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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: 2006
Director: Lasse Braun
Cast: Bridgette Maier, Gilda Clark, Carmelo Petrix, Catherine Ronger, Louise Maier
Year: 1976/1977
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Cult 70s Porno Director: Lasse Braun - Movie Review:
Lasse Braun was born Alberto Ferro and he's best known for his 8mm output and his classy, very European feature films. His films aren't rough or nasty but instead seem to celebrate the pleasure that sex can bring. Alpha Blue provides one of his feature films as well as the documentary on his work on one handy double feature DVD.
BODY LOVE (1977):
Though listed second on the packaging, this is the first feature on the disc, and it is an Odessa Productions Presentation. It stars Lolite De Nova, Jack Gatteav, Glenda Farrel - all three of whom are credited in the opening text scroll. Lasse Braun is credited here as Larry Brown in the English language credits, and the opening theme, aptly titled Body Love, is pretty loungey.
A young woman (French XXX star Catharine Ringer credited here as Lolita De Nova) named Martine does gymnastics or ballet or something and then watches a Mercedes drive away. Her father comes in and asks where her step mother is - that's who was in the car. He reminds her that there are guests coming over tonight but she doesn't seem too stoked about that.
Cut to the car and we see a pretty blonde get out and walk up to an old house. She lets herself in and explores, until she runs into two men who start to fondle her. They have sex with her on the stair case and the more they persist the more they she gets into it. A man plays a piano and a hot blonde walks up to him naked - it's the step mother. She tells him how she sucked some cocks, how they tasted, who they belonged to. From there we see her blowing a guy in a blue t-shirt and we realize that she's recounting her experiences with the two guys in the house, and the father is the one sitting at the piano and from there we see the whole three way play out.
The gymnast daughter is now on the roof, a blonde comes up and lies beside her. They argue, seems the blonde has been messing around with dear old daddy. They settle this argument the way all hot chicks should - by stripping down and getting it on.
Cut back to the step mother, she's talking to some nerdy guy, telling him she hopes to start shooting a very exciting porno film soon. He talks of the importance of realism in porn, meanwhile our two lesbians have moved inside and are making it on a hammock. They get each other off and then snuggle on the rug. From there they all have dinner, and nothing really makes a whole lot of sense. We see the nerdy guy get a blowjob from a girl with the hairiest muff in the universe in a trailer while lil' ol gymnast sits beside him and encourages the action. From there the daughter comes home and finds a bunch of naked people at the house, so she prances around them while some trippy synth music blares in the background, Clockwork Orange style. She moves around and starts licking the people and as she does they start to move, and the more she grinds up against them the more active they become until an orgy starts up. She strips down and gets it on with the group, hairy muff girl is one of the participants and there's some girl on girl, guy on girl, and interracial action in here. When it's all over, everyone crashes on the floor except the gymnast who wanders around naked, and then leaves as the end credits hit the screen.
This movie makes very little sense but it sure is slick. The girls all look really good, and it's cool to see Gilda Arancio (credited here as Gilda Stark) from Zombie Lake show up as the horny blonde stepmother. The cinematography is very nice, capturing the European locations effectively while the score adds a very other-worldly feel to the movie. The sex is hot and quite plentiful, just don't expect much of a story. Body Love is an interesting exercise in sexy style over substance! At times it almost feels like a Jess Franco movie and in terms of mood and atmosphere the closest thing to compare it to would be Doriana Grey.
PENETRATION (1976):
The second film on the disc is better known as French Blue and it stars Brigitte Maier, Claudine Beccarie and Sylvia Bourdon. The imdb, not always a reliable source of information, credits this one as a 1974 production with a running time of 90 minutes. The version on this DVD a few seconds shy of sixty-nine minutes but doesn't suffer from any noticeable cuts or trims in terms of content.
There's not much to this, plot wise, as it's a documentary that simply follows Lasse Braun as he directs Birdgette Maier in a double anal scene! When it starts he's sporting a fancy headband and instructing the two male performers to get naked in the bed. They do, and he goes back and forth from French to English as he speaks to them, and he has them more or less go through a dry run without Maier in the bed so that they'll know how to situate themselves.
Maier comes onto the set, he calls her 'beautiful girl' and then introduces her to the 'two cocks' that she'll be working with - 'now they are small but soon I hope they will be bigger!' he tells her. She strips down and he removes her scarf and he has her try to get the men hard. She gives them head and tugs on them a bit and Braun waxes on about his 'sexual aesthetic' as the cameras roll. Another girl comes into the bed, the two girls give head to the two guys, then the movie cuts completely to Casanova And The Country Girls, a period piece that features hot girls in old fashioned dress fucking some guy with a bad cockney accent in a room above a bar.
