THE HOSTESS ALSO LIKES TO BLOW THE HORN

(A.k.a. FRAU WIRTIN BLAST AUCH GERN TROMPETE; LE PIACEVOLI NOTTI DI JUSTINE; SEXY SUSAN KNOWS HOW ...!)

The film starts with French soldiers pillaging and looting the lands of France and Hungary, as a male narration tells us how the army has grown independent of Napoleon. This has led to them raiding villages of provisions - and raping their women.

When Justine's (Teri Tordai) home is invaded by horny soldiers, she manages to spare her husband Ferdinand's (Harald Leipnitz) life by seducing the commandant out of his clothes then tying him up, giving them opportunity to scarper on their horses.

Unfortunately Justine is shot during their daring escape. As they lose their pursuers, Ferdinand hastily hatches a plan to find medical help and refuge in the nearby province of Tursa. Here, he believes, they will be safe in their old haunt, the Panduren Inn.

Once at the Inn, handsome young guest doctor Von Trenk (Glenn Saxson) tends to Justine's wound while nosy neighbours spy on events. Seeing Justine with her top off and hearing her groans, the neighbours immediately assume that "an act of fornication" is occurring - and scuttle over to the officious Mayor (Willy Millowitsch) to tell him. It transpires that he works for the Baron of Tursa, who is making money from taxing any source of fun (fucking, telling dirty jokes, smoking etc).

Ferdinand manages to avoid a fine from the Mayor by buying the Inn outright. But this alerts the Baron (Barry Chuckle lookalike Jacques Herlin) of the foreigners' presence - and he plots to earn a lot more money from them, through his ultra-strict Committee of Decency.

Justine and Ferdinand combat this by turning the Inn into a brothel, and making a mint out of secretly giving the put-upon locals the shenanigans they so desperately crave. Bizarrely, Justine disguises the place as a convent school: whenever officials pay a visit, the landlady and her resident whores quickly change into habits and pray at their dinner tables. Luckily for them, the Inn even has rooms with revolving walls ...!

The plot thickens (well, vaguely) when Von Trenk returns to Tursa to reveal that he is the last in a line of wealthy Counts and rightful heir to the land, and when Justine hatches a plan to avoid further taxing by pretending to marry into authority ...

The film opens with sepia-tainted Victorian sketches of bawdy scenarios, set to Gianni Ferrio's quaintly dated, flute-led score. Along with the smutty innuendo of the title, this suggests that a silly, rude comedy will follow.

This is only the case at times. When the film remembers to, it adds cheeky sound effects to proceedings and even throws in extremely sparse use of Benny Hill-style fast-motion. Elsewhere, there's the tiresome gimmick of having a tax stick appear across the screen whenever a character contravenes the Committee's stringent anti-fun ruling.

But for the most part, this is a relatively restrained period piece that remains curiously bereft of overt daftness. The comedy is attempted consistently throughout but laughs are few and far between as the story progresses, with only the absurd situation suggesting that this is not meant to be taken seriously at times. There's little energy in the delivery of the actors (aside from Herlin), and the script careens wildly between surreal comedy such as Ferdinand singing for his supper or a laughable sword fight, and the almost downbeat scenes of the French army having their way with local women.

Jokes about rape, execution and castration are handled in such a way that they provoke neither giggles nor offence.

Plotwise, this is all over the place and as you can no doubt imagine this damages the film's pace irreparably. 91 minutes have rarely dragged on for so long.

What is there to recommend then? Not much, to be fair. Nudity is tame, erotica is reduced to a near-afterthought and bawdiness is thin on the ground. Production values are okay, with some nice costume design and decent exterior cinematography to look forward to.

The film is most notable though as a curiosity piece, offering rare alternate sides of genre faves such as Rosalba Neri (THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS; LADY FRANKENSTIEN) and Rudolf Schundler (THE EXORCIST; THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES).

Part of a series of naughty "hostess" films peddled out by the Germans in the early 1970s, HORN is a dated and daunting jaunt into not-very-funny-or-sexy erotic comedy. Directed by Franz Antel in distinctly slapdash manner, it's up to the lovely flame-haired Tordai to keep events watchable.

The film is presented uncut in an anamorphic 2.35:1 ratio. The picture has decent colours reflecting accurate flesh tones and solid blacks. Scratches and grain are not a problem, although the occasional softness and inconsistent edges of detail suggest a less-than-expertly-rendered conversion job. Image is not the most stable.

Mono audio is provided in Italian, which is a shame as at least some of the cast are celebrated Germans. Still, this being an Italian/German/Austrian production, this option is at least preferable to an English-dubbed version. As dubbing goes, this track isn't too back. Audio is surprisingly clean throughout, and comes through in a pleasingly loud manner. English subtitles are optional and easy to read.

A colourful animated main menu leads into an animated scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

The only extra on the disc is a stills gallery. This offers 31 grabs from the film over the course of 2-and-a-half-minutes. Set to laidback porno-style jazz, this is presented in 16x9 enhanced 2.35:1.

THE HOSTESS ALSO LIKES TO BLOW THE HORN is not a very good film then, but one that will nevertheless find an audience with those keen to catch up with all early 70s erotic comedies. It's certainly not the worst of its kind, despite being instantly forgettable. The cast make it intriguing from a historical perspective, but the execution is undeniably flaccid.

The disc from Sinful Mermaid is not the best either, but I don't see anyone else making an effort to release this largely forgotten cult curio onto disc.

As a footnote, most prints of the film appear to have Tordai's character called Suzanne. For this Italian dubbed variant, the character is named Justine.

Review by Stuart Willis