GRINDHOUSE GIRLS OF THE 1970S COLLECTION

Secret Key Motion Pictures are back with four more slices of smut, this time all of which stem from 1971.

Disc one of this two-disc set opens with DAISY DOES HOLLYWOOD.

The film begins with random shots of trees as we hear young Daisy telling her reluctant father that she's leaving home to make a name for herself in Hollywood.

A quick taxi ride later, and blonde Daisy checks herself into a hotel. The bellboy Gary is quick to offer his assistance to the wannabe starlet, and winds up humping her on the floor.

The next morning Daisy dons what looks to be an old pair of curtains and rifles through her newspaper for talent agencies. She rings one agent and makes an appointment for later that day. Following a brief escapade involving a missing car, Daisy finds her way to the agent's office and - of course - gets naked with him.

Next up, Daisy visits a low-rent photographer's studio to get some pictures shot. After encouraging Daisy to show more flesh than she intended, Daisy scarpers before the photographer has the chance to remove his hat and shag her.

And on. And on. And on. "If this is Hollywood, you know what you can do with it" mumbles Daisy into the camera at the end of this film. If only she'd formed that opinion a bit sooner, I wouldn't have had to sit through this crap.

DAISY DOES HOLLYWOOD (originally titled INSIDE MISS CARTER) is a meandering saunter through one lazy sexual episode after another. It's badly shot, cheap and seriously lacking in titillation.

The script lacks humour - or sleaze - and the softcore sex scenes are unimaginative. They're also so dark that even the odd explicit scenes of exposed labia are difficult to make out.

Some Hollywood exterior shots and the opening titles, where the cast names are scrawled in chalk on a path a'la Hollywood Boulevard, are the only inspired moments of this toilsome 65-minute film.

Next up on disc one is BIG BEAVER SPLITS THE SCENE.

It's a great title for a skin film. Alas, the film is not so hot.

It begins with a sexy brunette frolicking in her dad's swimming pool with her blonde friend on a sunny day. They get naked as a dare to each other and start snogging.

After a lengthy spot of agreeable poolside cunnilingus, the girls are interrupted by the arrival of their husbands. The foursome retires into the house, where the women discuss how much their partners annoy them. Funnily enough, the men have the same conversation about their wives.

This being the swinging 1970s, it's no time at all before both couples have decided to swap partners. Cue more hairy softcore sex.

Another film to go nowhere? Sadly, yes. A slow-grinding organ score and some mightily impressive shag-pile rugs aren't enough to keep your eyes open. And at the 27-minute mark, when the couples hold a swinging party for their neighbours and John Holmes appears as a guest ... don't get your hopes up. Aside from the occasional near-hardcore footage of fanny-licking, this is decidedly lacking in the meaty goods.

The film ends in a 20-minute orgy that is softcore all the way and, consequently, tedious.

Both films are presented in anamorphic 1.78:1. The picture quality for HOLLYWOOD is poor. Colours are faded while contrast is low, making images unnaturally dark. Grain is evident and specks are rife. BEAVER suffers from a similar affliction of specks and vertical lines but fares better in terms of colour. It's also a brighter, clearer proposition.

Audio-wise, both films suffer from extremely heavy hissing and occasional drop-outs. The only time the soundtrack is clean on HOLLYWOOD, for example, is when After Hours' stock music is played over as couple of sex scenes (frequent After Hours customers will immediately recognise the music from several of their previous releases).

A static main menu page offers access to each film individually, or by utilising the "Grind It! Play All" function to watch them as a double-bill. I admire the man who has the spirit to endure such a prospect.

Although there are no scene-selection menus on the disc, each film has the following chapters: HOLLYWOOD has 13 chapters; BEAVER has 12 chapters.

Disc two attempts to patch things over, firstly with GIRLS OF PARIS.

This begins with some handheld exterior shots of Paris before introducing us to pretty young Roxanne, who makes the mistake of asking the wrong man for directions to her hotel. The man is a pimp called Robert, who takes Roxanne to a sleazy motel where he plans to ravage her. However, the motel owner Richard sends Robert packing and decides to have Roxanne for himself. Not that she's complaining.

Meanwhile, Robert's prostitute girlfriend scores with a male tourist. He takes her back to his apartment and they start rutting until his wife walks in on the pair of them. She kicks off and boots them out, before discovering Robert in the apartment stealing her jewellery. Naturally, she decides to bonk him.

Then it's back to Roxanne for another romp ...

Precisely what all of this is about is anyone's guess. The editing is so disjointed, continuity is spastic and the sex scenes so clumsily chopped together that it's sometimes easy to lose track of who you're watching fuck.

It's destination is however clear: PARIS goes absolutely nowhere. But takes an awfully long time getting there, considering it's only 47 minutes long.

More softcore scenes, copious amounts of pubic hair and some of the worst broken English you've ever heard, distinguish this one.

Finally, we get TRAPPED IN THE HOUSE, an epic at 74 minutes in length.

TRAPPED begins with a group of girl students cohabiting a bedroom adorned with posters of JFK and Dustin Hoffman. When they move through to their living quarters, it looks as though they're using the canvas from a game of Twister as curtains. Yes, I was given to observing the furniture by this point.

Anyhow, the girls spend a few minutes moaning about how horny they are and how strict their elderly housemaster is, before resolving to smuggle horny men into their abode.

The girls decide to do this by dressing one buck up as a girl. The only problem with this, is that the housemaster is a raving lesbian who takes a shine to the new "girl" ...

What may sound quite amusing on paper is padded out with lengthy scenes of non-erotic soft sex and women who literally stammer through their lines. There is one rather arresting shot of a young woman masturbating on her bed, but aside from that TRAPPED is an endurance test too far.

As with disc one, both of disc two's films are presented in anamorphic 1.78:1. While the same audio and video issues blight PARIS, TRAPPED is in better nick. The picture is a tad sharper and cleaner than the other films, while the audio is considerably clearer.

Again, a static main menu page opens the disc and each film has remote access via 11 chapters (GIRLS) and 16 chapters (TRAPPED). Once again, there is also the "Grind It! Play All" function for the masochists among you.

Disc two is fleshed out with trailers for GRINDHOUSE GIRLS OF THE 1970S and DEEP THROAT COMEDY COLLECTION.

The package is completed with a nice six-page fold-out booklet with colour screen grabs and liner notes from "The After Hours Collector". The notes are refreshingly honest, pointing out a moment in TRAPPED where you can hear the director shout "action" and dismissing BEAVER as '55 minutes of endless grind that does for eroticism what mortgage-backed securities did for the American banking system'.

As ever, After Hours/Secret Key must be commended for continuing to unearth such obscurities and remastering them for release on DVD. But this one's for real completists only.

Review by Stu Willis