THE GOOD OLD NAUGHTY DAYS A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2003 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
"The Good Old Naughty Days" ("Polissons et Galipettes") is a curious collection of a dozen short hardcore films produced between 1905-1925 and used to entertain patrons waiting their turn in brothels scattered over Europe. These black and white silent films, shot quickly, secretly, and anonymously given their graphic subject matter and compiled by Michel Reilhac for this traveling compendium, are the kinds an understanding uncle might have taken his nephew to see after mass on Sunday (or so suggests one of the films' corny caption boards- the films are also augmented by French headers, the occasional English subtitle, and droning piano accompaniment). Needless to say the quality leaves a lot to be desired but it's an educational mix of pre-Talkies explicitness and hilarity, especially to anyone who has ever wondered how--or if--their grandparents ever did it! The "plots" of these shorts, mostly five or six minutes in length, tend to follow a familiar pattern: a pair of young or middle-aged women, often dressed as nuns, start getting amorous, are stumbled/spied upon by a willing male, who later joins in the fun. There's something for everyone here including lesbianism (almost every film features female/female interactions), nuns, threesomes, foursomes, massage parlors, water sports, gay male sex, even bestiality, all performed with a freshness of mind and body. The participants seem not only to be having fun, but are more "normal" looking than today's inflated, airbrushed models, including older men and women with smaller breasts and a lot more body hair than is fashionable today (although for some reason the missionary position appeared to be rather unpopular in those days). Closing out the compilation is an outlandish cartoon featuring a character named Eveready with a detachable penis that puts this pornographic lot into perspective: "The Good Old Naughty Days" is silly, smutty stuff that shouldn't be taken too seriously. The nuns (and the dog) help too.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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