The Dirty Girls Movie Review

Radley Metzger's second feature is a real oddity, as we follow the lives of two prostitutes in various cities in Europe. Garance (the lovely Denyse Roland) plies Paris. Monique (Reine Rohan) works in Berlin.

In the first vignette, Garance hops through about three guys in one night. One's shy. One tries to beat her with his belt (before neighbors burst in and turn the tables). A third likes costumes. Garance lives to screw another day.

Next we move to Germany, where our traveling guy visits a woman he believes to be the prostitute he's come all this way to see, only to find out she's moved -- after she's got her shirt off! When he finds the real Monique she puts on a dance for him.

These stories are small and simplistic, but strangely, they're easy to watch. Metzger isn't saying much: For Garance, life is tough (yet she's got a smashing complexion), and for Monique everything's looking pretty rosy. What's the point? Well, Metzger was just dipping his toe into skin flicks. This early work seems to indicate that he wasn't sure how far he could go.

As a side note, the real oddity here is the voice-over narration, which has Peter Fernandez (who wrote the script) talking to us and to the heroines directly -- discussing their emotions and actions and ensuring us that danger lurks just around the corner, but my, aren't these lovely girls? The guy never shuts up.

Finally, the film's DVD transfer is fair, but the sound quality is terrible. There's so much static it sounds like ocean waves crashing against the shore.

The film is now available as part of The Radley Metzger Collection Volume 2, with Little Mother and Score. Extras include alternate nude scenes, original trailer, and more.