Customer Reviews

Felicity [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A rare delight. A joy to watch. 16-year old cutie, Felicity (Glory Annen), is in an all-girls boarding school in Australia. For vacation, her Dad sends her a plane ticket to Hong Kong. What fun for a naughty girl whose favourite reading includes "Story of O" and "Emmannuel". This is one of the finest soft-core Erotica to come along since the original Emmannuel. It has red hot cuties, good acting talent, high production values, lovely photography and scenery, and is both exotic and erotic. It is also one of the rare examples of Erotica from Down Under.

In Hong Kong, Felicity gets introduced to a local girl, Me Ling. Me Ling (Joni Flynn) doesn't look in the least bit Chinese. But who cares? She's HOT! Me Ling brings Felicity to places most tourists don't see, like Lesbian Bath Houses and Waterfront Floating Brothels. It's in one of the Floating Brothels, while peeping at customers making out, that Felicity gets poked in the rear by a complete stranger, and discovers that she really enjoys it. Although nothing explicit is shown, it is still very hot. Felicity falls for an Aussie photojournalist, Miles (Christopher Milne), and learns by film's end the important lesson that sex with love is more important than simply sex alone. So the "horny little rabbit" (Miles' name for her) settles down with her lucky bloke and lives happily ever after. Absolutely delightful and worth every dollar.

Sadly the DVD from Severin is not up to scratch. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 widescreen (anamorphic). But the print looks old. Although Severin claims to have restored it, colours are very faded and there are scattered nicks and dirt specks. There is grain throughout. Black levels are not properly set. Deep blacks plateau to a dull dark grey making the picture appear flat, lacking depth. The picture is watchable but disappointing, especially when compared to Severin's other releases. The audio is in 2.0 Mono and sounds fine. No subtitles are provided. There is an engaging and informative feature-length commentary from director John D. Lamond and winsome star Glory Annen. Happy as I am to have this DVD, I hope Severin comes round to issuing a Special Edition with the print properly restored and remastered. This delightful film is worth the cost.


Note: Glory Annen is actually Canadian but manages what she calls a "cultured" Australian accent. Joni Flynn is British of Scottish-Indian ancestry and a former Penthouse model. Her most widely seen role is in the 007 film "Octopussy". I love Felicty's breezy theme song, "Mama's Little Girl". Sung by Linda George, it brings back nostalgic memories of the 1970s. This film was shot in 1978 and as Lamond says in the commentary, it remains a fascinating time-capsule of when Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony. The film is as much an exotic travelogue as an erotic feature. For all you pervs out there, be aware that this film was passed uncut by the usually puritanical British and Australian censors. It was considered "artistic" and "tasteful" so don't expect raunchy porn. If anything, this film would be best described as innocent and light-hearted entertainment. This new "unrated, uncensored director's cut" would get a mild R-rating at most.

Ok, the movie is flawed. With not much of a plot. But the film has one purpose: to be erotic. And it is. Glory Annen is a goddess! She's sweet, innocent, sexy, and utterly [appealing] in every way, shape and form. And she's a fine actress. She's the girlfriend you always wish you had. Who'd be up for ANYTHING seuxally. She's gorgeous and oddly enough resembles a young Judy Garland in many ways.

The story is about a young Australian nymph who has her sexual awakening in the mysterious Orient. The main problem is that the movie isn't explicit enough. It's only soft core. Which is a bummer. The female on female love scenes are to die for.

But you'll fall in love and lust with Glory Annen after seeing Felicity. She's the perfect woman. Dare I say it? Glory Annen is the king of all women! Long live the lovely Ms. Annen! And to hell with every frigid uptight sexually repressed shrew you ever had to waste your time with!

The movie is so free, so sexual and so 70's! It's the swinging Seventies, baby! Long live the era of free love! Long live Glory Annen! Rock on!!!

The film is as amazing as the people below have described. Pound for pound, scene for scene, undoubtedly the hottest Skinemax movie ever made.

The gentleman below says to avoid the DVD. He was wise to. Because he's referring to an earlier, edited release and NOT the Severin release - a brand new transfer of the Director's Cut, restored in all of its unrestrained Glory (Annen, that is).

This is actually the Australian soft-core sex film from the late 70s (I think), starring Glory Annen and Joni Flynn. The print is uncensored, but a bit blurry. It looks, on a large screen, like a regular 480i standard-def signal, not a quality DVD signal. Nonetheless, it is nice to have this classic available. I always thought it was, together with The Cheerleaders, one of the best sex films of that era - genuinely erotic and voyeuristic. The girls are attractive, look their age, and have normal bodies (no Cinemax silicon-dirigibles-on-a-pogo-stick). The film is well produced and well acted, putting it on a much higher rung than the DBS weekend-wanker films. This same company also released Malombra, an Italian film of the same era with P. Senatore's impressive autoerotic scenes. That transfer is even worse, with rippling interference lines as if it were copied directly from an over-the-air signal. Both films look OK on standard screens, however; they just don't work as big screen movies. It's nice that these films are being rescued, but it would be loads better if more effort were made to produce normal DVD-level quality.
Addendum: the newly-released Director's cut on Severin is a high-quality widescreen DVD with commentary. Well worth the slightly higher cost.

The new DVD of the hottest film of all time is a completely remastered, authorized special edition. It looks and sounds great and has an audio commentary with director John Lamond and Felicity herself, Glory Annen. The guys review a few down is talking about an old bootleg dvd so ignore it and don't let it spoil your enjoyment of this amazingly-delivered official package. [...]AWESOME!!

