Review for Confessions of a Sex Maniac & Love Variations

This double-bill package comprises 153 minutes of the least sexy movie-making ever committed to DVD. Slap and tickle, my arse! (Not literally of course…). So two films. Let's handle them one at a time. (Ooh err).

Confessions of a Sex Maniac (1974)

Movies like this are grimly fascinating as historical curios. They herald from a time when there was a complete paucity of porn (no internet for starters) and where rules , both moral and literal, governing what was and what wasn't obscenity were far tighter than they are today.

It was also a bad time for the British film industry. Although video was yet to be commercially available, recession meant there was a complete lack of investment in cinemas (popularly termed 'flea-pits' on account of their distinctly faded glory) and in British films in general. This was an age when quantity was the name of the game, and not quality. When a TV spin-off ('On the Buses') was the runaway cinema success of the year. It was also a time when big bucks were being made from little investment and where Carry On smut spilled into soft porn. And that leads me neatly into the 'Confessions' movies. 'Confessions of a Window Cleaner' and their ilk were doing good box-office. So why beat around the bush (pardon the venacular)? Why not throw away any pretense of decency and go 'all the way'?


Which leads us neatly to 'Confessions of a Sex Maniac'. Frankly, it's a godawful film which perfectly captures the slightly desperate sleaze of the moment and which has absolutely no redeemable features whatsoever. In fact, it's only really notable accomplishment is that it manages to make a film full of 'birds' taking their tops off as sexy as Arthur Negus on the 'Antiques Roadshow'.


So …I suppose we ought to go through the dance of explaining the plot.

There's a young man (Roger Lloyd. 'Trigger' off 'Only Fools and Horses'. Yes. I know) who seems to be able to have it away with an endless stream of birds. But as an architect, he needs inspiration on how best to shape a new building he is designing. Then it hits him. How about something designed around the shape of a female breast? But it must be the finest example of course. Which means doing quite a bit of research. And that's it really.


The film features former Page 3 model Vicki Hodge who, it turns out (in real life) is the daughter of Sir John Rowland Hodge, the 2nd Baronet of Chipstead. She attended a school of modelling with Joanna Lumley, and was snapped by many famous swingin' sixties photographers including David Bailey, as well as dating Elliot Gould and Ringo Starr. She's also Jodie Kidd's Aunty. I feel sure that this film won't be considered as her finest hour. According to the leaflet contained in the DVD case, she never even saw the finished result. Sadly, I can no longer make the same claim.

The film was Directed by Alan Birkinshaw, author Fay Weldon's brother

Picture quality varies from 'not bad' to acceptable' but this is not particularly well considered cinematography.

Love Variations (1969)


Made five years earlier than 'Confessions', 'LV' is one of those many films (like the more recent 'The Lovers Guide' series) which gets past stringent obscenity regulation by pretending to be educational. In this case it's all terribly literal.


It's also one of the cheapest films I have ever seen. Clearly shot on 16mm and bumped up to 35mm for flea-pit viewing, it features virtually two shots. One of a 'doctor' sitting at his desk, and another of a wide studio shot showing a couple in a variety of sexual positions, going through the motions in studied and clinical silence. Nice.


The only 'relief' to the endless run of these two shots is some vox-pops in a Wardour Street viewing theatre where they are asked what they thought of the film. The answers are hilariously po-faced.

There was even a sequel, 'Love and Marriage' in 1970. I'll watch out for that …so I can avoid it.


It's either a really bad print, or started off that way, and, once you've finished laughing I defy you to leave the fast-forward or even the stop button of your remote control until the bitter end.

A quirky period curio at best.