A wacky journey into sexploitation heartland, Nymphs Anonymous is blessed with extremely witty dialogue, a gleeful lack of taste, plus amateur but entertaining turns by exhibitionist performers, that anticipates John Waters' early stock company. Initially appearing to be about a cloak and dagger feminist organisation called FFS, whose attempts to "take away the vote from the feeble man" involves offering up obedient male prostitutes to bored female suburbanites (FFS stands for 'Fast, Fast Relief'). The film's attention soon shifts to housewife Laura, who having become bored by her asexual husband and unimpressed by the sexual attention afforded to her by a door-to-door salesman, calls on FFS's services. Hubby Stan however responds to the discovery of his wife's infidelity by retreating to a nearby hillside, donning a Halloween mask and becoming a sniper, taking out various FFS studs with his high powered rifle. Eventually Stan comes down from the hills to finish off his wife, only to be talked out of it by her ("Stan, if you are going to kill every man I go to bed with, we're going to have a very unhappy marriage"), and somehow gets recruited into being a stud for FFS himself. A sense of utter confusion reigns supreme for poor Stan -not to mention the film's audience- as various interested parties (an Irish cop, a chubby psychiatrist, a germaphobe swinger, a lesbian couple, a pair of undertakers) also show up at the couple's house only to wind up either naked or dead.
The material here has the potential to be misogynistic, tapping into male fears about female sexuality and the women's movement, but Manuel Conde keeps things light and thoroughly tongue in cheek. Every topic, no matter how taboo, is treated with utter irreverence here, from incest to cold blooded murder, making Nymphs Anonymous feel like a warm up for Conde's later, more notorious hardcore production Sex Psycho (1970) aka Widow Blue, another film whose main source of humour was the inconvenience of having to dispose of dead bodies in the midst of a suburban sex orgy. The main cast are either hiding under first names only ('starring Natasha and Gordon') or joke pseudonyms (Loie Lane, Banana Peel) but look out for legendary pin-up model Michelle Angelo in the opening titles and later as the non-butch half of the lesbian couple, and a young Gary Kent as an ill-fated stud for rent.
Highly recommended, Nymphs Anonymous deserves to be less Anonymous
The material here has the potential to be misogynistic, tapping into male fears about female sexuality and the women's movement, but Manuel Conde keeps things light and thoroughly tongue in cheek. Every topic, no matter how taboo, is treated with utter irreverence here, from incest to cold blooded murder, making Nymphs Anonymous feel like a warm up for Conde's later, more notorious hardcore production Sex Psycho (1970) aka Widow Blue, another film whose main source of humour was the inconvenience of having to dispose of dead bodies in the midst of a suburban sex orgy. The main cast are either hiding under first names only ('starring Natasha and Gordon') or joke pseudonyms (Loie Lane, Banana Peel) but look out for legendary pin-up model Michelle Angelo in the opening titles and later as the non-butch half of the lesbian couple, and a young Gary Kent as an ill-fated stud for rent.
Highly recommended, Nymphs Anonymous deserves to be less Anonymous