The Fruit Is Ripe (1977)

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

"Griechische Feigen" or "The Fruit Is Ripe" "Coming of Age" is a West German soft-core porn movie from almost 40 years ago. It runs for 90 minutes and was directed by Sigi Rothemund, who is actually somewhat known here in Germany and worked on quite a few films that are still heard of today. But the really embarrassing play on words in the title here already gives the direction of this film: it is very much trash, probably only a good watch if you are horny and find lead actress Betty Vergès attractive. This was her first work and looking at her performance here in terms of range and talent, it is not a surprise at all that her career as an actress was really short-lived. You see some boobs here and sex scenes, but it is all not too explicit, so I would not categorize it as porn really. But it is not an artistic achievement by any means either and I personally did not like that the film relies on one actress completely. Maybe some hot scenes with other actresses would have been nice for diversity. Overall, it is a pretty weak film from the sexual revolution in German filmmaking. I give it a thumbs down. Not recommended.

I'm normally pretty indulgent with these 1970's European sub-"Emannuelle" softcore sex films, but this one is even more stupid than usual and pretty annoying to boot. I watched it mainly for Olivia Pascal, but she doesn't show up until more the halfway through playing a nude model with whom the main protagonist is working and with whom she hatches a cockamamie plot to "convert" a handsome but gay photographer. The main protagonist is played by one Betty Virges. She is a nineteen-year-old college student (first seen skinny-dipping in a pool while the local priest is over for tea), who is vacationing in Greece with her parents. Her indulgent parents both give her money and send her to the airport to return to school in Munich, but she gives away her ticket and embarks on a (mostly sexual) odyssey around Greece, narrating the whole thing on her portable tape recorder.Virges has a very nice body (which you get to see a whole lot of), but she is saddled with a truly stupid and annoying character. She comes on to a lot of unattractive, middle-age guys, for instance, for no real reason then complains into her tape recorder about how "lecherous" they are. She stupidly hops in a car with two creeps and is very nearly raped. She falls in love at one point, but after her supposed lover gets jealous about a Greek guy that's showing her too much attention and storms off, she proves him right by immediately going to bed with the guy (later she also takes a bath with her beau's roommate, for no apparent reason, and makes fun of the poor guy's equipment). This movie seems to want to be some kind of free-spirited/ swinging feminist thing in the spirit of Emmanuelle Arsan or Erica Jong, but the character is mostly just hateful, coming across as both a malicious tease AND a brain-dead slut. And I don't even want to talk about the horrible music on the soundtrack. . .See this film if you must, but I would recommend instead any of the "Emmanuelle" films (especially the ones with Laura Gemser), "Vanessa" (with Olivia Pascal) or "Avere Vent'anni", which has a very similar plot to this one but is infinitely better. I enjoy these kind of films generally, but I can't recommend this one I'm afraid.

I first saw Grichische Feigen, translated into The Fruit Is Ripe, on pay TV while at university in the 1980's. As far as soft-core porn goes, this has the requisite nudity, sex, and great scenery you'd expect from a low-budget production. The acting isn't as bad as you'd think, there are no serious gaffes in the production (like mike boom shadows or editing mistakes), but the god-awful dialog takes away any redeeming value this may have had if the director, Siggi Gotz who thankfully doesn't seem to have produced anything since 1988, had had any talent in raising this dreck above the mundane. There's the potential, given the Betty Verges actually possesses screen presence, that Gotz could have made something meanful, but he didn't. Unless you're in the mood for softcore porn, skip this one.

A teenage girl runs away from her parents in Greece to hitch rides and generally just bums around. She meets a number of men and most of them are rejects. This is a 'sexual awakening/coming-of-age story'. However, Betty Verges seems a bit too old to play this part. She just has an air of sophistication, and she must be at least 5 to 10 years older than the character's age. Although the movie is set in Greece, the scenes are set in somewhat grimy locales and the photography is poor. The budget for this film must have been minimal. Finally, I didn't even like the soundtrack!