For sleaze fans this is a title of special interest, a hilariously overwrought Greek sexploitater from 1977 whose contents are adequately summed up by the keywords listed on the film’s imdb page: “lesbian 69 position,” “fingering vagina,” “licking vagina,” “labia,” “lesbian sex,” “unsimulated sex,” “female pubic hair” and “softcore.” To them I’d add “bloodletting,” “mass gunfire,” “panty sniffing” and “gratuitous sleaze.”
The subject: a case-full of stolen gold, in the possession of a group of criminals led by the macho sociopath Loukas. They attempt to fly off with the gold in a private plane, only to be nabbed by authorities shortly after take-off. The gold case is thrown into the ocean and the guys are jailed, but not for long. Upon being let out Loukas and his partners become determined to retrieve the case from the ocean floor.
Their plan is to rent a yacht and, posing as tourists, sail out to an island near where the gold is. Seems pretty simple, but everyone in this group, which includes several lesbians, is out to screw over everyone else. Before the yacht is even rented one guy is knifed and another blown up in a car, as the double-crossing begins in earnest.
The trip to the island goes off as planned, but once the group is settled in jealousy rears its ugly head when the unstable Katya, Loukas’s daughter, realizes her lover Kari has been canoodling with a woman named Francis. This leads to a most unpleasant showdown in a hotel room, in which Kari and Francis are smacked around and tied up by Katya—who then goes completely bonkers, compulsively slicing her skin with a straight razor which she then uses on Kari and Francis.
Around the same time a scuba diving expedition is undertaken by Martha and Loukas in the spot where the gold is supposed to be submerged—but not until after their “friend” Barbarosa has tried to sabotage the operation. It seems he’s remorseful about his part in this outrage, and wants to turn himself into the police. Martha and Loukas, of course, have other plans…
As that synopsis should make clear, this film contains no likeable, or even semi-likeable, characters. Their vileness is offset somewhat by the pretty Grecian scenery and excess of female pulchritude on display; the ladies spend a large portion of the film in various stages of undress (as do several of the guys), and look quite sharp. They’re involved in numerous sex scenes, of course, which frequently cross the line into hardcore, and go well with dialogue like “why don’t you stop playing around and just fuck me?” and “you’re here to be fucked, not fuck over the guy who’s fucking you!”
It’s just a shame the filmmakers didn’t develop their choppy and hard-to-follow narrative with a bit more finesse. Director Ilias Mylonakos seems more interested in the copious sex scenes, in between which is a lot of miscellaneous footage of people walking and getting in and out of cars, much zoom lens abuse (this film is, if nothing else, very much a product of its time) and English dubbing that’s even more ineptly done than is usual for foreign made sexploitation fare. Then we have the ending, which is agreeably violent but quite rushed, with an eventual fade-out that’s inconclusive and unsatisfying.
Vital Statistics
THE MARK (EROTIKI YPERENTASI)
Andromeda International Films/Vita Films
Director: Ilias Mylonakos
Screenplay: Ilias Mylonakos
Cinematography: Petros Karavidoglou
Editing: Pavos Filippou
Cast: Artemis Charmy, Haris Tryfonas, Carole Gire, Claudine Beccarie, Angelique Meinicke, Soula Basta, Ivan Lepen, Kurt Meinicke, Nikos Vandros