Autobiography of a Flea

Adapted from the anonymous 19th century pornographic story of the same name, The Autobiography of a Flea is a classic example of a 1970s porn film with aspirations to mainstream legitimacy.

Directed by one of the few female porn directors, Sharon McKnight, it's a period piece with relatively high production values – though we're still clearly talking low budget, this Mitchell Brothers extravaganza was shot on 35mm – a semblance of a plot and a cast who spent about as much time striving – both successfully and unsuccessfully – to act and deliver dialogue as they do engaged in sex of various descriptions.

Set in what appears to be ancien regime, pre-revolutionary France, the film begins by introducing us to our omniscient narrator, an intelligent talking flea.

His – the voice and perspective given is strictly male and heterosexual – present place of residence is the body of a 14-year-old, Belle.

She is played by Jean Jennings, older than 14 – else we'd be in Tracy Lords territory and the film wouldn't be available today – but not by much as she would only have been 18 or 19 when the film was made.

Thanks to her small, non-silicone enhanced breasts, some judicious pubic trimming and a surprisingly decent faux-naive performance, she's more convincing than could easily have been the case.

Anyway, Belle's becoming a young woman has not gone unnoticed by the male population of this rural community, particularly by the lascivious and cunning Father Ambrose.

The priest gets one of the village youths to pass Belle a missive in church, requesting a secret rendezvous. This leads to a fumbling encounter and the chance for Ambrose to catch the two young lovers in flagrante delicto.

Ambrose instructs Belle to visit him and blackmails her into sex with him, lest he tell her guardian what she was up to. Then – Belle's surprise not mirrored by the spectator – Ambrose's colleagues in turn catch them in the act, leading to yet more sex. (Those who keep a note of such things may be interested to know that the anal sex scene here is shot differently from the vaginal and oral ones, with no "meat shots" of penetration.)

Despite his promises, Ambrose goes to see Belle's uncle, Monsieur Derboix, anyway and tells of her crimes. This leads to more punishment, as he attempts to force himself on Belle. Our narrator, taking a moralistic turn, then intervenes, biting him to put a dampener on his ardour. (And, in the process, to save the viewer from a more 'difficult' sex scene to enjoy, both for its 'involuntary' quality – though we're not talking seriously unpleasant Forced Entry style rape porn here – and the comparative physical unsavouriness of Belle's uncle relative to the porn studs – though comparatively normal by present day standards – playing Ambrose and his colleagues.)

Next, one of the other priests, Father Clement, sneaks in on the pious Madame Derboix, played by Annete Haven, who mistakes him for her husband despite his prodigious size seeing as he's played by the somewhat inimitable John Holmes, here thankfully in his pre-coke fiend, Wonderland murders and AIDS days…

Mme Derboix's husband then bursts in as his wife realises, to her horror/delight, whom she's actually been making love to, leading to some accelerated motion and the speeding up of the harpsichord-based classical soundtrack; an attempt at comedy that can be lauded as another indicator of the filmmakers' aspirations but that isn't terribly inspired or well-executed.

By now completely corrupted and happy to go along with whatever Ambrose suggests – the notion of libertinage is prominent in the dialogue, though whether the filmmakers really understood it is another matter – Belle readily agrees to the Father's next scheme: She will offer herself to Monsieur Defaunt, on condition that her face is covered. The trick is that it will not be Belle who lies there, but Defaunt's own daughter…

What we have here, then, is a classic example of the moral tale, that universal form – we could also cite, for instance, the likes of the Sex and Zen series from Hong Kong in the 1990s – which allows the reader/spectator to enjoy "virtue in principle and vice in practice" by focussing rather more on the crime than the punishment, dealt with in a perfunctory, often ironic, manner.

This helps, in turn, to give the film more interest than it might otherwise have had for a present-day audience, as does the way in which its expose of religious and bourgeois hypocrisy – presumbly the thing that lent the original a degree of weight as something beyond mere pornography, in the manner reminiscent of De Sade's pornographic-philosophical writings – still applies, in that plus ca change manner, to today's moral entrepreneurs.

In sum, a film that can be enjoyed and appreciated on levels beyond the obvious.

This DVD presents Autobiography of a Flea in a full-frame transfer – probably the OAR – which, for a mid-70s porno, looks pretty good. The image isn't the sharpest, though this could well be down to the source itself, but there isn't too much damage in evidence and the colours are vibrant and lifelike.

For extras the disc includes a trailer reel showcasing various Mitchell Brothers releases from the 70s and 80s including Behind the Green Door, The Resurrection of Eve, Inside Marilyn Chambers and The Grafenberg Spot. What's worth noting here is the way the earlier films in particular were sold, placing almost as much emphasis on story and filmic qualities as on sex.