The strenuous taxes on French pornography as a direct result of local laws dating back to late 1975 slowly strangled the life out of Continental core which became ever more frugally funded in order to still score a potential profit. One of several French fornication filmmakers with a background in "proper" pictures, Jean-Claude Roy (a/k/a "Patrick Aubin") barely even bothered to keep up appearances that all was well with most of his post 1976 endeavors simply stringing along sex scenes devoid of the glossy sheen routinely added by the likes of Francis Leroi and Claude Bernard-Aubert a/k/a "Burd Tranbaree" to fool their middle class target audience - mostly office workers on their extended lunch break - with at least an appearance of (relative) opulence.
Always more blue collar in spirit than his carnal com-padres, with characters holding down actual day jobs rather than reveling in bourgeois luxury, Roy stepped out of his comfort zone with this seemingly umpteenth sexed-up rendition of Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR, with somewhat sad results. The late Cathy Stewart, who died of a discreetly hushed up drug overdose in 1994, makes the most of a rare starring role as bored housewife Solange moonlighting as a lady of the night, well afternoon actually, in response to a stifling marriage to wealthy and perpetually horny physician Hugues, played by seriously miscast plebeian porn stud Dominique Aveline. Apart from inventing an interesting trauma for his troubled heroine, burdened by friend of the family Alban Ceray's overtly spying on the couple during their drunken wedding night, the director puts a decidedly pedestrian spin on the much-traveled material.
Casually informed, by devious Alban clearly harboring ulterior motives, about the existence of a disparagingly makeshift local brothel run by the alluring Nadine Roussial a/k/a "Christine Maffei" (who was particularly memorable in a much similar role in Michel Caputo's delirious SYBIL, TOUS LES TROUS SONT PERMIS), Solange immediately seeks employment there to while away the long hours her husband puts in at the hospital. The camaraderie with the other girls, ravishing Céline Gallone and the always lively Mika Barthel, should have had more screen time devoted to it but the director shows utter disdain for even the most rudimentary of dramatic requirements. The undeniable charm exuded be these too brief bits in-between "johns" is all down to the actresses who put in much more of an effort than Roy ever manages to muster.
The sex, often the sole saving grace in even Aubin's most disillusioned dirty movies, doesn't fare much better. An avowed exhibitionist, not just for the camera but reportedly entire film crews as well, Stewart puts on quite a show but it's all shot, scored and edited by the usual set of suspects (Robès, Sandeur, tutti quanti) with such a thudding lack of imagination to render her performance stilted and bereft of cinematic life. Already having served as their partner in slime on too many occasions, neither Ceray nor Aveline seem all that interested in her physical charms, leaving the unlikely Hubert Géral (the wanton uncle of innocent Julia Perrin in Leroi's lavish PETITES FILLES AU BORDEL a/k/a OPEN NIGHTLY) as Stewart's most ardent admirer. Their mild bondage bit (Solange's first trick) and a high energy threesome with Céline easily rank as the flick's fornication highlights, both occurring early on unfortunately.
