A body is found floating in a pool as mute simpleton Fenul (Juan Cózar… who also serves as our narrator, lack of speech be damned) strums his gee-tar. Thus begins another loose as a goose adaptation of the writings of pervert par excellence the Marquis De Sade as seen through the leering lens of exploitation maestro Jess Franco.
Anyway, Fenul’s job seems to actually be fiddling with his instrument within the walls of his employer, the playboy Antonio’s (Robert Foster) lush mountaintop villa.
Speaking of Ant, this mother fucker lives to screw… everyone from his maid (whom he raped as a child, and now is desperately in love with him… yeah… ), to his houseguest Julia (Franco muse Lina Romay) gets the ol’ peen… and to top it off, he’s married to mega-rich Martina (Rocío Freixas), who just got sprung from the loony bin. Insanity, dirty dealings (Antonio plans on pleasuring his wife to death and absconding with her loot), and oh so very much tiddy-bush follows.
Look, I won’t mince words, Franco’s films are usually entertaining (unless it’s that turd sandwich Oasis of the Zombies) and Cries of Pleasure is no exception… especially considering this is one of the flicks that the director actually seems interested in making (for those not in the know; Franco was extremely prolific, and sometimes he’d lose steam halfway through a project as he prepared his next cinematic offering).
And “interested” is what fans of sexploitation will surely be as we are treated to a multitude of softcore sex sequences (well, most are… but there is one that may have featured some actual sex… you’ll know it when ya see it… those balls… that hair… burned into my mind… ) featuring the undeniable beauty of those comely lasses mentioned up yonder… and because he was there you get some nice Spanish landscapes as well… but yeah, exposed flesh is the bread and butter of this pic for sure.
Now if extremely long sex scenes and a threadbare plot aren’t your cup of titillating tea, this may not fly for ya, because that is what 90% of Cries of Pleasure contains, minus an acoustic jam here and a murder plot there… but it is never dull.
Besides the obvious aforementioned attractions, the film also features the overarching mystery of how that pesky body wound up in that swimming pool, plus there are a few twists in turns in the slight narrative as well to keep the interest as high as your… I was going to make some ridiculous joke here, but obviously; “penis”.
As for extra features on this Blu-ray release from Severin, things look light upon first inspection, but while the number of bonus materials is small, the info they contain is pretty damn fantastic!
First up we get part one of a tour of locations Franco used in Portugal hosted by author Stephen Thrower, followed by part one of an archival interview with Franco and Romay conducted by filmmaker Donald Farmer. Then we get a lengthy interview with Thrower wherein he discusses Franco’s copious output for Golden Films International.
If you crave ’80s era Euro-sexploitation, and you know damn well you do, then Cries of Pleasure will surely satisfy, then after a brief break and some Gatorade, satisfy again!
