Felicity

Released by: Severin Films
Released on: March 29th, 2016.
Director: John D. Lamond
Cast: Glory Annen, Chris Milne, Joni Flynn
Year: 1978
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The Movie:

Felicity Robinson (Canadian born Glory Annen of Norman J. Warren's Alien Prey) spends her days at an all-girl's boarding school dreaming of the day she'll be able to branch out on her own and spread her wings a little bit. That opportunity comes faster than she expected when her father surprises her with a summer vacation trip to the exotic locales of Hong Kong.

Jumping at the chance to take in some exotic scenery and cut loose a bit, Felicity decides that her first and foremost priority for the trip shall be to explore her carnal desires in more detail by way of physical encounters with pretty much anyone who is willing to give her what she wants - be they male or female. She soon meets up with a local girl named Me Ling (centerfold model Joni Flynn who some might recognize from Octopussy but who also has the distinguished credit of playing the 'girl from Castle Anthrax' in Monty Python And The Search For The Holy Grail!) and together they take in as much of what the island has to offer as they can. It's all very footloose and fancy free until Felicity meets Miles (Christopher Milne of the Australian horror film, Thirst), an exciting photographer who she not only lusts after but starts to have genuine romantic feelings for. With that monkey wrench thrown into her plans, Felicity basically has to decide if she wants to continue her wanton ways of exploring her wild side or settle into a nice, comfortable groove with Miles and commit to something a little more monogamous. When Miles has to travel and she's left without him for a while, will the mouse play while the cat is away? It wouldn't be much of a movie if she didn't!

While the most obvious point of reference for the film is Just Jaeckin's Emmanuelle (and the countless knock offs and sequels it inspired the world over), there are also shades of Lolita in here as we follow Felicity's exploits wherein she blossoms into womanhood through the permissive world of the seventies. As such, it's very much a product of its time from the costumes to the attitudes of the characters to the cinematography to the score. Writer-Director-Producer John D. Lamond (watch for a cameo from the director as the peeping tom hanging out in the garden) keep things moving along at a good pace and knows enough to make sure a reasonably graphic scene of copulation is thrown into the mix every few minutes to keep us from noticing the fact that while the story is reasonably interesting, there really isn't a whole lot to it.

That being said, Felicity (not to be confused with the late nineties television show of the same name!) is rather clever in a few ways. First and foremost it tries something different by having the lead's father be the one to open the door to the world of promiscuity for his daughter whereas more often than not in films about a teenage girl and her blossoming sexual maturity the father is the one holding her back and preventing her from running around with whatever beau happens to have caught her eye. Felicity is also forced to have to choose, and in a sense mature, when she starts to have feelings for Miles and while it definitely takes her a while to get there, she has learned something about her self and the ways of the world by the time that her adventures come to a close, giving the movie more meat to chew on than simply a plethora of wonderfully shot softcore love scenes.

That being said, in no way does the film skimp on the skin. A popular late night cable TV staple during the eighties, Felicity packs plenty of bumping and grinding into its ninety minutes, primarily of the guy-girl variety but highlighted by a girl-girl scene in the steamy sauna/shower room that is positively guaranteed to tighten your pants. The other scenes also hold up well, light very softly to give things a more passionate look that's common for the skin flicks of the era, hardcore and softcore alike. While the dialogue is a little on the hammy side and the performances nothing to write home about, Glory Annen proves to be sexy and charismatic enough to carry the rest of the cast, her frequent and very welcome nudity only adding to her screen presence.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Severin gives Felicity a very welcome Blu-ray update with an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.78.1 widescreen. The uptick in detail and texture is definitely here, but the movie frequently uses a gauzy, hazy look and so it doesn't approach reference quality the way something shot with sharper focus could. Colors look good, though sometimes a bit on the hot side - again, it's part of the movie's intended style - while skin tones, on display quite often in the film, look nice and natural. There aren't any major issues with compression artifacts and the picture is pretty clean, showing only minor print damage.

