I must state upfront that I'm a huge Joan Devlon fan -to me she is the classiest of the actresses active during porn's early phase ('70s). So LITTLE ANGEL PUSS is nirvana for me, surmounting many defects which have evidently condemned it to obscurity, despite it being available on DVD in a legitimate release from a fine-looking print.
Devlon, billed with her alternate moniker Giovanina, meets the challenge of obvious miscasting -as a 16-year-old schoolgirl she looks at least 10 years too old, and even looks the same age as her mom played by Mira Vane. Adopting a slightly-little girl voice, she won me over (easiest task in the book), though I have to concede Joan's sophisticated look doesn't fit the role. To me she remains the posh Jackie O of porn.
Angel (Devlon) has trouble with her parents and becomes a runaway from home after two key incidents: Daddy catches her in bed having a lesbian run through with BFF Lola (luscious young blonde Susan Catherine), and a phone call announcing to her parents that Lola is pregnant by her boyfriend, cueing daddy's mean admonishment that Angel's not allowed to see her ever again.
Angel's already fantasized having sex (Ric Lutze wearing his puddin' bowl hairdo does the job), and masturbated for the viewers' pleasure. She's picked up by Tyler Reynolds (he's styled with past-shoulder length hair here) in a cafe and he offers her $100 for starters, implying that he's a pimp, named Big Daddy.
She takes him up on it and after a brief sex scene Big Daddy gives her a reference to find a place to stay now that she's skedaddled from her family.
SPOILERS ALERT:
At this point the film takes a familiar turn into the over-plowed porn genre of "innocent girl gets abused while trying to make it in the big city". She arrives at the pad of Rashid (heavily accented porn vet David Book/Brooks), and immediately becomes part of his menage a trois with seductive roomie Candy (Sharon Thorpe, in one of her better turns).
They get her hooked on drugs (heroin included) and soon Rashid is pimping Angel out. We see a kinky john forcing her to stuff a clump of green grapes in her vagina (!), but even this roughie scene is tastefully directed by Danielle de Neuve.
After a physical fight amongst the threesome, Rashid sells her for $2,000 to a black pimp named Sam (Pharoah Amos, evil in a non-sex role for a change). Put out on the street by Sam, Angel takes the $35 from a trick and manages to escape, with a rather hurried happy ending phoned in, as she retreats to the safety of mom & pop.
The mysterious sister act of Danielle de Neuve (writer/director) and Reneé de Neuve (cinematographer/editor) made this film and another superior Devlon vehicle, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF LACEY BODINE. I would love to find out more about them, even if in fact they turn out to be merely pseudonyms for male filmmakers, but in any event LITTLE ANGEL PUSS is told from a woman's point-of-view. And unlike the movies of Roberta Findlay (the Lina Wertmuller of porn), it is a soft, traditionally feminine point-of-view, not an "I'm kinkier than the boys" Findlay stunt.
Movie is relentlessly romantic and dreamy in mood, and benefits from a superior classical guitar score (including Joan playing the guitar briefly on camera) emphasizing "Greensleeves". There are also a couple of original folk ballads sung-over including one with main lyrics: "Let's fly away...It feels so good, I love you", soporific but effective in context.
The sisters also repeatedly utilize a wonderful technique of mainly black & white stills montages for transitions or to replace scenes that would bog down the pacing, a gimmick I would like to see in far bigger budgeted movies. Reneé's visuals are consistently beautiful, and spotlight Joan's warmth quite well, though of course the XXX content clashes a bit with the overall romantic effect. But the film does succeed in being erotic in both softcore and hardcore areas.
Besides Devlon's fabulous performance, Catherine is sympathetic as her more sexually advanced girlfriend (showing Angel the wonders of the cordless vibrator), though the de Neuves saddle her with a pound of blue eye makeup like so many stereotypical hookers of the '70s cinema -clashing with her schoolgirl persona. Male roles are stereotypical and presented in such a way that one infers that women might indeed have been behind the camera as credited.
Devlon, billed with her alternate moniker Giovanina, meets the challenge of obvious miscasting -as a 16-year-old schoolgirl she looks at least 10 years too old, and even looks the same age as her mom played by Mira Vane. Adopting a slightly-little girl voice, she won me over (easiest task in the book), though I have to concede Joan's sophisticated look doesn't fit the role. To me she remains the posh Jackie O of porn.
Angel (Devlon) has trouble with her parents and becomes a runaway from home after two key incidents: Daddy catches her in bed having a lesbian run through with BFF Lola (luscious young blonde Susan Catherine), and a phone call announcing to her parents that Lola is pregnant by her boyfriend, cueing daddy's mean admonishment that Angel's not allowed to see her ever again.
Angel's already fantasized having sex (Ric Lutze wearing his puddin' bowl hairdo does the job), and masturbated for the viewers' pleasure. She's picked up by Tyler Reynolds (he's styled with past-shoulder length hair here) in a cafe and he offers her $100 for starters, implying that he's a pimp, named Big Daddy.
She takes him up on it and after a brief sex scene Big Daddy gives her a reference to find a place to stay now that she's skedaddled from her family.
SPOILERS ALERT:
At this point the film takes a familiar turn into the over-plowed porn genre of "innocent girl gets abused while trying to make it in the big city". She arrives at the pad of Rashid (heavily accented porn vet David Book/Brooks), and immediately becomes part of his menage a trois with seductive roomie Candy (Sharon Thorpe, in one of her better turns).
They get her hooked on drugs (heroin included) and soon Rashid is pimping Angel out. We see a kinky john forcing her to stuff a clump of green grapes in her vagina (!), but even this roughie scene is tastefully directed by Danielle de Neuve.
After a physical fight amongst the threesome, Rashid sells her for $2,000 to a black pimp named Sam (Pharoah Amos, evil in a non-sex role for a change). Put out on the street by Sam, Angel takes the $35 from a trick and manages to escape, with a rather hurried happy ending phoned in, as she retreats to the safety of mom & pop.
The mysterious sister act of Danielle de Neuve (writer/director) and Reneé de Neuve (cinematographer/editor) made this film and another superior Devlon vehicle, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF LACEY BODINE. I would love to find out more about them, even if in fact they turn out to be merely pseudonyms for male filmmakers, but in any event LITTLE ANGEL PUSS is told from a woman's point-of-view. And unlike the movies of Roberta Findlay (the Lina Wertmuller of porn), it is a soft, traditionally feminine point-of-view, not an "I'm kinkier than the boys" Findlay stunt.
Movie is relentlessly romantic and dreamy in mood, and benefits from a superior classical guitar score (including Joan playing the guitar briefly on camera) emphasizing "Greensleeves". There are also a couple of original folk ballads sung-over including one with main lyrics: "Let's fly away...It feels so good, I love you", soporific but effective in context.
The sisters also repeatedly utilize a wonderful technique of mainly black & white stills montages for transitions or to replace scenes that would bog down the pacing, a gimmick I would like to see in far bigger budgeted movies. Reneé's visuals are consistently beautiful, and spotlight Joan's warmth quite well, though of course the XXX content clashes a bit with the overall romantic effect. But the film does succeed in being erotic in both softcore and hardcore areas.
Besides Devlon's fabulous performance, Catherine is sympathetic as her more sexually advanced girlfriend (showing Angel the wonders of the cordless vibrator), though the de Neuves saddle her with a pound of blue eye makeup like so many stereotypical hookers of the '70s cinema -clashing with her schoolgirl persona. Male roles are stereotypical and presented in such a way that one infers that women might indeed have been behind the camera as credited.