It cuts back to the set from there, and Maier is riding one guy and blowing the other. At one point Braun comes over and kisses her while she's lying back naked on the bed, once again telling her how beautiful she is. He gets them going again, his cameraman gets right in to capture the action, and then it cuts back to a different movie again where a priest finds a hot girl out in the country and boffs her while a bobby cop wanders around. Back to the set again, Braun is still going, and now he's trying to situate Maier in such a way as to make the double anal work! He makes it happen and then it cuts again to a different film where a proper old English man has a three way with two hot lasses. Cut back to the set one more time and they're still fucking in the bed, only this time the camera wasn't rolling properly and they missed the action! Cut again to some sassy English going at it sixty-nine style much to the delight of the dirty German men watching through a telescope. Back to the set, Maier is taking a smoke break, as is one of her co-stars. It cuts back and forth between the on-set footage and some young people smashing pies in their faces in the middle of a desert and then rubbing the pie all over their naked bodies. Cut back one more time, Braun and company are leaving the room, their work for the day is finished.
This is a really strange documentary, what with all the cutting between the fly on the wall footage and the feature footage (it'd make a lot more sense if the scenes it cut to were finished versions of the scenes we're seeing being shot, but they're not, they don't even feature the same performers - one can only guess they're from earlier Braun movies and are there to serve as examples of his style). It isn't really all that informative but it does give us a good look at what kind of atmosphere Braun had on his sets - pretty relaxed - and how he directs his performers. Not essential viewing, but interesting none the less.
Cult 70s Porno Director: Lasse Braun - DVD Review:
Both films on this DVD are presented fullframe, as most readers probably expected. While it's hard to say for sure if they were shot this way or not, we can make a reasonable assumption based on how things look that fullframe is the intended aspect ratio for both of the film on this disc - there isn't any noticeable cropping. Compositions on both films seem to be okay, and they've been taken from what appear to be reasonably good analogue sources. The images are scratched and beaten up but watchable.
There isn't a whole lot of difference in quality between the two films, both are average for this type of release (which means they're rough). The colors are a little harsh in spots and both features appear to have been taken from tape sources judging by the softness apparent in some scenes and the tracking lines at the bottom of the picture. Fine detail is washed out in spots but both movies are perfectly watchable even if proper film based transfers obviously would have been much more preferable. Don't expect pristine quality here, you won't get it, but you could do a lot worse.
For the two features on the disc, it's mono all the way. While the quality isn't mind blowing, everything is audible but be prepared to turn the volume up a bit as the levels are lower than normal. The funky scores and wonderfully inept dialogue come through just fine, however and while this isn't a remarkable set of mixes, they get the job done well enough. There are two really annoying audio blips at the beginning of the first film that are really loud, but thankfully they don't come back.
A lot of old school porno movie releases hit DVD in barebones presentations and Alpha Blue Archives is just as guilty of that as any of the other parties who have been putting this material out there. Thankfully this time there are a few supplements on this release, and even if they aren't going to blow you away, we all know that something is better than nothing, right? And this release has more extras than the other ones in the series have had thus far, which is always a good thing.
First up is a still gallery of twenty-six hardcore images entitled The Sensations Gallery. Some of these images are pretty fetishy, there are some golden shower pictures and some toys in here. From there we get a Lasse Braun Biography, in text format, that explains his career in a fair bit of detail and tells of how he came to be internationally recognized for his erotica.
Up next are trailers for Kemal Hororlu's The Sexualist and Lustful Feelings, Ray Dennis Steckler's Sexorcist Devil (this looks like it might be the best movie ever!, Carter Stevens' The Collegiates and Hot Oven, and finally Carlos Tobalina's I Am Always Ready, 3 Ripening Cherries, Carnal Heaven and Come Under My Spell. These aren't always in the best of shape and they don't relate to Lasse Braun at all but they're fun trailers none the less and it's nice to see them here - hopefully some of the titles in this list that aren't out on DVD yet will find a home on the format soon.
Cult 70s Porno Director: Lasse Braun - The Final Word:
The presentation leaves a lot to be desired but both films are interesting viewing for vintage smut enthusiasts and Eurocult buffs alike.
