A freelance journalist bumbles his way through a series of comedic misadventures on his way to penning a report on call girls in this hardcore French / German co-production from the peak of Europe’s pornographic golden age. Alternately known as Enquêtes and Call Girls De Luxe, 1981’s Paris Telefon 666 may not be the best the era has to offer, but with a great cast, slick production values, and a healthy dollop of weird at its disposal, it’s certainly no slouch. Previously available in various tape and DVD editions, Paris Telefon 666 has been granted a proper home video revival courtesy of Swiss distributor Mascotte Film AG (under their Tabu Film label), who have given the film an unexpected Blu-ray debut as part of their new Golden Classic line. I was powerless to resist.
The plot here is pretty straight forward stuff – journalist Richard (Richard Allan, Hot Action) looks to his favorite call girl Brigitte (Brigitte Lahaie, Fascination) for help when inspiration runs dry for his latest assignment, a juicy in-depth account of Brigitte’s very profession. Fortunately for him Brigitte not only runs her own call-girl service (the Paris Telefon 666 of the title) but is perfectly willing to lend Richard the details of her girls’ appointments as well! All does not go to plan, however. The young go-getter finds his efforts undermined by combination of circumstance and his own stupidity again and again (a watch dog here, a horny American tourist there, and unforeseen scooter catastrophes to boot), and the scandalous details he craves remain frustratingly elusive…
…Though not for the audience, of course. Paris Telefon 666 is more than happy to fill in the blanks in Richard’s reporting, detailing the bawdy exploits of Brigitte’s call girls with all the enthusiasm you’d expect from a porn production of its vintage. That several among said call girls rank among the more notable pornographic performers of their time certainly amps up the appeal. Desiree Cousteau (Pretty Peaches) takes Allan for an off the clock shag when he visits the call girl home office, Catherine Greiner (Les Petites Écolières) recalls a seedy dinner engagement with a fruitful conclusion (everyone loves bananas), Morgane (Les Nymphomanes) pulls a double shift with both a rich lesbian (Monique Carrère, French Finishing School) and her randy chauffeur (Piotr Stanislas, Caligula and Messalina), and Karine Gambier (Come Play With Me 2) is contracted by an aristocrat as a device of sexual tutelage for his son. The standout scene is reserved for Lahaie herself, however, who relates her unlikely relations with a dead-eyed mime / automaton (John Oury, Bizarre Marilyn) during the film’s stylish confessional climax. It’s a bizarre turn of events to say the least, and while it’s sexiness is debatable (Oury’s convincingly mechanical performance is too creepy by miles) it’s not something one is ever likely to forget.
Mascotte / Tabu have done as well as one might reasonably expect by Paris Telefon 666 for it’s Blu-ray premiere, although there are some notable limitations. First and foremost among them are the audio options – Paris Telefon 666 is limited to German only, as contractually stipulated by the film’s rights holder Alpha France. That grim tiding aside, the disc has the benefit of being all region compatible, and arrives in an artfully designed digi-pack (so what if the cover has exposed scrotum – it’s art, dammit!) along with a booklet containing stills from the film, cast and crew credits, a director filmography, and a biographical piece on Desiree Cousteau.
Compared to past editions the new blu-ray is a visual revelation. Paris Telefon 666 is presented at proper film speed in full 1080p at the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and, a few niggling complaints aside, it looks pretty fantastic. Color and contrast are both at robust levels, and finer detail can really pop when given the opportunity (cloth textures, exterior shots, close-ups). Grain is a constant, subtle presence, and is very well served by the feature’s hearty Mpeg-4 AVC encode (29.4 Mbps average bitrate with peaks to 40.0 Mbps) – I noticed no encoding-related defects in my viewing. If there are issues to be had with the transfer it is with the state of the elements scanned as opposed to the technical merits of the scan itself, and even here I have few complaints. The image is largely unrestored, leaving notable damage in places in the form of scratches, dirt, speckling and the like, and those sensitive to such things should take note. There is also some footage lost to splices every so often (see the center frame below), though I don’t believe this amounts to much more than a few frames here and there. In this regard it is unfortunate that a better 35mm source was not available for scanning (if one even exists at this point), but Mascotte / Tabu have done well by what they had to work with. It may be something of a ‘warts and all’ presentation, but it plays much better than that phrasing might suggest. For my money this looks very nice indeed.
The film’s German dub is presented in 2.0 monophonic LPCM (48 kHz / 16-bit), and sounds about as one would expect from a porno dub from the early 1980s. The track is quite flat overall, though I suspect this is perfectly in keeping with the original mix. The quality of the dubbing itself is quite good at least, even in the pornographic passages (how one accurately imitates the sound of a blowjob from a sound booth is a magical mystery I hope is never solved), and there’s little to complain about with its lossless presentation here. Paris Telefon 666 offers no subtitles, German or otherwise. On-disc supplemental content is limited to theatrical trailers (for Paris Telefon 666 as well as Mascotte / Tabu’s other Golden Classic titles – Die Mädchen von St. Tropez, Happening, and Internat D’Amour), but like the feature, all are presented via fresh HD scans. You don’t see porno trailers looking this good very often.
I don’t know that I’d rate Gérard Kikoïne’s Paris Telefon 666 as a Euro-sex classic or anything, but it makes for a fun, bawdy adult diversion all the same, and with some highly memorable passages besides (Oury’s mime-bot will haunt my dreams). Those with a taste for such things will find it more than palatable, I suspect – the sexy appeal of this generation of French erotica is not to be underestimated. Despite the contractually limited language options (okay, option) and occasional source issues Mascotte / Tabu’s Blu-ray is a commendable effort, and their upcoming Golden Classic titles (D’Amato’s Tarzan X!) sound all the more tempting for it. I dig it. Paris Telefon 666 is available now, through Diabolik DVD domestically and Orgazmik internationally.
