Fanny Hill Details

Hilariously hyped at the time as a “female Tom Jones”, this is notorious flesh merchant Russ Meyer's brush with the classics. In this case Meyer characteristically exploits John Cleland's bawdy 18th-century novel about a young woman who finds herself working in a brothel, but his direction lacks any style or discernible talent. By his standards this is fairly innocuous stuff, but while the bare flesh quota is low, the schoolboy smuttiness remains. Veteran actress Miriam Hopkins, who in her prime worked with Ernst Lubitsch and Bette Davis, looks understandably embarrassed to be there. This is amateurish drivel that fails as comedy, titillation or historical fiction. One contemporary newspaper critic called it “a disgrace to the film industry”. You can't argue with common sense.

A relatively large budget and some respectable names in the cast list, but this is still limp softcore flummery sold on... read more on Time Out