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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: December, 2014.
Director: Richard Kantner (as Ramsey Karson)
Cast: Georgina Spelvin, Annette Haven, Abigail Clayton, Clair Dia, John Leslie
Year: 1977
The Movie:
Richard Kantner's Desires Within Young Girls starts off with a scene in which a woman named Maddy Stone (Georgina Spelvin) rides her aging husband Charles (John Leslie with flower in his hair to make himself look older) near a fireplace while some mellow music plays. They chat as they go at it and then she has a ridiculously over the top orgasm - Spelvin speaks with a fake southern accent here, it's pretty funny. Once she finishes up, however, Maddy realizes Charles has died! Cue the opening credits.
From here we see Maddy driving around in her limo, driven by her chauffer Martin (John Seeman). Her girls are coming to live with her, they've been previously living away at a boarding school, and she hopes she can marry off her foxy offspring to some rich men - see, Maddy's not as well off as she'd figured she was, and she wants to make sure her lifestyle doesn't take a hit now that her husband is done and gone. She picks up her two daughters, Penny (Clair Dia) and Cissy (Annette Haven), and lectures them on the way back to the school, requesting that they call her Maddy, not mother.
So as mother and daughters become reacquainted, we soon learn that Cissy takes after her mother in more ways than one. She's completely game for whatever plot Maddy may conjure up while Penny remains more than a little subdued compared to her sibling. The main reason for this is that Penny has fallen in love with her drama teacher, a man named Marc (once again played by Leslie, this time sans the old man visage). Nevertheless Maddy goes about trying to get Cissy hitched to Jace (Ray Wells), the dopey offspring of a rich rancher, but that doesn't work out so well. Plan B? Bring the girls off to a fancy party hosted by a friend of Maddy's named Harrison Price (John Alderman). Surely the girls will win over some suckers with their various charms and sexual skills at a bash as big as this one, right? Well at the very least they get an A for effort as the party segues into the requisite lesbian scene, some light S&M play, an amusing scene involving Cissy and Turk Lyon and then Turk Lyon and Penny and an encounter with both The Baroness (Joan Devlon) and a rather dominant young woman named Dominque (Sabrina).
As the events play out (and bring the lovely Abigail Clayton into the mix towards the end) it seems like Maddy may have succeeded, that is until Cissy meets a man named John Dayton (Paul Thomas)…
With a running time that goes well past the ninety minute mark (at an hour and forty-two minutes it would appear to be completely uncut), this film is fairly epic by the running time standards of the era in which it was made but the film never overstays its welcome. The cast and crew are all very definitely into their work here, everyone seems to be having a good time and the whole thing is a lot of fun. Outside of a scene in which Maddy picks up her two daughters that features Haven and Dia in schoolgirl outfits the movie doesn't play up the 'young girls' side of things at all (the title makes it sound like some sort of ode to jailbait but thankfully it never goes there or gets too creepy about that - the title is pretty salacious though, and at one point it was released as Desires Within Young Women!).
While all of the cast involved in the production do admirable work, it's the lovely Annette Haven who really stands out here. She's got all the charm and charisma you could hope for in an adult movie starlet and she looks fantastic in every second of her screen time. Clair Dia and Joan Devlon are both very good here too but they can't quite match Haven this time around. Spelvin shows, as she did in other films, a real talent for comedic timing and delivery not just in the dialogue scenes but in her sex scenes as well - just try not to snicker when she's talking to Leslie in the opening scene. Leslie is also a kick here, playing the drama teacher with that wacky sort of arrogance you get from some of his work - and it works in the context of the story.
Nicely shot and set to some effective (and occasionally familiar!) music, the whole thing is a thinly veiled remake of How To Marry A Millionaire but it's fun and it's sexy and it's quite well made. As such, if you dig on vintage smut, you should probably check this out.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Desires Within Young Girls arrives on DVD in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio. It does look to have been sourced from a film print, albeit on that has seen better days. Expect some print damage and scratches and some occasional color shifts but for the most part this transfer is pretty stable. Black levels are ok but not always reference quality. This looks a bit soft but it's not bad at all.
The only audio option for the feature attraction is an English language Dolby Digital Mono track. There's some hiss here and there and some jumps and spikes in the balance of the levels but for the most part the dialogue comes through okay.
Extras start off with a few loops - an untitled one in which a cute blonde takes on two dudes with some help from a brunette friend, one called Nymphette Cookie Hustlers where two chicks in a pseudo-Girl Guides outfits go at it with some guy, and a Color Climax short entitled Teenage Swingers where a black guy with a big afro does two chicks. Combined these loops run just under forty-five minutes in length, they're all silent so ABA has put some seventies style disco music overtop.
We also get trailers for Dracula Exotica, Scheherazade: One Thousand And One Erotic Nights, China Girl. Static menus are also provided
The Final Word:
Desires Within Young Girls is slickly made and plenty fun. The cast really sell this one but the cinematography and music help to polish up a familiar story and give it an appropriately dirty spin. The DVD doesn't look amazing but it doesn't look awful and the bonus loops and trailers are fun.
