Run, Virgin, Run

Good movie!

Good movie!

Good movie!

According to the narrator of this West German sex comedy, the annual arrival of the foehn--a southwestern wind that is analogous to the Santa Ana winds of Southern California or the Diablo winds of the San Francisco Bay Area--activates the libido of the elderly, but lusty, men of the Alpen village of Bumshausen (retitled Futtlerhausen in the English-dubbed version). It is this time of year when, apparently, the virgins must run, but the wives will be 'supremely satisfied'. This actually goes against the grain of German folklore, which posits the foehn as 'murder winds' which encourage madness and migraines. Apparently, Die Jungfrauen von Bumshausen (released to the American theatres as Run Virgin Run) provided randy Germans with a way to work through the anxiety of the 'snow-eating' wind that super heats the atmosphere and raise temperatures with disturbing rapidity. As for the story itself, it revolves around one of the few bachelors in town, a blonde, blue-eyed hunk who's still waiting for the right woman to come along. Will this year's foehn usher in her arrival? It's pretty tame stuff, but the women are uniformly gorgeous, and it's way better than the feature it's been coupled with (2069: A Sex Odyssey) on Retro-Seduction's NTSC DVD.

I sometimes have a hard time explaining to people why I love old style "sexploitation" movies, but hate porno movies. It's really very simple though: while porno movies are wall-to-wall sex with pretty much nothing else of interest in between, "sexploitation" movies were more limited in their sexual content due to censorship and/or the audience tastes of the day and so had to come up with something else to fill in their running time--and the best of them actually took advantage of their "captive audience" of lonely men in raincoats to do things even much bigger-budgeted mainstream movies would never dare try. Of course, this movie does not compare with the best of the genre (i.e. the works Jean Rollin, Jose Larraz, and Alain Robbe-Grillet in Europe; or Joe Sarno and Russ Meyer in America), but it is solidly entertaining. This movie focuses on a small German town full of old men with young, sexy wives that seems to owe its unusually high birthrate to the "foehn", a wind that blows periodically and supposedly confers virility on the males who breathe it. But what is actually responsible for the fertility phenomenon is the studly young blacksmith who takes advantage of the fact that the town men are all out taking their constitutional in the "foehn" in order to get together with all of their luscious wives. The problem comes when a young, virginal daughter returns to the village (from school, I guess) because virgins and the "foehn" don't mix (and she by herself turns out to be more than the young blacksmith can handle). Thrown into the mix are two visiting * artist models, a childless couple hoping for some of the "foehn's" magic, and a "population" bureaucrat and his sexy micro-mini-skirted secretary. This movie isn't outrageously funny, but I found it interestingly exotic with its references to German folklore. I saw it as part of a collection of "Bavarian sex comedies" and it was really the only one of the bunch that seemed distinctly German. And the girls are all very pretty and clearly all-natural when presented in the au natural (which they frequently are). Of course, if you prefer modern-day shot-on-video porno flicks with tattooed skanks who are more silicone than woman having hardcore sex in someone's townhouse in the San Fernando Valley, you probably won't care for something like this, but I enjoyed it.

There was a large number of these sex comedies produced in the 70s, the worst of the bunch was undoubtedly the British Sex Comedies. The best was arguably the Italian ones. The German ones are in the middle of being silly, but fun. In a quaint German Village a group of Frauleins have a high fertility rate attributed to a German wind called "Faun" that sweeps through the village or could it be down to a randy blacksmith? The plot is very strange and had it not been so over the top it could easily be boring and annoying. The film is light-hearted and has some good farcical jokes like a naked man hiding in a barrel. I saw the dubbed version which has a ridiculous voiceover which adds to the fun. The film is difficult to hate and it's a fun ride, but as far as films go despite some nice countryside photography and a reasonable amount of nudity on display it's just another sex comedy. The Blu-Ray from Cinestrange Extreme has a nice print from the master, but some soft colours and archive damage. At present it is as good as it gets.

An ultra-tame West German sex comedy from 1970, RUN, VIRGIN, RUN tells the story of a remote Alpine village where a bracing wind has an amazing effect on the men, turning them into baby-making love machines. What they don't know is that, while they're out enjoying the fresh air, the village blacksmith is the man actually doing all of the hard work in servicing their wives. The film is as silly as it sounds, complemented by a dodgy English dub that thankfully is nowhere near as bad as the one on the similarly-themed BOTTOMS UP. It's business as usual in any case, a lame comedy filled with over the top acting and actresses who regularly disrobe for any old reason. RUN, VIRGIN, RUN sometimes feels like a CARRY ON flick from the same era although it's nowhere near as well made or indeed as funny as those.