Audio chores are handled by an English language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono mix. Clarity here is pretty decent. The dialogue is easy to understand and to follow and the levels are nicely balanced. You'll notice more depth to the score here when compared to the previous DVD release and there are no problems with any hiss or distortion.

There are a lot of extras here, starting with the commentary track that was originally included on the DVD release from 2006. Here director Lamond is joined by Felicity herself, Glory Annen. A surprisingly jovial and informative talk, the two wax nostalgic about the time they spent on the film with Lamond asking Annen for her take on various aspects of the production in addition to giving his own thoughts on the film. They cover the sets and locations, some casting details, and what it was like working on some of the more risque scenes that the film has become known for over the years.

From there, check out the first bonus - ABCs Of Love & Sex... Australia Style! Made a few years after the success of his earlier 'mondo style' expose and made the same year as his popular Felicity, Australia After Dark, director John D. Lamond's 1978 film The ABC Of Love And Sex: Australia Style is a quirky eighty-two minute alphabetical countdown of kink. A strange Rankin-Bass style stop motion animation intro sets things up under the pretext that a teacher is giving his class a lesson in sex education, but once that's over with we move into live action beginning with the letter A. Not so surprisingly, in this case A stands for Anatomy, and both our male and female subjects on screen soon find themselves in their birthday suits showing off what the good Lord gave them.

As we barrel through the alphabet, omitting the letter Y for some reason, we learn about everything from various forms of eroticism to homosexuality, rape, contraception, fantasies, penis size, masturbation, and much more. This is all presented through a pretty skewed eye (so the take on homosexuality in particular is amusing - we get some rather fluffy looking dudes making out for a few seconds before shifting gears into a far more graphic girl on girl scene!) but at least done with a modicum of style and with tongue placed firmly in cheek for most of its running time.

Throughout all of this, we're treated to unusual intro pieces featuring fully grown adults lounging around gigantic kids' toy blocks with different letters on them, frequently in various states of undress and at one point accompanied by a gigantic veiny porous dong. Presented here completely uncut, the film actually contains 'blink and you'll miss'em' fleeting instances of oral and vaginal penetration, but it's so quick that it barely counts as hardcore. We also get periodic input from a Swedish Institute for Sexual Research researcher who is not so obviously female but very obviously suffering from some sort of skin condition.

If that weren't enough, the film gets bonus points for its discussion of eroticism in which we see a couple getting flirty at the dinner table. Sitting next to a baked pig's head the woman eats some chicken and licks her lips while her dopey looking male partner tries to turn her on by chowing down on a greasy ass chicken wing himself. Y is for YUCK. If the film isn't always sexy it is at least always entertaining if you've got an affinity for horribly aged sexploitation done under the guise of education. It just so happens that this writer does and as such, had a blast with the movie.

Related to that is the inclusion of a commentary track (originally include on the DVD release) with director John Lamond moderated by Not Quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley. This is a pretty active track and obviously Hartley knows his stuff well enough to keep Lamond talking and on topic, so there aren't really any dead spots which is always nice. Topics covered here include the film's oddball stop motion animated opening and closing sequences, the loosening of censorship in Australia at the time, the influence of foreign films and more.

But wait - that's not all! If you crave even more Australian exploitation, Severin have got you covered with the inclusion of Australia After Dark, presented here in its 'never Before Released uncut version.' The directorial debut of Lamond, 1975's Australia After Dark is basically just a cash in on the Mondo films that were being churned out in Italy and then later in the USA around the same time, though it's interesting to note that it obviously approaches things from a uniquely Australian perspective. The uncut version of the movie runs longer than the aforementioned DVD release and when it switches over to the new footage, the commentary goes quiet. As to the presentation, it's a standard definition affair with Dolby Digital audio but it looks and sounds just fine.

