Review of Love Circles

Introduction

Released as part of the Playboy Cinema Collection, `Love Circles` tracks the path of a packet of cigarettes as they travel around the world, being passed from person to person following sexual encounters.

The film begins in a Parisian nightclub where Jack, an American, meets and sleeps with Suzy and wakes up alone and penniless in a furniture store. Suzy has left him a goodbye note on a cigarette packet which Jack then passes on to his next sexual partner and the chain begins.

Video

Presented in a fullscreen frame which is more like 1.25:1 than 1.33:1 resulting in horizontal letterboxing. The transfer is pretty dire with no sign of any improvement since the 1980s: there is plenty of blurring, grain and softness on offer.

Audio

The 2.0 mono soundtrack presents the horribly dubbed dialogue well, with little hiss or drop-out of sound, but this is secondary to the dreadful dubbing. The sound was obviously added in ADR, so although I knew who was on screen, I had no idea who was providing the voices as everyone, whether they are English, French, Chinese or Italian, speaks English.

Features

Trailers for `Christina`, `Black Venus`, `Ecstasy` and `Love Circles`.

Conclusion

I`m sure this was near the height of adult entertainment in 1985 and probably took full advantage of the new and burgeoning VHS market, but more than 20 years later, with dreadful dubbing and horrible acting, `Love Circles` is not erotic or even worth watching for comedy value, although there is an attempt at humour with a `Benny Hill` type bedroom chase scene in fast-forward!

It`s some indication of the quality of the cast that, out of the ten actors, four of them only have this film in their acting resume and most of the others had small roles in other films, largely playing characters without names.

If you`re a big fan of 1980`s erotica then this is probably worth a rental but, to be honest, there are better erotic dramas on late night TV.