Fanny Hill (1964)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Charming and brutal

An absolute waste of money

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

FANNY HILL's yet another Albert Zugsmith "extravaganza", this one filmed in Germany, and originally meant for Douglas Sirk (!). Closer to Playboy magazine's "Little Orphan Fannie" than the knowing wench of eighteenth- century porn, Russ Meyer's opus aspires to rollicking comedy but only manages to achieve mildly amusing ...and that's being kind. Leticia Roman's woefully miscast as a poor lass who's taken under the wing of a brothel madam (Miriam Hopkins, who doesn't look too bad and even has a little decolleté going' on) and finds her virginity in peril at every turn. It's still intact (I think) at the happy ending much to Miriam's exasperation and if it had a more risqué script, a bigger budget, color photography, and Stella Stevens as "Little Orphan Fannie", Louella Parsons would have been right in proclaiming the film, "A female TOM JONES!"

Sweet and naive young lass Fanny Hill (a charming and spirited performance by the busty and lovely Leticia Roman) gets taken in by cunning and conniving Madam Maude Brown (a delightfully vibrant portrayal by Miriam Hopkins) at an elite brothel in pre-Victorian London. Unbeknownst to Fanny, Brown plans to sell her to the first client who will pay top dollar for her.Director Russ Meyer, working from a breezy script by Robert Hill, relates the entertaining story at a steady pace, maintains an engagingly dippy and farcical tone throughout, milks the amusing sense of blithely broad humor for plenty of belly laughs, offers a flavorsome evocation of the period setting, and stages the uproarious slapstick gags with considerable gusto. Moreover, it's acted with great zest by a game cast: Alex D'Arcy as a dashing admiral, Ulli Lommel as gentleman suitor Charles, Walter Giller as decadent aristocrat Hemmingway, Helmut Weiss as jolly old lecher Dinkelspieler, and Chris Howland as the painfully shy and bumbling Mr. Norbert. The presence of a bevy of beautiful ladies helps a whole lot, with Christianne Schmidtmer as the ditsy Fiona and Cara Garnett as the worldly Phoebe rating as the definite sexy stand-outs. Heinz Holscher's crisp black and white cinematography boasts plenty of snazzy animated scene transitions. Erwin Halletz's jaunty score further adds to the infectiously bubbly merriment. A fun'n'frothy affair.

Inane dialogue in this Russ Meyer burlesque farce/love story....but the naughty subject matter and low cut dresses were probably enough to keep the viewing public interested. Our innocent little Italian-born star, Leticia Roman plays Fanny Hill, who is looking for work, and ends up boarding in a house full of "female cousins". Roman had made GI Blues, along with 8 other films prior to this one. The fast carnival-type music, the hair-dos, and the costumes tip us off that this will be an odd period piece. Mrs. Brown (Miriam Hopkins) takes Fanny in, and claims that the residents and the visitors are all related, which adds another weird dimension to the plot. Try to catch the new lyrics to "London Bridge is Falling Down" as they frolic at the king's palace....Later, Fanny meets the dashing sailor "Charles", and when separated, Fanny is devastated. This 1964 version is one hour 45 minutes, and goes on way too long. The 1968 subtitled Swedish version remake is actually easier to watch, since it's in color, only 91 minutes, and has a more cohesive script.

This is probably the most expurgated version of Fanny Hill you'll ever see. The only way to get an R rating in 1964 for a movie with a sexual subject seems to be to turn it into a leering, puerile comedy. The problem is that it doesn't work as a comedy, or as erotica, or even as historic fiction.The plot revolves around Fanny's belief that she has been taken in by a kind lady to work in a hat shop, instead of in an expensive brothel. Fanny manages to avoid the clients she's been set up with for the entire movie without ever finding out the truth. The plot never evolves beyond this obvious story. There's also no attention paid to accuracy: the setting for the movie lurches around between 1750 and 1890, and the dialogue ranges even further.Of all the actors in the movie, only Leticia Roman and Miriam Hopkins show any life. The others are stick figures, feigning animation with affected voices and arched eyebrows. Not that Roman and Hopkins aren't guilty of overacting: they just occasionally show there might be more there.This movie may be worth preserving along with "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" for anthropological studies on 1960's Hollywood attitudes towards sex, but it's not worth watching for entertainment. Read the book.