Felicity (1978)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Aussies just don't do erotic well. But it got some nice scenery shots of Hong Kong in the 70s.

This is a very good soft core film of the kind which runs as part of "Skinemax" on Cinemax. There will be mild spoilers: This is a fairly straightforward story of the coming of age of a young girl who goes on vacation in Hong Kong from a boarding school. Naturally, there are plenty of opportunities for our heroine to be seen without clothes and she finds a romance with a cute guy.Many of the standard plot devices are here-the friendly couple who take the girl under their wing, the somewhat mysterious woman who takes her out to be educated in the ways of the world, an attempted abduction where the lead is rescued and so on.The script is good, the acting is good (particularly from Glory Annen as Felicity) and the production values are nice. Worth watching and recommended.

What a spunky, hot, innocent looking number to hail from a monastic school. Our sweet little thing, Felicity, an eager to learn student, who reads books like, The Story Of O, leaves ocker land and takes a trip of self-discovery to Hong Kong at the invitation of her older sister. Of course on the dragging flight over, she gets to spy on a couple making love. Very erotic indeed, as are quite a few scenes, but it's star actress gives a one note performance, worthy of a stoning, it's that bad, unlike her surrounding cast members. Apparently a book inspired this movie, and I bet my life, the book was better. While in Hong Kong, Felicity is introduced to her sister's friends, where she galavants off with older men, to have her first sexual encounters. She's introduced to an Asian girl-a tour guide you could say, who shows Felicity her Hong Kong. We have some great night shots of this beautiful city, amidst it's seedy bars, massage parlours, spa. It's only crime, is we haven't got a movie. It's just another one of these films that falls into that category of sleaze. In one sense, it doesn't come off as an Aussie flick, and in another, it's existence is disreputable towards Australia. Barely surviving a mugging, Felicity meets a amiable biker guy, an Aussie, of course, (very much like the Comedy's Company's, Glen Robbins) who's to become her first lover, and this takes up the second half of the movie. It's last fifteen minutes of her trying to locate him, after coming down with a bug, is so pointless. That's the bloody problem with the whole movie. It lacks substance. It goes nowhere. You won't learn much about sexual awakenings from this film or anything for that matter. You're better consulting The Abc Of Love And Sex, incidentally, a flick our young darling couple go and see before settling down to ching ching and flat conversation. A disappointing view. Oh, and "Let's not mix words".

Felicity is essentially an Australian ripoff of Emmanuelle with a good measure of Histoire d'O, Fear Of Flying and the collected works of David Hamilton thrown in. The movie isn't exactly trying to hide its paragons -- instead when young Felicity witnesses a copulating couple on a jetliner (like in Emmanuelle), she describes this scene to a friend as "just like in that movie, Emmanuelle". In case anyone hadn't noticed.Felicity is your average innocent finishing school girl (magna cum laude in "Ballet In Very Skimpy Costumes" and "Showering With The Gardener Getting A Good Shufti") on her odd trip to Southeast Asia to explore her sexuality. And get laid. This sounds like a movie which will just go through the motions, but the movie surprised me by being pretty good nevertheless. In fact, although Felicity follows the road most traveled and leaves out no softcore stereotype (including the sponge bath at a Chinese brothel (which in this case is partially staffed by blondes)), it's a rare case of a copy improving on the original.Much of the accolade is due to the actress playing the heroine, Glory Annen. She's pretty and natural, and she plays the difficult role of the saucy ingénue with great aplomb and enthusiasm. I was especially impressed by her voiceovers, her husky voice is like aural Viagra. And dramatically she is well matched by her love interest, played by Chris Milne.Unusually for a softcore movie, the story is surprisingly subtle and convincing, and at least gives some consideration to the female perspectice. It's obviously not exactly the DA Pennebaker type of realism, and I'd urge anyone watching this movie to use condoms for Christ's sake if you must have casual sex on a Chinese brothel junk, but Felicity does have bad experiences (a lousy "first time"), inhibitions and desires, and she wants to both have sex, and love and emotions.What sets it even further apart from Emmanuelle is the omission of intellecto-philosophical blatherings and swinger-"what gives her pleasure gives me pleasure, especially if can have carnal knowledge of the crème of the crop of Thai prostitutes and their younger sisters in the meantime"-ideology. And whereas Emmanuelle is pretty much game for anything depraved old men are into, Felicity is slightly less kinky and make-believe; and also there are no rape scenes and dungeons.Yep, you'll even be able to watch this with your girlfiend or wife without risking her mentioning it in the divorce proceedings one week later.