Narrated by Hayes Gordon, the film begins by giving us a very brief history of the continent before then explaining how the country's own unique culture has given way to various kinks and odd behaviors. From there, of course, our cinematic tour guide shows us those kinks and behaviors, all set to a swingin' soundtrack and Haye's stoic but often times humorous narration. Like the films that came before it, this one serves up a strange mix of sexy and gross, showing us such shocking events as a supposed black magic ritual involving a man in green body paint gyrating overtop of a woman so engrossed in things that she can't help but look on, a smile lingering on her lips as she willing lets the green guy do the devil's work in her loins. There's also some body painting and a strange variation of that which involves naked ladies covered in paint rolling around on a giant canvas - this is art! Topless scuba divers are shown in all their titty-riffic glory and at one point we get to spend a day in the life of a man who makes a healthy living as a custom bikini maker.

Mixed in with the sexy side of things are scenes in which people eat grubs, some interviews with a woman who we're told is sane but who is possibly a little more out there than the narration would have us believe - she's obsessed with UFOs and claims to see them pretty regularly. We also get to check out some ancient rock paintings done by the Aboriginal people indigenous to Australia and we get the rare opportunity of watching a bunch of hefty Aussie guys drinking a ridiculous amount of beer - evidently the Aborigines enjoy this too. A quick trip to Perth shows us an inside look at the gay weddings that we're told are commonplace in this city, the gay capital of Australia and before the movie is over we spend some time with an eccentric musician/performance artist type who goes by the name of Count Copernicus. More obnoxious than he is interesting, he's got a few similarly strange artsy types who hang out with him at his compound. Other subjects covered include people who enjoy looking at women's bums, a visit to some BDSM enthusiasts and a quick visit to an old Australian gallows where the death masks of notorious criminals are on display. Oh, and we also get to watch a woman roll around in the mud and we pay a visit to a flamboyant pornographer's studio.

A few of the segments go on too long and wind up overstaying their welcome (Count Copernicus being the most obvious example, the UFO lady being the second most obvious) but for the most part this is a moderately amusing take on the supposed seedy side of Australian culture. Of course, it's all horribly dated and more than a little bit politically incorrect by today's standards and you have to take all of the 'facts' that it presents with a pretty hefty grain of salt but those with an affinity for Mondo movies will get a kick out of this one even if it's not a high point. Lamond would follow this up shortly after with The ABC Of Love And Sex: Australia Style, a much sexier and far more entertaining picture mined in a similar vein.

Once again Severin carries over the commentary track from the DVD release with Lamond moderated by Not Quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley. Interestingly enough, Lamond mentions that there's a scene missing from this version of the movie and that he does have it, but evidently it wasn't included in the extras here for whatever reason. He also talks about the intricacies of making a Mondo style movie, about staging certain scenes for the film and about capturing others as they happened in true documentary style. As all of this plays out he also discusses how he got into the exploitation movie business, what the early years of his career were like and generally just gives us a really fascinating view of the Australian trash movie scene of the day. Again, the presentation here is standard definition with Dolby Digital audio.

If that weren't enough, we also get almost an hour of outtakes from the documentary Not Quite Hollywood with Glory Annen, John D. Lamond, cinematographer Garry Wapshott and occasional Lamond co-conspirator/writer Alan Finney. Amusingly enough, Lamond is interviewed about the content of his movies while a striper works a pole behind him. Lamond talks about her work as an actress on stage and screen while Wapshott talks up some of the shoots that he was involved with over the years. Finney has some input on the success of Lamond's films, noting that they catered to a niche that no one else was really exploiting at the time. There's some interesting stuff in here, take the time to check it out.

Rounding out the extras is a pretty great John Lamond Trailer Reel where you'll find trailers for Nightmares, The ABC Of Love And Sex… Australia Style, Felicity, Pacific Banana, Breakfast In Paris and Sky Pirate. Menus and chapter stops are also included.

The Final Word:

Felicity holds up really well, an entertaining and well-made blend of softcore tomfoolery, light comedy and effective drama. The direction is strong, the cinematography typically beautiful and, well then there's the stunning Glory Annen in the lead on top of all that. Severin's Blu-ray debut is a good one, presenting the movie in fine shape and with a serious assortment of related extras rounding out the package in a big way.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!