When I was in college in the late '60s, Victorian porn novels were all the rage, with "The Pearl", "My Secret Life", and Frank Harris' "My Life and Loves" among the more popular titles. FLOSSIE is one of the best films to capture on screen the mood and tone of these obscene works.
Other much more expensive porn films were made in this genre in the '70s, notably THE NAUGHTY VICTORIANS and THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FLEA. But FLOSSIE is my favorite.
The reason it works is the casting of the scrumptious Mindy Wilson in the title role. She's an actress who deserved stardom rather than her very brief XXX career, and here she is showcased at her finest.
With a terrifically winning smile, a perfect figure and attractive breasts with stubby nipples, Wilson is the total package. She's obviously older than 15 (certainly legal), but projects a freshness nearly unparalleled in porn -one wonders how such a perfect girl ended up doing XXX.
Anonymous filmmaker "Roman Provonovit" chose to showcase her in anachronistic short-short miniskirts, but otherwise the cast is convincingly styled in turn of the century (19th giving way to 20th) garb and appearance.
Particularly successful is the suspense generated by 15-year-old Flossie wanting to lose her virginity, but the act saved painstakingly for the final reel climax of the hour-long opus. She and her 27-year-old companion Eva Wedgeworth meet mustachioed Capt. Jack Archer while walking through the park, and the tattooed captain is immediately smitten with Flossie.
With tons of narration by Archer, and letters exchanged among the three of them, the movie works because it carefully retains the purple prose of Victorian pornographic literature. After being seduced by the good captain (cunnilingus and fellatio are performed but no intercourse), Flossie requests that he "gamahouche" her friend Eva. I had not heard that word ever spoken until watching the film -it being the constantly used term for oral intercourse in all Victorial novels (second most common word probably being "birching" for the British form of s&m). And I don't recall hearing it spoken out loud ever again!
Key flashbacks depict Flossie's schooling in France, where she's introduced to lesbian love by an unattractive but ultra-busty schoolmate Ylette. This one-shot actress (credited as "Celia Roberts") briefly steals the show, and pops up again effectively in another flashback where she, Flossie and two other girls play a sexual version of Blind man's buff with young Philippe, resulting in group sex, but Flossie remaining intact. This scene is simultaneously stimulating and also the low point of the movie, as the unwise decision was made to tinker with the action and dub in Mickey-Mousing current (1970s) vulgarity for Philippe who does not speak in Victorian language at all.
Also detracting quite a bit from the film's carefully built up erotic and romantic content is the repeated trendy use of gynecological tight closeups during all the cunnilingus scenes. I suppose this was considered mandatory in the early years of porn features, but FLOSSIE (and its divine leading actress) would have been much better served without these garish images.
On a higher plane, the classical guitar score supports the mood nicely, even including Narciso Yepes' wonderful theme from the classic René Clément film FORBIDDEN GAMES. Photography, apart from closeups, is well done, but the surviving print used by Alpha Blue Archives for the DVD release has deteriorated, especially noticeable in an unfortunate white-out effect during the French flashbacks.
Endlessly smiling, hopping around and dancing like a little girl, Mindy is one for the ages here. She made another rousing, but more conventional, film OH FANNY!, starring as Fanny Hill, which was evidently from the same team as FLOSSIE, with "Art Funn" responsible for cheap & vulgar animated credit sequences for both movies. For my money, she was the perfect Flossie, even better than well-cast fan favorite Marie Forsa, who starred in a Swedish softcore production by Mac Ahlberg which is also worth seeing (revived by Klubb Super 8 Video).
Other much more expensive porn films were made in this genre in the '70s, notably THE NAUGHTY VICTORIANS and THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FLEA. But FLOSSIE is my favorite.
The reason it works is the casting of the scrumptious Mindy Wilson in the title role. She's an actress who deserved stardom rather than her very brief XXX career, and here she is showcased at her finest.
With a terrifically winning smile, a perfect figure and attractive breasts with stubby nipples, Wilson is the total package. She's obviously older than 15 (certainly legal), but projects a freshness nearly unparalleled in porn -one wonders how such a perfect girl ended up doing XXX.
Anonymous filmmaker "Roman Provonovit" chose to showcase her in anachronistic short-short miniskirts, but otherwise the cast is convincingly styled in turn of the century (19th giving way to 20th) garb and appearance.
Particularly successful is the suspense generated by 15-year-old Flossie wanting to lose her virginity, but the act saved painstakingly for the final reel climax of the hour-long opus. She and her 27-year-old companion Eva Wedgeworth meet mustachioed Capt. Jack Archer while walking through the park, and the tattooed captain is immediately smitten with Flossie.
With tons of narration by Archer, and letters exchanged among the three of them, the movie works because it carefully retains the purple prose of Victorian pornographic literature. After being seduced by the good captain (cunnilingus and fellatio are performed but no intercourse), Flossie requests that he "gamahouche" her friend Eva. I had not heard that word ever spoken until watching the film -it being the constantly used term for oral intercourse in all Victorial novels (second most common word probably being "birching" for the British form of s&m). And I don't recall hearing it spoken out loud ever again!
Key flashbacks depict Flossie's schooling in France, where she's introduced to lesbian love by an unattractive but ultra-busty schoolmate Ylette. This one-shot actress (credited as "Celia Roberts") briefly steals the show, and pops up again effectively in another flashback where she, Flossie and two other girls play a sexual version of Blind man's buff with young Philippe, resulting in group sex, but Flossie remaining intact. This scene is simultaneously stimulating and also the low point of the movie, as the unwise decision was made to tinker with the action and dub in Mickey-Mousing current (1970s) vulgarity for Philippe who does not speak in Victorian language at all.
Also detracting quite a bit from the film's carefully built up erotic and romantic content is the repeated trendy use of gynecological tight closeups during all the cunnilingus scenes. I suppose this was considered mandatory in the early years of porn features, but FLOSSIE (and its divine leading actress) would have been much better served without these garish images.
On a higher plane, the classical guitar score supports the mood nicely, even including Narciso Yepes' wonderful theme from the classic René Clément film FORBIDDEN GAMES. Photography, apart from closeups, is well done, but the surviving print used by Alpha Blue Archives for the DVD release has deteriorated, especially noticeable in an unfortunate white-out effect during the French flashbacks.
Endlessly smiling, hopping around and dancing like a little girl, Mindy is one for the ages here. She made another rousing, but more conventional, film OH FANNY!, starring as Fanny Hill, which was evidently from the same team as FLOSSIE, with "Art Funn" responsible for cheap & vulgar animated credit sequences for both movies. For my money, she was the perfect Flossie, even better than well-cast fan favorite Marie Forsa, who starred in a Swedish softcore production by Mac Ahlberg which is also worth seeing (revived by Klubb Super 8 Video).