This film is a prime example of the tastefully produced (i.e. non-sleazy) erotic films made abroad in the 70's, even though this one apparently came out in 1979. These days, copies of the films in this genre are quite difficult to find and the cinematic aesthetic itself is unfortunately completely lost to the ages.

Glory Annen, who plays Felicity, embodies the curious girls' school innocent who takes the proverbial "coming of age" journey that leads in this case to her (...) awakening (another cliche if I may) in Hong Kong.

The film is characterized by exotic scenery, frank (...)sexual openness, and a surprisingly gentle tone to the erotic scenes and general subject matter. That's not to say that the picture did not fit right in (and then some) with the classic "Friday After Dark" features which Cinemax aired during the 80's. I first saw it at 14 and still remember it being the standout in quite a few of these nighttime cable flicks I committed to tape during that period.

(...)One very important word of advice to those who know the film and are looking for a copy for home viewing: THE DVD VERSION OF THIS FILM HAS BEEN SIGNIFICANTLY CUT. Yes, the only DVD of "Felicity" in existence at this point (and probably indefinitely) is a Chinese import and I learned the hard way that ALL the "good" scenes have been completely truncated and butchered. I would never have imagined that someone would do this to such a tame softcore movie...

That said, good luck and enjoy!

Felicity (John D. Lamond, 1979)
The Bad News Bears (Michael Ritchie, 1976)

Last weekend was nostalgia weekend at Goat Central; I didn't watch a single movie made in the past twenty-five years. Some were new to me, some were old friends I hadn't seen in dog's years. Two of them were classic seventies cinema, and as I watched them, I found myself amazed at how much our values and attitudes have changed over the past three decades. Not always for the worst, as the nostalgists would have us believe, but certainly not always for the better.

Take the case of Felicity, a softcore film from the height of the Ozploitation days. Lamond, who followed this up with the underrated slasher flick Nightmares, gives us the title character (played by the engaging, spunky Glory Annen; I refuse to believe she was almost thirty when this film was made), a boarding-school girl who's off to Hong Kong for a summer of sexual awakening. The movie wears its Emmanuelle-loving heart on its sleeve (in a nod to its spiritual mother, Felicity reads the novel on the plane to Hong Kong), but in the "sleazier, bloodier, sexier" mode of Ozploitation flicks, it goes some pretty nasty places. Who knew that a woman could be raped (as a virgin, no less) and be perfectly fine with it the next day after some soothing, dismissive words from an older, more experienced friend? Those two scenes bothered me throughout the rest of the film, which is your basic softcore flick, with a lot of very attractive naked people (none of whom are male, another thing that's changed for the better in recent years) but not terribly much stringing together the scenes everyone's watching the movie for. There's an anemic subplot about Felicity being chased by a couple of local thugs; they chase her, she gets away with handsome soon-to-be-boyfriend, they pop up in another scene later, and... nothing happens! Someone in the continuity department got fired over that, I hope. ...

Let me state immediately that I LOVE exploitation and sexploitation flicks from the glorious 60's and 70's when they're done right (just look at my reviews), before 80's Skinemax took the reins of softcore and made it boring as hell and frequently insulting to watch, and latter-day porn got so gonzo and over-the-top that it desensitizes rather than stimulates. And I'm no religious zealot, not by any stretch of the imagination.

That said, I found this film creepy as hell, as it encourages men to look upon underage girls as sexual entities and literally promotes sexual offenses with minors. Sure, we all know Glory Annen isn't a minor, that's not the point - she's supposed to be, and that's why it's so friggin' creepy. There are millions of women of age out there to be had any way you want them, but this flick practically promotes sex with minors. Just look at the cover - THAT'S supposed to titillate? It makes my skin crawl. If you find the dvd cover art enticing, it's probably time to consider counciling...

And the film itself has little, if any, value of it's own - the plot is the same as every 'Emmanuelle' film from the 70's, ALL of which are superior in every way to this one. There's nothing that takes place in this film that doesn't occur in hundreds of similar films from that same era, and most done better, IMO.

Please don't misconstrue me; I'm not trying to get all kinds of preachy and "You're going to hell for watching this"; God knows I'm a full-blooded degenerate in my own right, but there are some things that are taboo and need to remain that way, and dressing up actresses to look like minors and then placing them in sexual situations to arouse a male's libido should be one of them. I'm certain most men reading this have daughters of their own - do I have to continue???

So gents, stick with the perversions that don't include 'minors', whether real or imagined, and enjoy the thousands of other flicks available here and elsewhere that don't encourage thoughts that will put you behind bars for the rest of your years here - see my many reviews if you need suggestions, and accept my apologies in advance for sounding pious or preachy.

This is a perfect example of a "movie" that deserves the worst rating possible. Add to that the quality of the DVD. Loud, stupid sounds and washed out transfer. Amazon needs to give us the ability to go minus stars and also the capability to rate the "movie" and the "media" separately.

I HATE THESE TITILATING MOVIES, BIT A PUBE, SOME T+A.
DO YOURSELVES A FAVOR, EITHER TRY AND GET HOLD OF THE OLD 70S PORNOS LIKE DEBBIE DOES DALLAS, JADE PUSSYCAT, GOOD GIRLS OF GODIVA, TABOO. THESE OLD MOVIES HAVE A STORY PLUS LOTS OF HARD CORE THRILLS.