Secret Key Films | Buy at Amazon | Review by Jonathan Plombon
Some people delve into books. Others visit the land itself. But then there are those of us who would, and have, cultivated our working knowledge of German gender relations by extensively viewing said country's poorly dubbed, soft-core '70s sex comedies recently rereleased on DVD by Secret Key Motion Pictures. As effective as that's been so far, this reviewer is coming to the conclusion that basing opinions on decades-old skin flicks starring Sybil Danning may not be the most accurate way to analyze a country whose past can be described as a complex paradox.
However, it does make it easy as poontang pie to stereotype.
And that's why it's safe to proclaim this: Germany is the absolute shits for women.
Maybe it's gotten better. Maybe siblings no longer try to slip aphrodisiacs into men's drinks so they'll violently deflower their family members, but if NAUGHTY NYMPHS holds even a little true today, then not only does Germany permit this non-consensual hanky-panky to occur, but it does it funnier than any country could ever aspire to.
Made in 1972, under the watchful, drooling gaze of noted Bavarian sexploitation auteur, Franz Antel (whose resume also touts THE HOSTESS ALSO LIKES TO BLOW THE HORN and THE VIKING WHO BECAME A BIGAMIST), NAUGHTY NYMPHS perversely captures hilarity from every comedy killer imaginable.
Christel (Alena Penz, also in I LIKE THE GIRLS WHO DO, as well as the masterpiece BOTTOM'S UP) and Maria (Eva Garden also in BOTTOM'S UP, which can be found BAVARAIAN SEX COMEDY COLLECTION) fret when their virginal sister (Sybil Danning) returns home and threatens to inform their moral-consumed father (Paul Lšwinger, who chews so much of the scenery that he goes up for seconds) of their late-night sexcapades.
Maria and Christel devise a fool-proof plan: If they get Elizabeth laid, then her purity will no longer serve as an object of blackmail. But Elizabeth is a prude. How do we know? It's established early on when Elizabeth recounts that she had been fired from her nursing job after she refused to have sex with her boss.
Prude. Seriously, some of us have neither a good job nor sex.
The sisters do what anyone in their position would do and pass out a potency pill that will rile up stagnated libidos, which will then cause the digesters to bypass such antiquated dating etiquette as requesting permission for sex. The idea is that if they infect enough suitors then one of them has to eventually get in there.
It's a comedy.
It's never explained why the pill just isn't secretly dissolved into Elizabeth's drink; thus rendering her so horny that she'd jump the first man she sees to satisfy her urge (rational, since she's Sybil Danning and all the guys want to plug her anyway). But asking why they don't slip her a mickey is like asking a blind Saint Bernard how it would lick its own nuts if it didn't have a tongue, you know?
The sexually frenzied men lustfully chasing after Elizabeth evoke images of DAWN OF THE DEAD blended with that scene in THE CHEERLEADERS (1972) where the entire football team pounce on a wonderfully baby-fat bare and shivering Stephanie Fondue after she's caught showering in the men's locker room during her squad's hazing orientation. (That movie is also a comedy, and fine addition to the genre, I may add.)
Don't worry about experiencing guilt over your hearty laughter or the occasional arousal, though, because NAUGHTY NYMPH's sexual assaults are played so lightly that as the comical rapists are running around with torn nurses' outfits in their hands and pushing frantically screaming girls into a wall, they turn corners by skipping on one foot, a la Wile E. Coyote.
But that's why we watch. It's the eye candy that's at the heart of the picture, and that Danning's fashion-model beauty exudes with a cascading mane of blonde hair that eternally dangles in a soft breeze beside a pair of aqua eyes. Her clothing occasionally takes an intermission, and her rounded features are just a tad more appetizing than the striking Penz and Garden's (or any other woman in NAUGHTY NYMPHS, since every woman sheds her clothes in the film, well, except for that obese cook in the hospital).
Inappropriate comedic fodder aside, breasts are the core of NAUGHTY NYMPHS and nothing better exemplifies this than the back cover of the DVD which features a picture of Danning in full cleavage-bearing attire with a bar code conveniently situated over her face.
The liner notes, FROM EURO SEXPLIOTATION TO U.S. POP CULTURE - FOUR DECADES OF SYBIL DANNING by The After Hours Collector, is, as usual with Secret Key Motion Pictures, a captivating clever mix of humor and factoids. Its DVD bonus program, German Sex Comedy Trailer Compilation, places a slew of the foreign flicks' stateside theatrical trailers at your fingertips including OFFICE GIRLS and 2069: A SEX ODDYSSEY, but expands past these boundaries for more local attractions such as THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS.
NAUGHTY NYMPHS amazes in much the same way as any of the Germen sex comedies do. Maybe it's living in 2010 that gives me a jaded perspective on what was once conceived as harmless fun. Or maybe it's that I'm just old fashion and I tend to believe that a woman should have a say in whether or not she has sex.
Either way, NAUGHTY NYMPHS always arranges blatant sexism as inoffensive gags. It's like a snuff film directed and starring Mickey Mouse that's so internally offensive yet so exteriorly childlike and innocent.
It still doesn't change the fact that Germany has got to be the shits if you're a woman, though.
