Yasmine, Les trottoirs de l'Est

This Yasmine vehicle from Dorcel grabbed my attention with interesting characters and situations until writer-director Tony del Duomo (former cameraman likely not ready to be kicked upstairs) fritters away his feature with contradictory scenes and a time line for the action that could only be explained away as sort of a Moebius strip.

Film (shot on video) opens with Yasmine as a journalist interviewing hard-boiled con Horst Frank in his prison cell, as he flaunts his misogyny and dastardliness. When she takes a break to make a phone call, a prisoner in a nearby cell masturbates and ejaculates on her jacket, quite a set-up to the feature's atmosphere.

Baron's story in flashback shows him as a successful pimp, with quality brothel scenes. In her bubble bath Yasmine fantasizes being part of his retinue, humping women and Baron as well.

Later she's researching her book project on prostitution, interviewing streetwalkers, and is caught photographing the ladies clandestinely by some thugs who kidnap her. At this point she is taken to Baron's brothel for an invigorating orgy finale to the film, upstaged by several busty beauties led by the great Laura Lion.

But that time-sequence is highly suspect, as at last glance we had Baron firmly behind bars, no longer running the brothel that matches (along with his costuming) both the flashbacks and the orgy scene. Coda to the film has Yasmine in a book store pleasantly signing her hit publication "Dossier Prostitution" for fans, with a freeze-frame ending of Baron standing in the background staring at her with a mean expression. So he eventually made it out of stir, but what of the crucial orgy scene taking place at an unspecified time? None of it makes sense, just the usual porno device of directing various sex scenes and not worrying overmuch about how they will be edited together for the public to view.