Je suis une nymphomane (1971)

Director:

Max Pécas

Writers:

Claude Mulot (writer)
Max Pécas (writer)

Release Date:

23 March 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Fantasy

Tagline:

When a Girl Comes Face to Face With Her Infinite Desire

Plot:

A young woman falls down a staircase, and suddenly becomes... a nymphomaniac. |

Plot Keywords:

Carousel | Female Masturbation | Lesbianism | Female Nudity | Sex

Cast

Sandra Julien	...	Carole
Janine Reynaud	...	Murielle
Yves Vincent	...	Le prêtre
Patrick Verde	...	Michel
Michel Lemoine	...	Hugo
Alain Hitier	...	Eric
Bob Ingarao	...	Gypsy
Michel Charrel	...	Gypsy
Michel Vocoret	...	Olivier
Hélène Tossy
Richard Saint-Bris	...	Father (as Saint-Bris)
France-Noëlle	...	Mother
Colette Mareuil
Denis Seurat
Odile Astie

Also Known As:

Carole et ses démons (France) (TV title)
Forbidden Passion (USA) (video title)
I Am a Nymphomanic (UK) (DVD title)
Libido (USA) (short title)
Libido: The Urge to Love (USA)
The Sensuous Teenager (USA) (dubbed version)
The Urge to Love (USA) (short title)

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:X (self applied) | Finland:K-18 | UK:18 | USA:R

Company:

Les Films du Griffon

Movie Connections:

Edited into Rêves pornos (1975)

Worth watching

This is the touching story of a provincial French girl (Sandra Julien) who, after an accidental fall down an elevator shaft, discovers that she is (gasp!)a nymphomaniac. She loses her fiancé, gets fired from her job, is kicked out of the house by her parents, and has to leave her small town for big, bad Paris where she falls under the spell of an older predatory pair of libertines (Janine Reynaud and Michael Lemoine).

It's hard to know what to make of this movie. With the crappy English dubbing it seems a lot like those ridiculous 16 mm. black-and-white Harry Novak-type sexploitation movies they were making in America in the 1960's and 1970's. However, visually the film is very well-made and it features sumptuous European actresses like Jean Rollin's regular Julien and Jess Franco regular Reynaud (rather than the pimply anonymous Times Square skanks that were in the American sexploitation movies of the era). Perhaps it is a more serious and classy production than the atrocious English soundtrack would leave you to believe.

In any case, I don't think this movie was exactly meant to be a serious exploration of nymphomania so much as an excuse for a lot of nudity and softcore sex by the aforementioned Julien and Reynaud. Nothing wrong with that though. The girls in these type of movies have always been male fantasy figures, but these ridiculous pre-feminist European fantasy figures of days gone by are definitely more interesting than the equally ridiculous but much more jaded, post-feminist fantasy figures of today. I'd like to see this in French with English subtitles, but it's worth watching regardless.