Out riding in the woods turn-of-the-century aristocrat Charles de Beaumont (Christopher Pearson) happens upon an oddly feminine seeming young boy named Frank (Jennifer Inch). Taking pity on the young runaway he adopts him as his ward. As time passes the two grow close though Charles is a trifle unsettled by how much he delights in Frank's company and why the boy acts so indifferently around women. When Charles chastises Frank for some bad behaviour by caning his bare bottom he finally discovers the truth: Frank is a really girl named Frances.
Which means Charles can stop feeling weird about his attraction to Frank and set about ravishing his nubile young ward, right? Well, yes and no. For although Charles admits via voice-over that the idea of “having a young female disguised as my protégè and ward became positively exciting”, he actually holds back from making any sexual advances until Francis finally reveals her true identity and confesses she has fallen in love with him. As such Lady Libertine has an underlining romantic sweetness and tenderness to its story that elevates it above other examples of kinky cross-dressing S&M themed soft-core porn. Supposedly adapted from a Victorian erotic novel penned (so the credits inform us) by an anonymous writer, this marked a seminal collaboration between three titans of trash film: Cannon Films distributors Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and infamous globe-hopping writer-producer Harry Alan Towers on a project made for the Playboy Channel. While perhaps a quintessential example of the sort of glossily earnest soft-focus soft-core silliness viewers would stumble across on late night cable television in the Eighties, the film also harks back to the erotic literary adaptations Towers bankrolled back in the Sixties, e.g. Justine (1968) or Eugenie... The Story of Her Journey into Perversion (1969).
With its period setting, elegant décor, competent acting and stylish direction by porn veteran Gerard Kikoine (whose ambition to enter the mainstream later led him to horror films like Edge of Sanity (1988), a version of the Jekyll & Hyde story with Anthony Perkins), Lady Libertine comes across a little out of step with the era in which it was made. This style of elegant decadence was soon swept away by VHS wave of crass masturbatory aids bereft of such niceties as plot, dialogue and a cast whose abilities extend beyond the mere basics of copulating on camera. By contrast Towers graces his saucy scenario with an actual story arc. Charles calls on his former mistress Maud, played by gorgeous French sex star Sophie Favier (who eclipses the unsettlingly adolescent looking Jennifer Inch as an erotic figure) to teach Francis how to be a more skillful lover. This she does but what also happens is in discovering her sexuality Frances awakens to her potential as a free spirited young woman, and the realization she wants more from Charles than to simply be his mistress.
One should not get too carried away perceiving any feminist libertarian message as the plot meanders through a morass of melodramatic flashbacks and soap opera moping while the languid soft-core sex scenes grow repetitive. While the performances are good the story goes nowhere even when things take a faintly darker turn as a visit to an upscale brothel brings an enraged Charles into contact with those responsible for Frances' initial plight. Still what the film has going for it is that it is a rare porno motivated by love rather than lust and where all the principal characters, including Favier's remarkably understanding mistress, no matter how playful their sexual interests, treat each other with kindness, tenderness and decency. And that is kind of sexy.
