Fly Me the French Way (1974)
A tipsy lesbian sleepover turns into a rescue mission involving stolen negatives, fake maids, masked libertines and the least discreet sex cult in France.
Valérie arrives in Paris to mind her cousin’s apartment while he spends six months in America, and promptly invites her friend Sophie over to help christen the place with drinks, flirting and an extended bout of sapphic bed play. While the women sleep it off, two bizarre burglars dressed like matching comic-book “mice” break in and accidentally abduct Sophie. Fred, Sophie’s boyfriend, then wanders into the apartment, assumes she has merely gone out and wastes remarkably little time tumbling into bed with Valérie. Only the next morning—after another leisurely round of pleasure—do they begin wondering where Sophie actually is. Hidden negatives containing compromising photographs provide the answer: Valérie’s cousin has been blackmailing a secret society run by Malvina, a statuesque ice queen whose masked followers treat...
kidnapping, bondage and ritualised sex as standard club business. Malvina sends a bogus maid to recover the negatives, but her mission dissolves into another ménage à trois, followed by a gloriously silly floor-level catfight when the genuine maid arrives and objects to having her uniform, job and territory stolen. Once the false maid changes allegiance, Valérie and Fred follow the trail to Malvina’s country mansion, where Sophie is being held among dungeons, caped women, whips, mannequins and preparations for a sacrifice involving another young initiate.
This is Jean Rollin working as a hired hand rather than making one of his personal vampire dreams, and it shows: the bedroom scenes are frequent, prolonged and sometimes flatter than they ought to be. Yet his fingerprints keep breaking through the softcore machinery—the costumed twins, vivid colours, sinister corridors, fetishistic tableaux and the feeling that everyone has wandered from a cheap crime serial into an erotic dream. The plot is ridiculous and the pace can sag, but its finest moments have a scruffy, cheerful madness that makes the film oddly endearing rather than merely dirty.
This is pure mid-1970s French permissiveness, when exploitation cinema could mix lesbian frolics, slapstick, psychedelic credits, pulp intrigue and mock-Gothic ritual without explaining itself. Shot largely inside Rollin’s own Paris apartment and at an elegant mansion in the surrounding region, it shifts from cramped urban bed-hopping to a rural cult hideaway. The vibe is colourful, cheap, playful and faintly sinister—a sex comedy wearing a bargain-bin thriller mask.
Joëlle Cœur carries the picture with relaxed confidence, mischievous timing and a direct, knowing sensuality that cuts through the nonsense; whether naked in bed or trading absurd dialogue, she looks completely at home. Marie-France Morel brings softer, more vulnerable allure as the frequently undressed Sophie, while Brigitte Borghese dominates the cult scenes with imperious posture, extravagant outfits and a wickedly straight-faced performance as Malvina. The film is very generous with full female nudity, simulated lesbian and group sex, bondage and light sadomasochistic imagery, but it remains softcore: bodies are displayed freely and positions are suggestive, without explicit penetration or anatomical close-ups.
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