Le ragazze del piacere

A young woman aspiring to be a model (Francesca Annis) shares digs with other girls and meets up (almost immediately) with a man on the make (Ian McShane). What will happen?

As hard as it is to believe, two of the actors (Mark Eden, Klaus Kinski) appeared in another feature that year, "Doctor Zhivago."

Low key and definitely low budget. Black and white (which doesn't disturb me).

What drives the movie down is a lack of focus. It starts with Annis but as she meets the other girls and their siblings and boyfriends it tries dipping into their stories, too. That's a lot to cover in an hour and a half.

If you want a swinging London film that's focused and funny yet bulging with the ethos of that time, try Richard Lester's "The Knack . . . And How To Get It" which came out the same year. It also presents the joy of youth, especially in the bed scene (which isn't what you'd think). The girls and boys in "The Pleasure Girls" smoke a lot and dance to really bad 1960s music and sleep around and try to better themselves but no one seems to be deriving much joy out of the proceedings. Or pleasure, and that's in the title. It's all pretty squalid.