NAUGHTY NYMPHS

(A.k.a. BLUTJUNG UND LIEBESHUNGRIG; DIE LIEBESTOLLEN APOTHEKERSTOCHTER; DON'T TELL DADDY; PASSION PILL SWINGERS; SATIN PANTIES; LES ASSOIFFEES D'AMOUR)

Elizabeth (the inimitable Sybil Danning) returns home to her quaint German town, having been sacked from yet another job. Her father, puritanical Willibald (Paul Lowinger) receives a telegram in advance of his daughter's return, and immediately assumes she has been sacked because of promiscuity.

Willibald has two other daughters, pretty brunette Maria (Eva Garden) and hot blonde Christel (Alena Penz), both of whom live with him and who he thinks are purer than nuns. However, we soon learn that these two are fuck machines, secretly bonking their respective boyfriends' brains out behind their locked bedroom doors.

When Elizabeth is met at the train station by Christel, she enjoys a brief conversation with local doctor Marcus (Claus Tinney) before being driven home by her sister to meet with a disapproving sermon from Willibald. Elizabeth insists she is virginal, but Willibald remains convinced that she is the slut of the family ...

After their garden-based row, Elizabeth and Willibald retire indoors, which leaves nymphomaniacs Maria and Christel worrying about how the presence of their goody-goody sister is going to impair their wanton shagging.

A short while later, Marcus turns up at the family home offering Elizabeth a job at his hospital for geriatric men. She is less than keen but her father forces her to accept the job. However, it would seem that Marcus is more interested in Elizabeth as an object of affection than a potentially skilled nurse ...

Meanwhile, as Elizabeth dons a tight nurse's uniform and sets about naively tending to the local old folks, Christel and Maria raid Willibald's medical journals in a bid to discover a drug capable of bringing their sister round to their way of thinking.

The resultant aphrodisiac is a forefather of Viagra, a medicine capable of rendering even the most innocent souls incapable of resisting their primal sexual urges.

This being a European sex comedy from the early 1970s, it should come as no surprise that said drug accidentally finds it's way into Marcus' hospital and down the throats of his oblivious aged patients.

Soon, the hospital is full of horny patients chasing nubile nurses around the place. How long before Elizabeth succumbs to their urges - and if she does, will she discover that there are pleasures in life she has thus far avoided?!

NAUGHTY NYMPHS is an enjoyably daft Bavarian comedy from 1972. Decidedly tame in relation to the adult films that were being filtered into storefront cinemas at the time, it's an affable example of softcore silliness, the likes of which were still big business at the time.

Director Franz Antel was already adept at this type of film, having made a succession of hits in the form of the "Hostess"/"Sexy Susan" series (THE HOSTESS ALSO LIKES TO BLOW THE HORN is reviewed elsewhere on this site). With NAUGHTY NYMPHS, Antel throws all of his clichéd comedy tricks into the mix: loopy cartoonish music; speeded-up chase scenes; innuendo and smut; older characters who represent face-pulling Puritanism; plot conceits of ludicrous proportions, serving to elevate the action into all-out farce).

It all works, thanks largely to a breakneck pace and madly energetic performances. There's a good nature, a happy tone, to the film that can't help but rub off on the viewer. There is also, of course, a very welcome amount of attractive European ladies running around in full-frontal nude splendour. Which is never a bad thing.

Some factors are dated in their bad taste - cheap gags at the expense of a camp gay couple; the 'hilarity' of attempted rape. But NYMPHS is an innocent film. It does not seek to shock or offend - it's far too naive and clueless to contain such aspirations. If it's misguided morally, this is purely unintentional and does not sour the overall tone, which is one of harmless fun.

Danning is stunning, spending a healthy amount of film-time in her ridiculous (and very fetching) nurse's uniform, which is cannily designed to show off her bronzed cleavage to the max. As the DVD booklet observes, the young Danning here resembles Paris Hilton in a way, albeit a bigger-boned version. Again, this is no bad thing, and Danning - along with the other females in the cast (including Britt Corvin of BIBI: CONFESSIONS OF SWEET 16 fame) ensures the film is always pleasing on the eye.

Cinematography and framing are also nice, as are colour design and costumes. If any of that matters.

More to the point, NAUGHTY NYMPHS is a near-perfect example of the countless sex comedies that came out alongside it during the early 1970s: the humour is puerile, the sex scenes are tame and unrealistic, the pace is madcap and the conclusion is a conveniently happy one.

The film is presented in full-frame 1.33:1 which, from the compositions on screen, appears to be the correct framing. Colours are strong and images are mostly bright, offering a surprisingly clean and vibrant transfer. Minor print damage is evident, but it's never a distraction.

The English-dubbed mono audio is a solid and evenly-balanced affair throughout, again proffering a much cleaner playback than I'd anticipated.

A static main menu page does not offer scene-selections, but the film can be flicked through remotely by way of 16 chapters.

Disc extras are limited to a wealth of trailers.

First off, we get a group of previews collected under the guise of a "Classic German Sex Comedy Trailer Collection": 2069 A SEX ODYSSEY; BETWEEN THE COVERS; BOTTOMS UP; LONELY WIVES; MOONLIGHTING MISTRESS; NAUGHTY NYMPHS; OFFICE GIRLS; PETS; RUN VIRGIN RUN; SECRETS OF SWEET 16; SINFUL BED; SUPER KNIGHT; SWAP MEAT AT THE LOVE MARKET; SWINGING WIVES; TEACH ME; THE FEMALE BUNCH; I LIKE THE GIRLS WHO DO and SWINGING CHEERLEADERS.

If that's not enough to leave you drained, there's also a smaller vault of Secret Key trailers: the agreeable ALL THE SINS OF SODOM; the less so DEEP THROAT SEX COMEDY COLLECTION; and the Carter Stevens double-bill of PUNK ROCK and PLEASURE PALACE.

The disc is also defaulted to open with these latter three trailers.

Rounding out this package is a 4-page booklet with liner notes from the ever-informed After Hours Collector. Accompanied by colour screen grabs and the superb original US theatrical artwork for the film, the booklet is a most welcome addition.

Badly dubbed, relentlessly daft and enjoyably old-fashioned in its almost apologetic approach to erotica, NAUGHTY NYMPHS is a must for fans of Euro sex comedies and Sybil (spelt Sybill in the credits) Danning alike.

Review by Stu Willis