Ribald 70s exploitation with a bodacious bevvy of nubile sci-fi starlets, all doing what nubile starlets do best: swiftly removing all their friskily fab gear at the soonest opportunity, and, then, like, groovily get it on to the heady, super-fuzzed, way-out Sci-beat sounds of, Herr Stu Philips! While 'The Curious Female' isn't on par with the visually exquisite work of, Radley Metzger, or Joe Sarno it is still hugely entertaining, and genuinely funny to (Go-Go)boot!
Set in a not exactly Orwellian future, this plasticized island of orgiastically-inclined, space-aged, Los Angeles is ruled by the omnipotent 'Master Computer' ,little more than a sonorous baritone voice, and all the translucently-garbed youth must abstain from the dreadful calamity of monogamy; and it is expressly forbidden to watch stag reels from the early 20th century!!?? Basically, one is encouraged to live a polymorphously perverse life, but should you cue up a Russ Meyer flesh flick, 'Master Computer' blows a despotic diode, and slams said errant voyeur into the clink! Theodore Sturgeon this 'aint!, as, 'The Curious Female' is far more 'The Schoolgirl Report' than, say, 'Silent Running', so hardcore SF addicts would best look elsewhere, but skin-seeking fans of far-out Barbarella slap and tickle will find much to enjoy in, Paul Rapp's luridly lava-lamped, psychedelically spangled, scintillatingly spaced-out oddity, 'The Curious Female'.
I did enjoy seeing the nightclub Lothario do his oily schtick on one of the reluctant 'virgins', as he was also clearly the voice for 'Master Computer'! There was an equally jocular sequence in a day-glo hippie 'joint' whereby another of the film's 'virgins' was accosted by two idiotic, octogenarian bikers, and is then rescued by the most unconvincing martial artist since an especially irksome clutch of turtles took up Tai Chi! Apparently she was simply 'looking for trouble'? Obviously this fellow was a seer, with a far more acute sense of perception than mere mortal man; as the girl in question was simply sitting in a bar huffing on a desultory fag! So, naturally, this being the late, and oh-so permissive 60s, said lunkhead demanded the brutal sex from her that she so clearly craved, and gave her one real savage beneath an epic psychedelic light show worthy of 'Holy Mountain'.
While The Curious Female's rather incongruous blend of clumsy SF and bawdy comedy is not exactly on the same exalted level as a, Radley Metzger/Jess Franco masterpiece of erotica, it works brilliantly as a giddy microcosm of super-contrived 1960s grooviness! And it would make a suitably Sci-saucy pairing with the likes of, 'Valley of The Dolls', or 'Galaxina' etc.
