Caresses

Light-hearted frothy fun from production and distribution company Alpha France, which had a near monopoly on French porn theaters at the time, and one of their most versatile in-house directors, the ubiquitous "Burd Tranbaree" a/k/a Claude Bernard-Aubert, whose legitimate film-making career had started in the late '50s with the earnest war drama PATROUILLE DE CHOC. Catering to predominantly bourgeois tastes of the Continental adult movie-going audiences, Bernard-Aubert frequently focused on the sexual shenanigans of comfortably middle class characters who apparently never needed to work for a living, leaving that much more time for lusty leisure, this in stark contrast to his blue collar brethren at Alpha France like Francis Leroi and Jean-Claude Roy a/k/a "Patrick Aubin" who would invariably pay lip service to the economic necessity of employment as fuel for their fleshy fantasies.

The narrative to CARESSES INAVOUABLES borders on flimsy and is centered around a pair of male best friends, one of whom (Gabriel, played by Joël Charvier, memorable as the sexually confused son in Gérard Kikoïne's superb ENTRECHATTES) is an unfailing womanizer while the other (François, played by the omnipresent Guy Royer, whose inexpressive stoicism found its perfect vehicle portraying the imperturbable butler in Bernard-Aubert's unsettling SOUMISSION) quite hopeless in similar attempts. Not that it matters much, since Gabriel's not above sharing the wealth as the opening scene with Diane Dubois (a/k/a notorious Paris nightclub owner Denise Lascène) illustrates, complete with then still in-habitual double penetration. Still, François agrees to seek help from very hands on psychologist Diane (beautiful Erika Cool, whose path often crossed with that of a then promising young starlet known as Brigitte Lahaye in Claude Pierson's melodramatic A COEUR OUVERT and Robert Renzulli's equally lachrymose CATHY, FILLE SOUMISE) who immediately sets up a phone sex scenario with her assistant Lili (ravishing Morgane, despite the hairstyle) who's receiving in person attention from Gabriel just a few doors down. The director throws in a charming reference to his own hardcore debut, LA FESSEE, as François repeats that film's protagonist Monsieur Antoine's spanking philosophy ("every spanking starts with a caress…") ad verbatim.

The rest of the movie somewhat unimaginatively details the "tests" François undergoes as part of his erotic assertiveness therapy, meaning Diane picks a target and lets her pupil loose on her. A glowingly youthful Céline Gallone (who would specialize in schoolgirl parts in Claude Mulot's sparkling LES PETITES ECOLIERES and Gérard Grégory's vastly underrated ADOLESCENTES AU PENSIONAT) appears in the most erotic segment by far, as a young girl whose parents are away for the weekend, highlighted by a breathtakingly fetishist extreme close-up of her perfect nipple rising to aroused attention ! The frustrated housewife masturbating with the telephone is played by Gallia, who also appeared in the same director's disposable DEFONCE-MOI, and sad-eyed Marie-Dominique Cabannes (one of Bernard-Aubert's VEUVES EN CHALEUR) brings up the rear with another double penetration demonstration courtesy of our horny heroes.

Though there's a distinct lack of creativity on the carnal front, at least it's prettily photographed by productive Pierre Fattori, whose professional expertise made him a favorite crossover companion for fornication filmmakers whenever they dabbled in the mainstream : Bernard-Aubert with his scathing anti-war manifesto CHARLIE BRAVO, Pierre Unia with the dire soft porn thriller BABY CAT and the late Alain Payet on the painfully unfunny farce L'EMIR PREFERE LES BLONDES.