Swapping Partners, Uncut Movie (1976)

Description: AKA: Échanges de partenaires [France]
Eric and Joelle decided to spend their honeymoon night at the house of a couple of married friends - who happen to be in the midst of a serious marriage crisis. Before sunset, a very young woman arrives riding a motorbike and says she's Angel. With her strange presence, erotism breaks out, and several couplings and vicious sex erupt in the comfortable home.
Scene Breakdowns
Scene 1. Dawn Cummings, Thierry de Brem
Scene 2. Dawn Cummings, Thierry de Brem
Scene 3. Dawn Cummings, Thierry de Brem
Scene 4. Olivia Flores, Guy Royer
Scene 5. Olivia Flores
Scene 6. Olivia Flores, Thierry de Brem
Scene 7. Olivia Flores
Scene 8. Olivia Flores, Thierry de Brem
Scene 9. Olivia Flores, guy
Scene 10. Olivia Flores, Guy Royer
Scene 11. Karine Gambier, 3 guys
Scene 12. Dawn Cummings, Olivia Flores, Brendan Reed, Jacques Gatteau
Scene 13. Dawn Cummings, Guy Royer
Scene 14. Karine Gambier, Thierry de Brem
Review:
This is a great example of how a hackneyed hardcore situation - partially suggested by the unimaginative title - can yield pure erotic gold in hands of the right director, in this case the late great Claude Mulot who drowned in the surf at St. Tropez in 1986 and was arguably the finest French fornication filmmaker of the '70s. Borrowing his porn pseudonym of "Frédéric Lansac" from the main character in his initially unsuccessful 1970 horror effort THE BLOOD ROSE, which has since gone on to garner a cult following Post Mortem, he was clearly on a roll during the first few years of legalized Continental core cinema, cracking out one carnal classic after the other (PUSSY TALK, BLUE ECSTASY, SHOCKING!) until a change in government notoriously cracked down on the budding industry's already modest profit margins by charging its entrepreneurs with unreasonably high taxes. Unlike his carnal com-padres, even those slaving away from their relatively cushy position of steady purveyors to production and distribution giant Alpha France, Mulot always tried to preserve at least a modicum of ambition as budgets dwindled.

So it must have been a slap in the face when product demand forced him to take charge of LA GRANDE BAISE, an inadvertent compilation of footage (soon to become a dispiriting habit in the Old World adult industry) from past sex successes masquerading as flashbacks in the slender story of a relationship breakdown. Adding insult to injury, not all the scenes were even from his own back catalog but that of producer/mentor Francis Leroi as well ! Hot on the heels of one of his best films, SUPREMES JOUISSANCES, this might have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. He would only reach championship level again with his jizz biz farewell, the surprisingly witty science fiction fable PROGRAMMED FOR PLEASURE, after which he made a botched attempt at rejoining the traditional cinema set with neo noir KNIFE UNDER THE THROAT starring fellow XXX renegade Brigitte Lahaie.

Circa 1976, none of these hardcore headaches had appeared on the horizon yet and everything was still peachy for Mulot, so he wrote this elegantly constructed chamber piece for five characters, in this case two very different couples and a mischievous interloper. Opening on an elevator rape fooler, its two protagonists turn out to be newlyweds Martine (toothsome American actress Dawn Cummings, credited as "Joan Keller") and her handsome husband Thierry De Brem as the steel doors part to reveal their circle of friends waiting to send them off on their honeymoon ! Strapped for cash, they are going to stay with Martine's best friend Joëlle (Karine Gambier) and her estranged spouse Eric (Guy Royer) who, unknown to their guests, are going through a particularly tricky marital crisis as a result of his interrupted indiscretion with his wife's kid sister Ange, played by the criminally underrated Olivia Flores a/k/a "Moanie Meunier" in a career performance. The picturesque fishing village backdrop for the far from aptly named Ange's cruel game-playing as she seduces wives as well as husbands is taken full advantage of by DoP Roger Fellous.

Story seems no more than serviceable on paper but plays out quite differently on screen, thanks to a small but seasoned cast, supplemented with late workhorse Jacques Gateau and Brendan Reed (the enigmatic chauffeur from Mulot and Leroi's KINKY LADIES OF BOURBON STREET) pulling multiple stud duties during Ange's staged shenanigans where she arranges for husbands to bear witness to their spouses' transgressions, with drunk fishermen and helmet-obscured motorcycle gang members for Martine and Joëlle respectively. Though solid actors all, Mulot thoughtfully chose not to overtax them with extensive voice-over compensating for a rushed shooting schedule. Sexually speaking, you would never guess that these people had already worked together on many occasions as they sure know how to keep the home fires burning if you catch my drift, marking this out as one of Mulot's most sustained erotic efforts overall. Haunting theme tune by Dany Carras and Jean-Pierre Pouret, who penned the eclectic soundtrack to Leroi's PLAISIRS SOLITAIRES, brings a welcome note of melancholy to the proceedings. Trivia : Mulot specially requested fellow pornographer Pierre B. Reinhard, who acted as production assistant on occasion, to hunt for Ange's heart-shaped sunglasses, just like the ones Sue Lyon famously wore in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA.