Felicity (1978)

We have this on video and watch it once in a while and when we have guest. lvoely all-American girl makes love and when in the orient makes love to real all-American white men. Very x-rated and naughty for the mishievious nights without ball and chain MAGA

This is a very good soft core film of the kind which runs as part of "Skinemax" on Cinemax. There will be mild spoilers: This is a fairly straightforward story of the coming of age of a young girl who goes on vacation in Hong Kong from a boarding school. Naturally, there are plenty of opportunities for our heroine to be seen without clothes and she finds a romance with a cute guy.Many of the standard plot devices are here-the friendly couple who take the girl under their wing, the somewhat mysterious woman who takes her out to be educated in the ways of the world, an attempted abduction where the lead is rescued and so on.The script is good, the acting is good (particularly from Glory Annen as Felicity) and the production values are nice. Worth watching and recommended.

Although it's rarely acknowledged, there are probably few films in history that were as influential as the 1974 softcore French classic "Emmanuelle". Besides the truly countless number of films with the word "Emmanuelle" (or the less legally-actionable variation "Emanuelle") in the title, there were any number of others that borrowed the basic plot of a young woman traveling to the Orient and/or having a sexual awakening. There was, for instance, the German film "Vanessa" with Olivia Pascal, the British film "Emily" with Koo Stark, the French-Italian films "Laure" and "End of Innocence" both with Annie Bell. And there was this Australian film with English actress Glory Annen.Like "Vanessa", "End of Innocence", and a few others this features a slightly younger female character than the original "Emmanuelle", which allows it to start out in a girls' boarding school with a lot of hot showers and hot lesbian action. But the virginal "Felicity" (Annen) eventually finds her way to Hong Kong. She stays at first with a friend and her lover,and loses her virginity to an Aussie with a walrus moustache after one of her hosts' parties. After that "Felicity" meets a local,"Me Ling" (Joni Flynn),and embarks on an erotic tour of Hong Kong, having more anonymous sex on a Chinese junk. She then falls in love with another, nicer Aussie guy, but his job and the couple's mutual infidelities threaten to derail the relationship.On the plus side, this movie has very good productions values and the girls--Annen,Flynn, etc.--are all very attractive. The movie pretty shamelessly steals from the "Emmanuelle" series in several places--it borrows the massage parlor scene from "Emmanuelle 2" and the improbable sex on a commercial airplane scene from the original "Emmanuelle". It's also more literary than your usual sex film, referencing not only the original novel "Emmanuelle", but other erotic classics of the 70's like "Histoire de O" and "Fear of Flying" (all of which "Felicity" is reading at some point). "Felicity" is generally odd character. She starts out as the world's horniest female virgin (witness her reading list), and remains a contradiction to the end, complaining about the hedonism of a Hong Kong bar they visit one minute, then having "zipless" sex with the bartender in the back room the next. But that's the 70's for you I guess. The love story is a little annoying and the theme song will stay in your head like a bad flu virus. All in all though, this is a pretty OK Aussie knock-off of "Emmanuelle".

I wonder if the reviewers who raved about how they loved it when they were 13 years old, have seen this one in the last 25 years. Being addicted to late 70's/80's soft-core of the "Emmanuelle" variety, i had to hunt this one down. "Felicity" is nothing more than another wanna-be "Emmanuelle," but lacks the European style of those Italian and French cult films. The lead actress, played by Glory Annen is an absolute bore compared to Euro goddesses Laura Gemser and Sylvia Kristel. She is more of the plain, girl next door type, but perhaps this is deliberate? Penthouse bimbo Joni Flynn is a bit sexier, with a more exotic and Asian look, but gave the most hysterically bad acting performance i have ever witnessed. A sexy woman, maybe, but too cheap-looking, and dizzy to be taken seriously as Felicity's "sexual counselor." The men fare no better here. Felicity's love interest is an Aussie dude who is wearing more mascara than his female companion, and the actor is a little too old to play the part he is playing. And the guy who takes her virginity is a typical, oily creep of an older man. The worst thing of all, is the film seems somewhat racist; A white girl from Australia, travels to exotic Hong Kong, to have sexual encounters... with white people! What's wrong with Asians? She should have just stayed in Australia. What could have been a fascinating study of a young Western girl discovering the erotic mysteries of the Orient, turns out to be boring, typical exploitation, a film that is too timid to take any risks. But nothing is more miserable than the soundtrack, particularly the main theme, which is played over, and over, and over again; "She ain't Mama's little girl no more.." The only plus to this film is the beautiful Hong Kong scenery, which is the best thing this has to offer. Also, technically speaking, "Felicity" is a well-made film, and does feature some good erotic scenes. A missed opportunity, this could have been a classic in more competent hands.