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Private Club
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (22nd April 2025). |
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The Film
 Marcel (Requiem for a Vampire's Philippe Gasté) is a Paris cab driver who, along with his horn dog colleague Charlie (I am a Nymphomaniac's Michel Vocoret), favors shapely female clientele and the seem to favor him as well. One day his fare Corrine (The Dogs' Denyse Roland) changes in the back of his cab into sexy lingerie on the way to meet her lover. She flirts with Marcel and invites him up to a rooftop pied-à-terre which she reveals is rendezvous point run by Madame Jacqueline (I Am Frigid... Why?'s Anne Kerylen) where some of the more sexually-adventurous members of high society can live out their fantasies. Corinne leaves Marcel in the company of Silvie (Sins of the Flesh's Anne Libert) and Kadie (The Couples of Boulogne's Julia Tomas) where he can observe over closed circuit television her fantasy of being molested by her lover (Jules et Jim's Henri Serre) playing a psychoanalyst. Marcel learns from Cathy that Jacqueline's business is kept afloat by a man known only as "The Sultan" who is in hiding in Jacqueline's residence and paying for constant amusement. Marcel is intrigued and aroused at first until he discovers that The Sultan's favorite partner Catherine is actually his fiancée Lise (Erotic Diary of a Lumberjack's Chantal Arondel) who had to seek out other work in between her modeling and commercial assignments. Marcel angrily confronts Lise and forces himself on her who shocks him by being disgusted by him and refuses to offer a justification what she is doing. Upon finding out that Corinne's lover is actually her husband Patrick, and that they targeted Marcel without Lise's knowledge after learning about him, he is at first disgusted but cannot resist accompanying them as they pursue more unsuspecting partners including Charlie and a pair of nubile foreign tourists (Zombie Lake's Gilda Arancio and Liliane Ponzio) and their plans to initiate all of them into the decadent secret society "Club privé" in a dungeon of sex slaves and Templar Knights. Max Pécas' follow-up to Her and She and Him, I am a Nymphomamiac and I Am Frigid... Why?, Private Club also denotes a shift in his erotic work away from female protagonists to a male one. With that shift comes a more pointed criticism of gender double standards which was just implied in the former films in which female sexuality was subjected to diagnosis and interpretation by authoritarian figures. The film opens with what seems like something between a light flirtation and love at first sight between Marcel and Lise and then it seems like she is forgotten as a dalliance as Marcel openly flirts and has sex with other women. It is only when Marcel discovers Lise's identity that it is revealed that they are engaged, whereupon it also become obvious that what's good for the goose is not good for the gander according to Marcel. Although the viewer senses that Lise may have noble reasons for betraying Marcel like this rather than just enjoying herself in like fashion, the viewer cannot help but agree that Marcel does not deserve an explanation in light of his actions. Roland's Corinne is a far more intriguing figure than her husband, Marcel, Lise, or other similar manipulative female figures in the earlier Pécas films, dangling her knowledge of Lise over Marcel's head and her character arc could be interpreted as a conservative turn or a desire for equal footing in her relationship with her husband as she bristles when he offers to lend her one of his lovers telling him, "I don't like being lent things. I'll do the taking." The happy ending for Marcel and Lise feels a bit unearned; however, the fault of that is as much relegating much of their developing relationship to his sentimental flashbacks and including some bits intercut during the his climactic race to find her that were presumably deleted from the final cut as they lack the resonance of the repeated bits when it comes to meaningful lines. The resolution really is no more pat than those of his earlier films, it just seems more of waste in a film in which it seems like Pécas and cinematographer Robert Lefebvre (Casque d'Or) are stepping things up visually, contrasting bright, sunny touristy views of the Eiffel Tower and Parisian street cafes and streets with the shady cruising ground of the Bois de Boulogne and the shadows and florid colors of Jacqueline's apartment and the dungeon club as psychological spaces. Corinne and Patrick seem like characters worthy of a Radley Metzger piece of arthouse erotica but Pécas and regular actor/co-writer Vocoret are not really interested in "probing" deeper beyond the perils of unbridled sexuality and temptation. Pécas himself cameos as a director of a television commercial Lise is starring in and Jean Rollin-regular Paul Bisciglia (Lips of Blood) has a very revealing uncredited appearance as a delivery man. 
Video
Released in the U.K. by Brent Walker in 1974 in a dubbed version under its French title and in 1975 in the United States by Group 1 as "House of a 1000 Pleasures" – not to be confused with Antonio Margheriti's 1001 Erotic Nights which has been misidentified as the Group 1 release under that title or Michel Lemoine's hardcore The House of 1001 Pleasures – the English dub turned up on television but did not make its way to home video. The film first appeared on DVD in Spain followed by a more recent French Blu-ray from rights owner L.C.J. which is presumably the same master used for the bonus disc in Mondo Macabro's limited edition Blu-ray of "The Max Pécas Collection" (the standard edition of which only includes the single-disc double feature of I am a Nymphomaniac/I Am Frigid... Why?) and 88 Flims' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray (not 1.85:1 as noted on the French cover). Compared to Blu-rays of the earlier Pecas tilms, this is one of the better-looking transfers even if some shadows are a bit lighter than they probably should be and some flaring of light sources during moments of mobile camerawork seems unintentional rather than stylistic. Red are particularly striking in the shirt work by Marcel and the dress worn by Corinne as they walk down the Paris street with her husband. The night-for-night Eiffel Tower shots and some daytime shots with bright background and foreground shadows look a bit murky but these faults lie with the photography of these location scenes. 
Audio
The English dub is not included here but the French LPCM 2.0 mono track is relatively clean. The dialogue is post-dubbed anyway and is the dominant element on the track for most part. Sound design is rather sparse while the score of Derry Hall is rather understated for the most part that it does not become obvious until the climax that some or all of the cues are recycled from his earlier scores for Pécas. 
Extras
The only extra is a stills gallery (2:03). 
Packaging
The disc is packaged in a standard keep case with original and newly commissioned artwork by Justin Coffee.
Overall
Private Club is a step up artistically from director Max Pécas but it may not be "probing" enough for French erotica fans.
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