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Released by: Alpha France
Released on: June 2015.
Director: Francis Leroi
Cast: Eva Pauret, Lucie Doll, Marianne Fournier, Beatrice Lancel, Ivan Slave, Herve Amalou
Year: 1980
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The Movie:
Directed by Francis Leroi (who went on to make about a zillion low budget Emmanuelle sequels in the nineties but who cut his teeth shooting skin flicks for Alpha France), 1980's The Hidden Vices Of Eva Blue (Les vices caches d' Eva Blue en Francais) features a whole lot of characters without any names.
Exhibit A? Our curvy leading lady, a foxy brunette that we can assume is Eva Blue given that she's the one with her boobs out on the cover, evidently involved in some sort of dirty deed. We see her head into the apartment of a man, again not named, and screw him silly while someone in a raincoat and a hat with a fake moustache watches from outside with a film camera and a listening device. They fuck, he films - this is kind of the movie's modus operandi. From there, she splits via taxi but picks up a black guy on the way. The cabbie drives them to an underground parking garage and then joins in and our spy dude once again films the action (though he gets so close it's amazing that they don't see him standing there… about two feet away).
After that? She heads to an office where an office guy is using some sort of remote control device to removes women's' clothing from female employees. How does he get away with this? It was a different era. Our girl shows up and has pretty hot lesbian sex with a blonde office gal and then the remote control guy and an old fat man join in. A few minutes later and everybody is happy and the girls are in need of a shower. Meanwhile, our man in the field winds up at a fancy apartment where an orgy takes place. He busts out his camera and snaps away before getting a little action for his own bad self. From there? Some nicely shot underwater sex and then…. well, we wouldn't want to ruin the reasonably predictable twist ending now, would we? No we would not. Rhetorical question.
There's really very little suspense here but hats off to Leroi for at least trying to create a little bit. What the movie lacks in tension it makes up for with reasonably nicely shot fucking done by a reasonably varied cast in terms of looks and which takes place in a reasonably nice variety of locations. The cinematography is nice - we get the obligatory close-ups but also a nice selection of reaction shots and as far as hardcore goes, the camerawork here is actually fairly elegant. The locations are swanky and classy, save for the parking garage which gives us at least one scene that's positively sleazy (An interracial three way in a dirty old garage? My word!).
The performances are alright but then, there's not a lot of dialogue here. But really, there doesn't need to be. This is a movie about what happens when voyeurism and exhibitionism collide and as you can imagine, copulation takes precedence over conversation. At just over sixty-minutes in length it's a quick watch, but this is pretty good stuff.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Hidden Vices Of Eva Blue arrives on MOD/DVD-R in 1.66.1 non-anamorphic widescreen, which would appear to be the movie's original aspect ratio. The image is stable enough and black levels are pretty solid here. 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 a decent enough transfer despite its non-anamorphic status.
The disc includes an English language Dolby Digital Mono track but not alternate language or subtitle options. The dialogue is generally pretty clear and the track is free of any hiss or distortion but there's a weird reverb for much of the track that is distracting.
No extras on the disc at all.
The Final Word:
The 'twist' in The Hidden Vices Of Eva Blue is pretty easy to see coming, or at least get reasonably close to figuring out, but that doesn't take away from the fun factor. The sex is steamy, well shot and nicely performed and the movie goes at a good pace. This is entertaining, sexy and sleazy - worth seeing for sure.
