Fanny Hill (1983)

Although considerably classier than Russ Meyer’s 1964 version and the 1968 Swedish soft-core interpretation, this is still a disappointingly bawdy dramatisation of John Cleland’s 1749 erotic classic.

Director Gerry O’Hara sets out to titillate rather than explore the sordid events behind the transformation of Fanny Hill (Lisa Raines) from a comely country girl into a practised woman of pleasure.

Orphaned in the ripeness of her adolescence, Fanny travels to London in search of work and happiness. Upon arriving, she encounters Mrs Cole (a pantomime performance from Shelley Winters), owner of a house of pleasure, who sees in Fanny’s blushing beauty a very pretty penny to be made.

In the expert hands of Mrs Cole’s girls, Fanny learns how to sow her very wild oats and is initiated into the earthly pleasures of sex.

The admirably willing Oliver Reed plays the foppish attorney whose oily manner lubricates the wheels of justice.

Raines tries hard to conjure a performance to match her physique, but her shortcomings are as apparent as her charms.

Released in some markets as Sex, Lies and Renaissance.

Fanny Hill
Lisa Raines (Foster)
Lawyer
Oliver Reed
Mr Barville
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Mrs Cole
Shelley Winters
Lecher
Alfred Marks
Charles
Barry Stokes
Mrs Brown
Paddie O’Neil
Phoebe
Maria Harper

Director
Gerry O’Hara