It is a performances centric movie

How sad is this?

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Fanny Hill, Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure first appeared as a book by John Cleland in 1748. For its time, the book contained some explicit, orgiastic sexual episodes. It has since become famous as the greatest work of erotic fiction ever written, heavily censored at various times in various countries, but widely read and constantly in print for over 250 years. Having read the book, I was quite interested to see what this film adaptation of it might offer. Sadly the result is a rather amateurish, tediously repetitive softcore "period porno". Few who value literature or cinema as serious artistic mediums will find a great deal to whet their appetite here.Virginal girl Fanny Hill (Lisa Raines) arrives in 18th century London friendless and virtually penniless. She is soon taken in by a seemingly kind and caring elderly lady named Mrs Brown (Paddy O'Neil), who claims to own one of the best "houses" in London. It takes a while for Fanny to realise it, but she gradually awakens to the fact that she is housed in a brothel and is being groomed to become a woman of pleasure. A handsome stranger named Charles (Jonathan York) is smitten by Fanny and arranges for her to escape from Mrs Brown's establishment. The pair soon fall in love and set up a home, but Charles's father disapproves and arranges for his son to be unwittingly shipped away to the East Indies. Alone and pregnant, Fanny tries to make the best of her lot, stumbling from one doomed love affair to the next. She eventually finds herself turning back to a life of prostitution in the slightly more dignified establishment of Mrs Cole (Shelley Winters). Here Fanny becomes the favourite "woman of pleasure" of a rich old man called Mr Barville (Wilfrid Hyde-White). When Barville dies, he leaves Fanny his entire fortune – enough money for her to live out the rest of her life in comfort. Her happiness is complete when she bumps, by chance, into her former lover Charles, returned from the East Indies and desperate to find his long-lost lover.The whole story centres on Raines as the titular character, and she is actually one of the few things about the film that works. She plays the young, desirable, virginal heroine surprisingly well and does what she can to hold the movie together. The special guest stars (Oliver Reed, Shelley Winters and Wilfrid Hyde-White) are unexpectedly the ones who DON'T do enough to justify their star billing – Reed, especially, seems to act as if he wishes he were elsewhere. The music by Paul Hoffert is distractingly irritating throughout, while many of the sets and costumes merely point up the film's relatively low budget. The narrative itself has little of the book's richness or insight. This film version moves from sex scene to sex scene, barely dwelling on anything other than the bums, tits and pubic hair. Actual character development and motivation is nowhere to be found. Worse still, more than half of the sex scenes are played for laughs, with comical facial expressions and jaunty musical scoring that immediately makes one think of those saucy British comedies of the mid-'70s. All things considered, Fanny Hill is a failed attempt to adapt a literary classic into a worthwhile film.

This version, or at least, my copy, has been censored, I am sure about it. Despite this, it contains so much nudity, especially from the very sexy Lisa Foster, that it should have come with a health warning, in a positive manner, mind you. My heart rate increased every time Lisa undresses, or suggest that she would undress.I read the book some months back in my book club, probably because of its notorious reputation, but mainly because we needed controversial material for discussion. I enjoyed it immensely, both from the literature perspective and an erotic perspective. And then I watched the movie, again with my book club. My apprehension that movies generally don't live up to books (apart from Lord of the Rings), especially an adaptation of an erotic novel, soon evaporated. OK, much 'entertainement license' was taken when making the movie. OK, some of the acting, especially from the established stars were much exaggerated for their characters. See beyond these, and you will see a rather good movie, with a nice story line, sets, scenery, plots and some excellent acting from Lisa Foster, the lead and real star.There are a few things that needs to be said about Lisa Forster, and this are not what I feel, but what my club member also thought and agreed. First, she is a very good actress. She is not just about taking her clothes off, which she does very often. This girl can act, emotion, laughter, naughtiness, deviousness. I think those of her fans are surprised that she did not go on to do more, a little stereotyping going on perhaps? Second, she is extremely beautiful, very pretty face, very sexy body that has nothing out of place, and everything in great proportion. She does does show off her body, completely nude or just topless, a lot in the movie, but never out of context. The nudity, and not just from Lisa, are all necessary and tasteful, nothing pornographic, and the amount is not overwhelming.For all of my fellow members, the movie made the book so much more interesting and, put things into perspective, or bring a book to life. Wonderful stuff!

I for one, had a great time with this raunchy film, ever since i first saw it on video back in 1989 (and uncut, to boot!). It was among the first adult films i saw, and even though i've seen many more since, it remains a favorite. Even though it hardly retains any shock value today, it still rises above many so-called erotic thrillers from Hollywood. Lisa Foster is absolutely gorgeous, and there are many scenes with sex and nudity to please all but the most hardened viewer. Plus, it's all done with humor and tongue firmly in cheek (among other places).Of course, it isn't a perfect film. Some of the comedy seems a bit forced, and there are a few scenes where the direction seems to be too chaste rather than risqué, which is odd for this kind of film (as in Fanny's initial couplings with her prince charming). But the film makes up for it in other scenes.I don't know about the rest of the world, but this was hugely popular over here in the days of VHS. I have been waiting for a DVD release, and finally i see a DVD on Netflix. but since i don't have access to Netflix, i don't know if this is the full uncut version, or if it is pan-and-scan, etc. if someone can tell me for sure, i'd be really grateful.

I can't remember seeing the entire film, or the reason for the rather amusing sexual sounding title, but I do remember that there were a couple of good moments of female nudity and sex. Oliver Reed starred in it somewhere, but he obviously wasn't my concern when I saw it. I only cared about it because of the amusing named title, and the mention of quite a few sexual references. There are no scenes I can really remember that well, but I think there was one where two girls are seeing many people have sex through their above windows. I did not see any of Oliver Reed as far as can remember, but I don't think this is his type of film anyway. Okay!