Not even bad in a good way

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Die liebestollen Apothekerstöchter" or "Naughty Nymphs" and there are actually more than just a few other German and English-language title for this 80-minute movie from 1972. This one has its 45th anniversary this year already and it's pretty old really. The name Antel, the name Billian, the title and the year with Switzerland/West Germany being the countries of origin should really make obvious to everybody what to expect here. This is another one of these uncountable German sex comedies from the 1970s, even if this one is really more comedy and less sex. Having seen some of these, I would say that this one here is probably among the better ones, but by general standards this is still a bad movie, just not as bad as some others from the same time and genre. Good news is that no matter what your taste in women, there is one for everybody in here I guess, at least one. My personal favorite was the tragically early deceased Eva Garden. The most known cast member (maybe the only known today) is actor Sascha Hehn, who was really young when this was made, but still really experienced already. The story is pretty weak though. Bot not disastrous. it is about the chaos and hilarity (and erections) that happened when a busty blonde returns home to her family, including her stunning sisters. The rest of the film is about virginity, cheating, erection pills and everything else you can think of in the same tone. Not a good film. Watch something else instead.

Alluring, but chaste nurse Elizabeth (a charming performance by ravishing cult trash movie goddess Sybil Danning in an early lead role) tenaciously clings to her virginity. She gets fired from her job at a hospital and returns home to her uptight puritan father Willibald (amusingly played with broad gusto by Paul Lowinger) and sex-crazed sisters Maria (yummy brunette minx Eva Garden) and Christel (tasty blonde dish Alena Penz). Maria and Christel conspire to get Elizabeth deflowered by creating a Viagra-type erection-enhancing pill which turns men into raving and insatiable sexual animals. Directors Franz Antel and Michel Caputo, working from a blithely lowbrow script by Hans Billian and Gretl Lowinger, deliver a funny and fast-paced affair that benefits from a cheerfully bawdy and silly tone which ensures that the whole wacky shebang never degenerates into outright leering sleaze. Sure, there's the expected plentiful delectable distaff nudity, several sizzling soft-core sex scenes, and loads of hysterically crude, yet inoffensive jokes, but somehow this movie manages to be both utterly harmless and strangely innocent throughout. Danning looks amazingly cute and cuddly as Elizabeth: With her youthful vigor, willowy build, and fresh-faced prettiness, Sybil could easily pass for Paris Hilton's distant hottie Teutonic aunt. Buxom blonde knockout Christiane Maybach nearly steals the entire film with her delightfully lively and randy turn as the jolly and libidinous Aunt Tante Lilofee. Ralf Novy's bubbly'n'bouncy score further enhances the infectiously inane merriment. Amiable fluff.

This might be the quintessential German soft porn comedy of the early '70s, an era of innocence now lost to us forever. Helmed by one of the great workhorses of the period (Franz Antel who made most of the FRAU WIRTIN/SEXY SUSAN movies) and cast with many familiar faces and bodies, it's the perfect test case flick to determine whether this particular brand of fun 'n' fluff is for you. Smalltown pharmacist Willibald (popular folksy comedian Paul Löwinger in a typically broad performance) is upset when his eldest daughter Elisabeth (soon to become US B movie staple Sybill Danning)has lost yet another job due to assumed indecent behavior. Especially since his other two daughters, blonde Christel (Prague-born Alena Penz) and brunette Maria (Eva Garden), are such shining examples of virtue. Unbeknownst to daddy, both girls actually have lovers that come to spend the night with them, while Elisabeth on the other hand has been falsely accused time and again and turns out to be...a virgin ! Afraid that she'll tell on them, Christel and Maria conspire to put a man into their sister's bed to solve this prickly problem and lure her over to their side. To this effect, they prepare an industrial strength aphrodisiac from a centuries old tome in their father's medical library. Of course, things don't turn out as planned, not even when Elisabeth (forcefully accompanied by Maria) accompanies her employer, handsome Doctor Marcus Koerner (Claus Tinney), to a congress in wicked old Munich. Will Elisabeth succumb to the charms of this or, indeed, any man ? Will her sisters be free to live and love whoever they choose or will they shrivel in enforced chastity ? See and find out. Though the fever pitch acting style of the older generation and the comedy of mistaken identities that takes up the latter part of the movie may wear some viewers down, these are exactly the ingredients that endear the genre to its true fans. Having seen the film again for the first time in over two decades (I caught it as a lad of 16 at the local flea pit, now sadly long gone), I was surprised to see just how well it holds up. Much of the film's funny bits (even the crude - yet good-natured - gay caricatures that pop up from time to time) still made me laugh out loud and the skin quotient remains reassuringly high. Danning, Garden and Penz are three of the most stunning creatures ever to disrobe within a single movie. Blonde beauty Britt Corvin (as Willibald's new maid Mirli) beefs up the cheesecake quota even more. Those interested should check her out further in Joe Sarno's superb BABY LOVE. And then there's the only recently deceased Christiane Maybach as loose aunt Lilofee, an actress who went from Marilyn Monroe lookalike in the early '60s via skin flicks such as this (where she supplied the nudity along with girls many years her junior) to dark R.W. Fassbinder art-house dramas (FAUSTRECHT DER FREIHEIT, SATANSBRATEN) to daytime TV drama at millennium's end ! Speaking of which, keep your eyes peeled for a very youthful Sascha Hehn as Peter, Christel's boyfriend, who would go on to hausfrau super stardom as one of the leads on insanely popular soap DER SCHWARZWALDKLINIK. I wonder how many of those bored (desperate ?) homemakers realized that their latest heart throb had toiled in the seamier side of film-making for many years, with Hubert Frank's MELODY IN LOVE and PATRICIA being the undisputed highlights from this stage of his career. Colorfully photographed and blessed with a jaunty soundtrack that immediately screams German sexploitation, BLUTJUNG UND LIEBESHUNGRIG stands proud as one of the finest examples of its kind, a mix of laughs and leers that will delight the fans who should treasure this little gem for as long as they have the ability to draw breath.

Maybe 1972 is a bit early, but fans of the 70s-era European softcore stuff will be disappointed by this film. Typically, almost wall-to-wall nudity characterizes these films, and "Naughty Nymphs" comes up short. It's always a treat to see Sybil Danning in the Buff, but her scenes are brief and few. I suppose in its native German this film might be funny in context, but in dubbed English it's just plain silly and leaves us waiting for skin scenes that are much too short. Erwin Dietrich, save us!