Of the dozen or more Edwige Fenech films that have been subtitled and released in the U.S. over the last few years, '69's "The Sweet Pussycats" is, chronologically, the actress' oldest. (Oh, my...Edwige luster that I am, I find that writing a sentence containing the words "Edwige," "69" and "pussycats" has suddenly given me palpitations!) Though she is widely acknowledged as the Queen of Giallo AND the Queen of the Italian Sex Comedy, this early film of hers is a West German sex farce that just manages to please. It concerns two noblemen, an earl and a colonel, living in what appears to be 19th century France, who are in contention as to just who owns the rights to a tremendous castle. Until this court case can be tried, they simply draw a line down the center of the disputed pile and cohabitate, as Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas would later do in '89's "The War of the Roses." Each nobleman has the hots for a pair of virgin washwomen in the area, and things are made even more complicated when the colonel's fiancée, our Edwige, drops in for a visit. (Edwige wastes little time disrobing in this one, and is fully naked within two minutes of her initial appearance!) Then things get even more complex, as the virgins' aunt hatches a scheme by which the girls can marry the noblemen, and the earl's handsome nephew arrives, and a local judge and lawyer get thrown into the mix, and the local madam schemes to get her hands on the lawyer, and Edwige schemes to bed down with the nephew, and so on. The film is only occasionally funny but moves along very quickly; indeed, the (poorly translated) subtitles fly by so rapidly that you had better be an Evelyn Wood speed reader before venturing in! A bawdy film that might have almost been penned by Chaucer as one of his "Canterbury Tales," "The Sweet Pussycats"'s chief claim on our attentions today is surely Edwige Fenech, who is very lively and appealing in this early role....

Until the Sixties, explicit sexuality was forbidden in German TV. When the big revelation came in the form of the abolishment of an old law, the German Sixties saw themselves populated by an inundation of movies about seducing and seduced young girls, sexual educations movies, the series "Schulmädchenreport", "Lederhosen" movies and more. In the same Sixties, besides this genre and the other genre of cheaply made criminal stories, practically nothing had been produced that was of any value. The big authority behind the sexual movies was the still living journalist and author Oswalt Kolle (who is naughtily even mentioned in the movie for all those who are able to follow the hodgepodge of original German, dubbed German and partly Italian spoken in "Alle Kätzchen Naschen Gern" (1969)). However, the times started to change, when R.W. Fassbinder released, in the same year 1969, his first feature-long movie "Love is colder than death" for which he used elements of French New Wave.

Frankly speaking: I have no idea who came to the crazy idea to dig the Schulmädchen-, Lederhosen-, Edgar Wallace- and all the related debris from the German Sixties out again and put them on international DVDs - while at the same time substantially good movies from earlier or later times must still wait until they see the light of the world again. Well, there can be only one answer: Somebody is making money with those movies and prints them Unrestored and without any commentaries and introductions. Probably, the copyright of none of these movies has been renewed ... . Although I do not recommend this and the related movies to anyone, I have overrated it with 7 points - since for someone who lives since a long time abroad and grew up with these movies, there is the choice of Wiedersehen - especially, in the movie annotated here, with Helen Vita and Ralf Wolter with whom whole generations grew up seeing them in practically all TV productions between the 50ies and the 80ies. On top of that - I do not think that it is just to punish someone or something who or that is intellectually deficient - those persons or things are already punished by their pure existence.

A Colonel (Sieghardt Rupp) and an Earl (Ernst Stankovski) both claim ownership of the same castle. As long as the court hasn't decided which one of them is the rightful heir, they have divided the entire place up by running a red line through the middle. You know, sitcom style. Philip, their only servant, has to run to and fro trying to please both of them simultaneously.

The two men decide to bet each other who will be the first to bed their favorite local virgin maid, Brunette Monique (Barbara Capell) or blonde Babbette (Angelica Ott). The winner will get ownership of the castle. In order to attain his goal, the officer ignores his lusty fiancée Blanche (Edwige Fenech) but she soon turns her attention to the Earl's nephew, lieutenant René (Ivan Nesbitt). Eventually a whole stable of local prostitutes from 'The White Elephant' also somehow get in on the act.

This is your typical German-Italian period sex farce where people shed their period costumes in every scene. All the usual elements are here: Hoompah-Pah music, busty maidens throwing themselves at every man, bad dubbing and worse puns. Although the costumes and settings look quite authentic (when people are wearing clothes that is) the hand-held camera work in all outside scenes is bit sloppy and distracting.

Nowhere does it become actually funny, despite the actors (and the translators for the dubbed versions) doing there best. The main fault in the screenplay is that it doesn't focus on any one character for very long. At first it seems to be about the Earl and the Colonel and their competition, but there are subplots involving a judge who spends most of his time at the White Elephant, the scheming aunt of the two virgin girls, and of course the house guests Blanche and René. None of these characters are fleshed out at any point, despite the large amount of flesh shown on screen.

Monique and Babette are especially bland, making one wonder why all the men are lusting after them in the first place. Especially since one of them (the Colonel) has the alluring Edwige Fenech at his beckon call. Edwige was probably but 20 years old during the making of this picture, and although she faces a lot of competition here, the producers wisely gave her third billing (above all the other girls) and had her play an aristocrat as befitting her extraordinary beauty. But still, it's a change to see her playing the part of the 'rich bitch' while we're supposed to be rooting for the other two maidens.

The prostitutes from the White Elephant (Minoush, Lulu, Zuzu, Krikri, Froufrou & Dudu) don't really get into the act until the last twenty minutes or so, when a subplot involving the madam and the Judge's assistant threatens to take over as the main storyline. But at least the writers did remember to clear up the little matter of who rightfully owns the castle at the very end. Most of the same cast and crew also worked on "Komm, Liebe Maid Und Mache", which was released earlier the same year, making one wonder how much overlap there was between the two productions.

6 out of 10