Misteraser Critics,are you kidding us

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Madilyn Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

nightair86 Poor Lisa Foster (Raines)who is now a 48 year old highly regarded and successful movie writer, technician and producer. She was barely (excuse the pun) 18 when she made this sex romp. She has changed her name and is variously reported as hailing from England or Canada, depending on which source is consulted. No doubt all of this ambiguity is designed to hide the fact that this beautiful, elegant and successful movie producer (see her bio here on IMDb) made this porn film back in 1982 when she was a teenager. And what a gorgeous display, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, it is! I agree with all of the reviewers who have said what a beautiful form she casts. Cleland's novel calls for a virginal 15 year old girl of nubile proportions and Lisa fits the description perfectly.Where I part company, however, with other reviewers, is the somewhat guilt-ridden insistence of some that this movie is "not pornography", since it is true to the 1790's novel. Hogwash. Cleland's novel is pure pornography, designed solely to titillate the reader. This movie also more than fulfils that singular purpose. She is naked for significant periods of time in the movie precisely because of the erotic purpose. It fulfils no different purpose than a skin magazine. The only difference, of course, is that the viewer is blessed with seeing a beautiful 18 year old woman in her natural glory without any plastic adornments or alterations. Lisa Foster(Raines) regrets this totally. The rest of us do not.

Jonathon Dabell Fanny Hill, Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure first appeared as a book by John Cleland in 1748. For its time, the book contained some explicit, orgiastic sexual episodes. It has since become famous as the greatest work of erotic fiction ever written, heavily censored at various times in various countries, but widely read and constantly in print for over 250 years. Having read the book, I was quite interested to see what this film adaptation of it might offer. Sadly the result is a rather amateurish, tediously repetitive softcore "period porno". Few who value literature or cinema as serious artistic mediums will find a great deal to whet their appetite here.Virginal girl Fanny Hill (Lisa Raines) arrives in 18th century London friendless and virtually penniless. She is soon taken in by a seemingly kind and caring elderly lady named Mrs Brown (Paddy O'Neil), who claims to own one of the best "houses" in London. It takes a while for Fanny to realise it, but she gradually awakens to the fact that she is housed in a brothel and is being groomed to become a woman of pleasure. A handsome stranger named Charles (Jonathan York) is smitten by Fanny and arranges for her to escape from Mrs Brown's establishment. The pair soon fall in love and set up a home, but Charles's father disapproves and arranges for his son to be unwittingly shipped away to the East Indies. Alone and pregnant, Fanny tries to make the best of her lot, stumbling from one doomed love affair to the next. She eventually finds herself turning back to a life of prostitution in the slightly more dignified establishment of Mrs Cole (Shelley Winters). Here Fanny becomes the favourite "woman of pleasure" of a rich old man called Mr Barville (Wilfrid Hyde-White). When Barville dies, he leaves Fanny his entire fortune – enough money for her to live out the rest of her life in comfort. Her happiness is complete when she bumps, by chance, into her former lover Charles, returned from the East Indies and desperate to find his long-lost lover.The whole story centres on Raines as the titular character, and she is actually one of the few things about the film that works. She plays the young, desirable, virginal heroine surprisingly well and does what she can to hold the movie together. The special guest stars (Oliver Reed, Shelley Winters and Wilfrid Hyde-White) are unexpectedly the ones who DON'T do enough to justify their star billing – Reed, especially, seems to act as if he wishes he were elsewhere. The music by Paul Hoffert is distractingly irritating throughout, while many of the sets and costumes merely point up the film's relatively low budget. The narrative itself has little of the book's richness or insight. This film version moves from sex scene to sex scene, barely dwelling on anything other than the bums, tits and pubic hair. Actual character development and motivation is nowhere to be found. Worse still, more than half of the sex scenes are played for laughs, with comical facial expressions and jaunty musical scoring that immediately makes one think of those saucy British comedies of the mid-'70s. All things considered, Fanny Hill is a failed attempt to adapt a literary classic into a worthwhile film.

MarkHeckford Perhaps the most entertaining part of this movie is the appearance of veteran Wilfred Hyde-White, one of those individualistic character actors who,like his friend Robert Morley, never fail to entertain even in the most pedestrian film. Fanny Hill isn't great cinema, but it is great fun, and Hyde-White is hugely enjoyable to watch. Shelley Winters is clearly relishing her role, and between them these two reliable veterans prove that a film that might easily become reliant on nudity to make an impact has chosen, like so many British sex comedies, to use actors of experience and talent to make more of a movie than its sexual content can provide. An enjoyable romp.

Stefan Kahrs This version of the once banned Fanny Hill story clearly had a budget to burn: we have various familiar faces in the supporting roles. Most of them just show up to pay the rent, but Shelley Winters' portrayal of a madam is convincing. Also, a lot of money has been spent on sets and costumes. This alone makes it a lot more watchable than the average erotic B-movie, not to mention that the general light-heartedness in which the film approaches its subject is much more suitable for creating eroticism than the Erotic Thriller US style which so often combines sex with violence and death.Still, this film has not managed to become a genre classic and it is not hard to see why. Most importantly, there is the actress playing the title heroine, Lisa Raines. While she's undeniably pretty (with or without clothes), her acting range is rather limited; it was probably impossible to get an established actress play such an exposed role. The 'innocent young girl' Lisa has to play at the beginning of the film is not completely believable, but much worse she completely fails to exude any sensuality in the later stages. This becomes especially obvious when we compare her to Maria Harper, the vampish actress playing the whore Phoebe. One gets the impression that Lisa/Fanny loves sex as a nice physical exercise in nice company. A similar criticism applies to her love interest: no charisma, no depth, and an instantly forgettable face. This being a British film it doesn't come as a surprise that the sex scenes do not come across as very erotic, and that seems more of a cultural problem than a problem with censorship. The notable exception are the scenes involving the already mentioned Maria Harper. I suppose, there must be some Italians in her recent ancestry.