again involving Marianne and a little back door action only for Madame Dullan to once again enter his fantasy, this time to help him out and get poor ol' Marianne with a strap-on! This puzzlingly segues into another fantasy where one of Pierre's co-workers, (Dominique Aveline), gets picked up by Marrianne to take part in a group session, and I don't mean therapy, at least not in the traditional sense.
Once Pierre goes back home he's fired up enough to give it to Ursula while his shrink pays Marianna herself a visit in hopes of coaxing her into helping cure Pierre of what ails him once and for all.
This one is pretty trippy, intertwining Pierre's fantasies with the 'real world' scenes in ways that become increasingly blurred as the narrative plays out. By the time it's all over with, the film has obviously catered to the male audience to which it was no doubt initially marketed - we won't spoil it but it doesn't take a genius to figure out who comes out on top and how. And hey, why not. It is fantasy, after all. No need to read anything more into this than that, and when approached as fantasy, the movie works really well.
Of course, a big part of the film's success stems not from the narrative, which fractures as it progresses, or from the typically slick and 'classy' Alpha France production values, but from the cast. The female cast, specifically. Ursula White is a stone cold fox and the mysterious 'Amanda' definitely has the hot older lady thing going on in her own weird way. Marie-Dominique Cabanne looks good even if she does have frumpy hair in this movie, whether dolled up as a maid or in considerably less clothing, but the main draw here is going to be Ms. Lahaie. Though she looks a little uncomfortable during the back door scene, in every other one of her escapades in this feature she goes at it like a champ and looks fantastic as she does so. There's a reason why she was the number one French adult film star of her day and a reason why she continues to earn new fans decades after retiring from the business years ago and all of that scintillating sex appeal and endearing charm is on full display in this picture. If that's not reason enough to seek it out, I don't know what is.
Video/Audio/Extras:
TLA Video, through a deal with Alpha France, presents Sex Night Fevers on MOD/DVD-R in 1.85.1 non-anamorphic widescreen, which would appear to be the movie's original aspect ratio. The image is a little soft but stable enough though there are times where the blacks get muddy and contrast blooms. Colors look okay even if they do occasionally look shift a bit. There is a bit of visible print damage here and there and there are some minor compression artifacts throughout the presentation as well. This is perfectly watchable, but not a particularly remarkable transfer.
The disc includes an English language Dolby Digital Mono track as well as a French language option but no subtitles to accompany it. The dialogue is pretty muffled on the English track and there are times where it is hard to understand, so be prepared to adjust the volume up and down throughout the movie. Some minor hiss creeps into the mix at times as well.
No extras on the disc at all.
The Final Word:
Sex Night Fevers doesn't have the strongest plot ever written but as a series of loosely connected sexual fantasies it works quite well. As a showcase for Ms. Lahaie's considerable talents, it works even better. Hot stuff!
