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Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: November 12th, 2024.
Director: Max Pécas
Cast: Sandra Julien, Janine Raynaud, Michel Lemoine, Yves Vincent, Marie-Georges Pascal, Jean-Luc Terrade, Anne Kerylen
Year: 1970/1972
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I Am A Nymphomaniac/I Am Frigid... Why? – Movie Review:
Mondo Macabro offers up a Blu-ray double feature containing two softcore epics from director Max Pécas.
I Am A Nymphomaniac:
Also known under the much more salacious title of ‘The Sensuous Teenager,’ this 1970 Max Pécas film stars the lovely Sandra Julien as a young woman named Carole whose view on love has clearly been warped by the loveless marriage of the parents (Richard Saint-Bris, France-Noelle) that raised her. She’s dating Eric (Alain Hitier), but it’s clear that there’s no real passion there and Carole has no interest in fooling around with him, let alone letting him go all the way.
Her world changes when she meets a random stranger and experiences love at first sight, only to them take a tumble down an elevator shaft, whack her head and spend a fair bit of time unconscious. When Carole wakes up, however, she’s clearly a very different person. See, her libido, for some reason, has kicked into overdrive and Carole, who now can’t get enough, starts to think that she’s actually a nymphomaniac.
Eric is stoked about this at first but soon realizes Carole needs more than he can give her. Proof positive of this happens when Carole is caught screwing her boss, and the ensuing brouhaha that emerges from this causes her to pack up and move to the more permissive environs of Paris. Here, she takes a job selling furniture for Muriel (Janine Reynaud), a beautiful woman with Sapphic desires for her new employee. Soon enough, Carole learns hat Muriel is interested in sharing her with Hugo (Michel Lemoine), an idea that she’s definitely intrigued by. As Carole’s sex drive increases and she starts having more sex with more people, she confides in a kindly a priest (Yves Vincent) but when he proves unable to do much for her, she attempts to take her own life only to be saved, and of course fall for, a doctor named Michel (Patrick Verde). Will he be able to cure her?
Not nearly as over the top in the sex and nudity department as you might expect given the film’s salacious title(s), I Am A Nymphomaniac is actually a pretty well-made, character driving piece that explores a woman’s coming to terms with her own sexuality. That’s not to say that this isn’t an exploitation movie first and foremost, it most certainly is, but Pécas, who co-wrote the film with Claude Mulot, does manage to tell a pretty compelling story here.
Performances are pretty good across the board (they play better in the film’s native French language track), with Sandra Julien turning in fairly believable work in the lead. Janine Reynaud is a welcome addition to the cast, bringing her sultry screen presence to a few of the film’s key scenes, while supporting work from Alain Hitier, Michel Lemoine and Patrick Verde is also notable. Production values are solid, with the film benefitting from a great score from Derry Hall and some really impressive cinematography courtesy of Robert Lefebvre.
I Am Frigid… Why?:
Made two years after the success of I Am a Nymphomaniac, I Am Frigid… Why? once again stars Sandra Julien, this time as a young woman named Doris. When the film opens, she’s arranging some flowers only to, moments later, by raped by incestuous brother/sister duo Eric Chambon (Jean-Luc Terrade) and Carla (Marie-Georges Pascal). Understandably traumatized by this, Doris decides to leave the small town she grew up and the convent school she was enrolled in and move to Paris where she works as a streetwalker for a while, though the trauma she’s been dealing with since the rape prevents her from ever climaxing.
A short time later, she meets a man named Luc (Thierry Murzeau), the owner of a posh nightclub, and gets involved with an avant-garde theater troupe. Eventually, she winds up in the employ of a lesbian madam who runs a house of ill repute. Will Doris ever be able to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh again? Either way, she spends a lot of time in this movie giving it the old college try.
If this isn’t quite as interesting as the first feature, it comes pretty close and works on many of the same levels. Where the first film explored a young woman’s sexual awakening, this one explores the how a traumatic event could take that away from her. Again, this is a softcore sex film before it’s anything else, but the story, this time penned by Pécas alone, gives us a decent amount of character development in between the various scenes of solo sex, lesbian sex, standard hetero sex and group sex (though knowing that Doris can’t enjoy it because of what she’s been through does take away from the eroticism that would otherwise be inherent in these situations).
Sandra Julien again does a very good job in the lead here. She looks great and handles both the erotic sequences and the more dramatic elements in the storyline quite effectively, turning in a performance that is believable enough to work. The supporting cast also do a decent job here and Derry Hall and Robert Lefebvre once more provide a solid score and impressive cinematography, making this look and feel like a much more expensive and lavish production than it probably was.
I Am A Nymphomaniac/I Am Frigid... Why? – Blu-ray Review:
Mondo Macabro presents both movies on a region free 50GB disc in AVC encoded 1080p high definition and framed at 1.66.1, generally looking really strong. The first film is in really nice shape, showing very minor print damage, just small white specks and what not. There’s more visible damage in a few spots on the second film but it isn’t especially distracting there either. The colors look to be a tad faded in a couple of spots but most of the time they’re reproduced nicely, while we get decent black levels and accurate looking skin tones as well. Both transfers retain plenty of natural film grain and don’t show any noticeable noise reduction or edge enhancement issues.
Both films have audio options offered in French or English audio with optional English subtitles in 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono. Both films sound fine, with clean, clear dialogue and properly balanced levels. The movie play better in French but regardless of which option you go for, there aren’t any problems here, the movies sound quite good.
The main extra on the disc is a documentary about Max Pécas that runs twenty-five minutes and starts off with a clip from Pécas himself noting that he's been called "The King Of Crap" before then going into quite a bit of detail about his life and career by way of interviews with critics and Pécas himself where he talks about how he got his start in the film business, what the French film scene was like during his heyday, having his first big hit with Vicious Circle, his move to making erotic films and the success that he found in that arena, some of the performers that he worked with along the way, how his films have been received, how the advent of legalized hardcore affected things and plenty more. Along the way, we get a look at most of his better known films by way of various clips from those movies as well as loads of interesting archival images like posters and stills used to promote his films over the years.
Also included on the disc is a selection of thirteen minutes of extra scenes that sere included in the U.S. version of I Am Frigid... Why? that was distributed in the United States by Radley Metzger.
I Am A Nymphomaniac/I Am Frigid... Why? - The Final Word:
Mondo Macabro’s Blu-ray release of I Am A Nymphomaniac/I Am Frigid... Why? offers up a pair of solid French softcore films in nice presentations and with a great documentary included that explores the career of the man who made them. Recommended.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized I Am A Nymphomaniac/I Am Frigid... Why? Blu-ray screen caps!
