The idea of a magic bauble that can grant people's sex fantasies dates at least as far back in porn as Gerard Damiano's 1971 XXXer THE MAGICAL RING, but rarely has it been as shoddily executed as Patrice Rohmm's LE BIJOU D'AMOUR ("The Love Jewel"). Given how much Rohmm impressed me with the similarly schizophrenic but infinitely more enjoyable DRAGUSE, it can't help but qualify as a disappointment.
Somehow both simultaneously threadbare and over-complicated, the plot concerns radio journalist Adrien (Jacques Manteil), forced by his boss (a young Brigitte Lahaie) into abandoning his vacation and taking up a departed colleague's report on succubi for their radio program. Venturing to a remote French village for a pre-arranged interview, the guy ends up bumping into some woman and buying a ring off her for 500 francs. When any lady touches it, Adrien finds himself transported to a cave where the two make love.
The concept of a magic ring/necklace/jewel that grants its owner's sexual desires is simple and hard to mess up, but BIJOU manages with a story that's needlessly overcomplicated. Uninterested in the sexual adventures the ring can provide, Adrien spends most of the movie trying to get rid of it, while his research leads to a weird doctor in the countryside and his stable of vampiric female assistants. Why all this was necessary when a simple linking device for a sex film was already present (guy gets girl to touch jewel, cue sex scene, repeat as necessary) is beyond me, but then the body of M. Rohmm's work has never been exemplary of linear or logical scripting. While that worked well in the loopy DRAGUSE, it's a real chore here, rendering the result muddled, dull and hard to follow.
