The Kinky Ladies of Bourbon Street (1976) User Reviews

Sex And Death

[Karl Self · 4/10 · 5 May 2024]

Some Alpha France movies are simplistic (let's all meet at a country house and fornicate), some are overly complex, and some are batshit weird, like this one. A upperclass woman, Maude, is driven by her chauffeur to a cemetery, where she converses with the souls of three young women, Alice, Pénélopé and Valérie, while masturbating herself. Then the three women are shown to each have had outrageous an sex scene, whereupon they attempted suicide, then they were taken by the mysterious lady to her abode decked out with penises, then they each get the chance to get themselves balled to death in extravagant ways, which they do. An ageing Maude returns to the graves and continues to jill herself off, until she states that she can't keep up this business anymore. The ghosts implore her to continue. Then the camera zooms back to reveal an entire cemetery full of white wooden crosses, each of which apparently marking the grave of a chick who has shagged herself to death in a psychedelic way for Maude to get herself off to.

The end.

What is sexy about combining porn with suicides?

There is also a complete song "Noyée dans tes yeux" ("I Have Drowned In Your Eyes"), breathily performed by Pénélopé, included, complete with a professional-looking cover.

The title "Mes nuits avec" ("My nights with") doesn't even begin to convey the weirdness of the story. To begin with, there are no night scenes, and all the rumpy pumpy occurs during the daytime. Since Valérie isn't mentioned as a principal character, it is suggested that the is the author, or doesn't matter. Arnold is a supporting character, the dogsbody with a permanent erection. As for Richard, I'm not even sure which one he is. The English title, "The Kinky Ladies Of Bourbon Street" (in New Orleans?) was apparently randomly picked out of a hat. No Bourbon Street is ever mentioned in the movie.

Alpha France is famous for reusing the same set of about 20 actors and performers in every conceivable constellation, but this one is the odd one out, with sexy but unrecognisable talent. Except for Richard Lemieuvre (Richard Allan), but strangely he is uncredited.

This movie can claim to contain possibly the first bukkake scene in history ... and it is even more extreme than all that were to follow ...

Love Me Deadly

[Nodriesrespect · 10/10 · 1 January 2008]

Though eclipsed in notoriety by the late Claude Mulot's LE SEXE QUI PARLE a/k/a PUSSY TALK, which actually preceded it and is therefore often used as a starting point for French porno history (if you want to get technical, Ellen Earl was the first actress graphically penetrated on Parisian screens in Lucien Hustaix' silly JOUISSEUSES), this may very well be the best Continental 'core ever. Initially labeled LA GRANDE BAISE (a title deemed to blunt at the time but which wound up on one of Mulot's later efforts) in reference to Marco Ferreri's sulfurous LA GRANDE BOUFFE, it provided fertile breeding ground for several of the most intriguing French fornication film-making talents of the '70s. Very much a joint effort, nominal directorial credit was bestowed upon Didier-Philippe Gérard (a/k/a "Michel Barny"), production assistant on PUSSY TALK and the most conventional of the carnal creators involved here, who resurfaced in the '90s directing videos for industry colossus Marc Dorcel starring his gorgeous wife Laure Sainclair. Mulot (a/k/a "Frédéric Lansac"), frequently fingered as the true founding father, contented himself with writing and executive producing. A young upstart by name of Gérard Kikoïne, who had made the soft core L'AMOUR A LA BOUCHE a few years earlier in an attempt to cash in on EMMANUELLE's extraordinary box office takings, took care of the intricate editing. Francis Leroi, who had the most impressive cinematic pedigree of the lot, kept things under control as the film's producer.

Starting with its tone, both sinister and cynical, MES NUITS AVEC… remains startlingly unlike anything found within French fornication cinema to this day. Following failed suicide attempts, three professional women wind up sharing a hospital room where the mysterious Maude (Dutch Trixie Heinen, who played the boutique owner in Lasse Braun's SENSATIONS) comes to visit, making them an offer they can't refuse, to join her at her palatial mansion where they can "love" themselves to death. Alice (Véronique Monet) is a chamber maid caught seducing hotel guest Richard Lemieuvre (a/k/a "Richard Allan") and subsequently fired by her employer Carmelo Pétix. Her demise by drowning gone awry, she goes out with a bang, pleasuring herself with a stick of dynamite ! Singing sensation Pénélope (delectable Nadja Mons, whose – presumably dubbed – track "Noyer dans tes yeux"/"Drowning in Your Eyes" sounds a lot like Jane Birkin in her Serge Gainsbourg period) proves a mere puppet at the hands of her sadistic Svengali, deejay Jean-Louis Vattier (the ginger guy from Jean Rollin's PHANTASMES), who doles out her sexual favors to all and sundry to further her and especially his career. Pills don't do the trick, but a group of horny garbage men – including Jack Gatteau and Jacques Insermini, male star of Jean Desvilles' excellent INTRODUCTIONS – eventually drown her in their fluids ! Stewardess Charlene (US ex-pat Dawn Cummings) makes out with "Idi Amin" in the film's opener, finds herself out of work as a result and turns to gas for relief. Attempt bungled, she's poked to exhaustion by Maude's perpetually erect chauffeur (Brendan Reed) who tosses her into the pool after-wards. A chilling coda shows a now old and decrepit Maude visiting the graveyard where the voices of her dead friends urge her to go out and seek more lost souls to join them. As the camera pans back, the chorus grows deafening, joined by voices from the other graves, Maude's myriad victims clamoring for company…

Filled to the brim with all the fashionable accouterments of the '70s that have nowadays regained popularity among lovers of so-called "bad taste", MES NUITS rises above its attendant "guilty pleasure" status through its pervading morbidity and impressive professionalism on all counts. Then still new to the genre, Roger Fellous was to become the most polished as well as productive camera man of the decade, his work lavishly lauded by the esteemed Revue Du Cinéma, the single French movie magazine to take porn seriously at the time. While near continuous, the sex is well woven into the screenplay as each woman's signposted fate is accomplished, the symbolism of their inevitable death wish presented as matter of fact, avoiding the heavy hand mainstream might have inflicted upon it. As a result, the movie remains surprisingly poetic and moving, bringing a soothing serenity to potentially ludicrous images such as Pénélope's semen-glazed corpse amid the garbage cans, recalling influences as far-ranging as Dali, Magritte, Delvaux and Rollin. The French government would soon clamp down on carnal cinema with ridiculously elevated taxes intended to take the wind out of their sails, effectively rendering the surfacing of another masterpiece of this caliber impossible.