Poor Cecily (1974)

You won't be disappointed!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Slightly reminiscent of (a much tamer) Marquis de Sade's Justine or Anne Rice's the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, this soft-core film from the 70's features a virgin's journey through sexual discovery via her perverse masters after the death of her uncle. The acting leaves much to be desired and we're never shown anything too hard core, though nudity and lesbian scenes are sprinkled all throughout. The story is interesting in theory and the dungeon scenes alone make this hard to find film worth at least one viewing. I would have preferred to read an erotica like this, though. Maybe the version I have was faulty, but the ending was oddly clipped together and rushed and the audio was off. More detail into the orgies could have improved the rushed telling of Cecily's six months of sexual servitude. I'm left wondering if there are other copies of this film that feel less incomplete. For all its faults with acting and pacing, I'm still glad to have seen this and would recommend this to any fan of erotic 70's cinema.

Directed by the legendary exploitation supreme, Lee Frost, this is much better than some have suggested. On the face of it, a rather slow soft core with a violent dungeon scene in the middle, this is so much more. Not only do we have a fabulous collection of over-sized wigs, some really fruity, posh English voices, plus a varied musical score that even includes Mozart and what sounded like Scarlatti, but we have almost constant nudity, a storyline and that dungeon scene. The movie is well paced, though may seem slow for those with one hand on the remote, and has some marvellous scenes. Ladies full length for '69' seems Frost's favourite here, but there is a great bath scene early on and some very impressive orgy scenes. Even apart form the aforementioned dungeon scene, there are plenty of Sadean references and indeed the young heroine could well have wandered into this from 'Justine'. The young innocent is taught the ways of love and then gradually introduced into more extreme variations culminating in the humiliation of performing for others, which, of course, she comes to enjoy. But before this and well before the 'into the sunset' happy ending there is that dungeon scene. However hyped, it is still impressive and at over 20 minutes no brief glimpse of sex and violence. Naked ladies all over the place, in cages, on racks and there is even an 'Iron Maiden'. For those who like to know, the lovely busty blonde whipped senseless by the crazy guy with an eye patch, is none other than the delectable, Uschi Digard. Well worth a watch, but be warned the torture scenes are pretty strong, if sexy at the same time!

This is an outstanding story to say the least. As a virgin, poor Cecily is seduced by the mistress of the house she works in. Exposed to nightly orgies, her narration of the circumstances sounds so innocent and sweet. Even in the dungeon scene her innocence is portrayed so well even up to her rape by 2 of the dungeon keepers. There is a test pattern taking place on my version of the film on VHS, I don't know if this was an attempt at censorship, or a recording glitch, it would be interesting to know if there is a directors cut out there, because it would be interesting to see, if the test pattern actually omitted real footage.....

The torture room scene in this movie is pretty amazing. A number of very beautiful women are put on the rack. Unfortunately, the VHS version available through Amazon UK seems to edit out the whole scene. There has to be the 'directors cut' out there.