Assman 7

It might not make much sense, but all these indistinguishable anal efforts from Sineplex et al somehow made me yearn for veteran French porn stars joshing fraternally over an open orifice or two. Time for a trip down memory lane (or should that be up memory’s back alleys?) with Monsieur Le Castel, and to reflect how even his own movies have lost that certain character.

Crudely creative, often virtually incompetent but somehow possessed of a particular je ne sais quoi, many editions of Assman undeniably demand a good deal of tolerance for the viewer to get to the heart of the matter. Fortunately, this time around the Gallic humour is minimised (the absence of Yves Baillat from the cast may be crucial!) to focus on the kind of action that sums the series up; the key word when discussing Assman must surely be raw.

Raw in terms of the crudeness of the production, raw in terms of the close-up visuals and the sheer physicality – sometimes uncomfortably so - but also raw in a way that cuts through the bullshit to get to the good stuff that you don’t see in quite the same way, perhaps because of the way the European scene has changed since Assman 7’s original release in 1998.

For example, Le Castel’s casting in these movies is all over the place, a willingness to take it in the ass being all that connects the hardened professionals he casts to the fresh-faced rabbits in the headlights. But that does mean we see natural, almost amateur girls in the raw, from a period – excuse my cynicism - when girls didn’t have an official web site online before they had so much as dropped their knickers.

At times this makes the viewing queasy and uneasy, as the director is guilty of casual sadism such as in the scenes of Shanna struggling to take cock in the ass, needless shots of her discomfort being left in the final cut. The wide-eyed, long-haired young woman looks as bewildered as you would if you had just nipped out to the shops for some lipstick, and ended up with Jean-Pierre Armand’s cock in your mouth. This isn’t the first or last time such footage features in the series. Honest? Realistic? Perhaps. I would still question the motivation behind its inclusion.

The bungled opening scene also consists of footage that should have been left on the cutting room floor, for entirely different reasons. One new guy loiters in the background, blatantly wanking like fury in a futile bid to get wood before disappearing from proceedings entirely. Meanwhile Andrew Youngman toils to bugger the duo of the unappealing Laura Red and the enthusiastic but under-utilised Vivian to Le Castel’s demanding requirements.

Having made it through the sizeable downside, the benefits begin to make themselves known via an athletic workout for sexy blonde cover girl Jeane with the over-worked Holmes-Armand tag team. I never noticed before that the much-maligned veteran Armand is actually a bit of a gent and often makes the girls giggle with his clitoral stimulation.

Also lots of fun is a silly but very, very naughty contest to be the “queen of anal” featuring the very natural reactions, free of wailing and fake ecstatic exclamations, of two girls (curvy brunette Lers with her beautiful butt, and pale, but energetic blonde Tunde) who deeply involve themselves in unabashed and unpretentious if somewhat unhygienic smut in the company of David Perry. Le Castel jumps into the action later to participate in the double penetrations, and it all feels relatively spontaneous and brisk.

However, in my view there are two absolute highlights here: first, the astonishing turn from Jane, AKA Jini J, who with a blissful passivity takes on Holmes, Perry and J.P. She’s so lovely and natural here and yet she just lets Holmes have his wicked way with her derriere while she dreamily rests her head in Monsieur Armand’s lap. Frankly, it does not make any sense whatsoever, but it is amazing, and still demands attention to this day.

The other is with Alice, a pale redhead of modest looks but a rather tasty body, who actually turns out to be so horny and so open to really robust anal sex in her scene with J.P. and Holmes that they perhaps assume that the more fragile members of the cast will share Alice’s open attitude to sex. It’s a remarkable and surprising scene, especially as its context places Alice taking apparent pleasure in being vigorously shafted right up against a scene that appear like truly hard work for the girl involved, and all being the work of the same director and male performers.

DVD Comments
This disc is one of Anabolic’s dated double-sided numbers, which can cause some players a few problems. Picture quality, all things considered, is pretty decent but the selection of extras is sparse as this comes from the days when behind the scenes or bonus clips were considered a luxury by certain cheapskate production companies.