Fanny Hill, Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure first appeared as a book by John Cleland in 1748. For its time, the book contained some explicit, orgiastic sexual episodes. It has since become famous as the greatest work of erotic fiction ever written, heavily censored at various times in various countries, but widely read and constantly in print for over 250 years. Having read the book, I was quite interested to see what this film adaptation of it might offer. Sadly the result is a rather amateurish, tediously repetitive softcore "period porno". Few who value literature or cinema as serious artistic mediums will find a great deal to whet their appetite here.
Virginal girl Fanny Hill (Lisa Raines) arrives in 18th century London friendless and virtually penniless. She is soon taken in by a seemingly kind and caring elderly lady named Mrs Brown (Paddy O'Neil), who claims to own one of the best "houses" in London. It takes a while for Fanny to realise it, but she gradually awakens to the fact that she is housed in a brothel and is being groomed to become a woman of pleasure. A handsome stranger named Charles (Jonathan York) is smitten by Fanny and arranges for her to escape from Mrs Brown's establishment. The pair soon fall in love and set up a home, but Charles's father disapproves and arranges for his son to be unwittingly shipped away to the East Indies. Alone and pregnant, Fanny tries to make the best of her lot, stumbling from one doomed love affair to the next. She eventually finds herself turning back to a life of prostitution in the slightly more dignified establishment of Mrs Cole (Shelley Winters). Here Fanny becomes the favourite "woman of pleasure" of a rich old man called Mr Barville (Wilfrid Hyde-White). When Barville dies, he leaves Fanny his entire fortune enough money for her to live out the rest of her life in comfort. Her happiness is complete when she bumps, by chance, into her former lover Charles, returned from the East Indies and desperate to find his long-lost lover.
The whole story centres on Raines as the titular character, and she is actually one of the few things about the film that works. She plays the young, desirable, virginal heroine surprisingly well and does what she can to hold the movie together. The special guest stars (Oliver Reed, Shelley Winters and Wilfrid Hyde-White) are unexpectedly the ones who DON'T do enough to justify their star billing Reed, especially, seems to act as if he wishes he were elsewhere. The music by Paul Hoffert is distractingly irritating throughout, while many of the sets and costumes merely point up the film's relatively low budget. The narrative itself has little of the book's richness or insight. This film version moves from sex scene to sex scene, barely dwelling on anything other than the bums, tits and pubic hair. Actual character development and motivation is nowhere to be found. Worse still, more than half of the sex scenes are played for laughs, with comical facial expressions and jaunty musical scoring that immediately makes one think of those saucy British comedies of the mid-'70s. All things considered, Fanny Hill is a failed attempt to adapt a literary classic into a worthwhile film.
Virginal girl Fanny Hill (Lisa Raines) arrives in 18th century London friendless and virtually penniless. She is soon taken in by a seemingly kind and caring elderly lady named Mrs Brown (Paddy O'Neil), who claims to own one of the best "houses" in London. It takes a while for Fanny to realise it, but she gradually awakens to the fact that she is housed in a brothel and is being groomed to become a woman of pleasure. A handsome stranger named Charles (Jonathan York) is smitten by Fanny and arranges for her to escape from Mrs Brown's establishment. The pair soon fall in love and set up a home, but Charles's father disapproves and arranges for his son to be unwittingly shipped away to the East Indies. Alone and pregnant, Fanny tries to make the best of her lot, stumbling from one doomed love affair to the next. She eventually finds herself turning back to a life of prostitution in the slightly more dignified establishment of Mrs Cole (Shelley Winters). Here Fanny becomes the favourite "woman of pleasure" of a rich old man called Mr Barville (Wilfrid Hyde-White). When Barville dies, he leaves Fanny his entire fortune enough money for her to live out the rest of her life in comfort. Her happiness is complete when she bumps, by chance, into her former lover Charles, returned from the East Indies and desperate to find his long-lost lover.
The whole story centres on Raines as the titular character, and she is actually one of the few things about the film that works. She plays the young, desirable, virginal heroine surprisingly well and does what she can to hold the movie together. The special guest stars (Oliver Reed, Shelley Winters and Wilfrid Hyde-White) are unexpectedly the ones who DON'T do enough to justify their star billing Reed, especially, seems to act as if he wishes he were elsewhere. The music by Paul Hoffert is distractingly irritating throughout, while many of the sets and costumes merely point up the film's relatively low budget. The narrative itself has little of the book's richness or insight. This film version moves from sex scene to sex scene, barely dwelling on anything other than the bums, tits and pubic hair. Actual character development and motivation is nowhere to be found. Worse still, more than half of the sex scenes are played for laughs, with comical facial expressions and jaunty musical scoring that immediately makes one think of those saucy British comedies of the mid-'70s. All things considered, Fanny Hill is a failed attempt to adapt a literary classic into a worthwhile film.