When you think of the Victorian Era, you likely think of prim and proper manners, chivalry, honor, and virtuousness. Things that most of us today find a bit stodgy. Well, you won't find any of that in "The Notorious Daughter Of Fanny Hill," but that still doesn't stop it from being a colossal bore!
Sexy Stacey Walker plays the title role of Kissy Hill, the daughter of a notorious madam in 19th Century London, as she carries on her mother's trade with the upper class gentlemen of her day. But all isn't fun and games, in the end.
To call the plot "tissue-thin" would be an understatement. Everything done in the story is simply to service whatever sexual predilection they want to spotlight next. And they do showcase several, such as Sitophilia, Sadomasochism, Voyeurism, and Lesbianism, just to name a few. Stacey Walker might never be known for being a great actress, but the script here really gives her nothing to work with. Her performance in the vastly superior "A Smell Of Honey, A Swallow Of Brine" looks like Shakespeare compared to what she gives here (especially ironic, given the setting of this film, too). All the women found here are more than willing to peel for the camera, so flesh fiends will likely get what they want. And while Stacey Walker is easily the most attractive of the bunch here, none of the women here are hard on the eyes. So, the film has that much going for it.
The worst thing about it is just how slow and boring things become. With a run time of only 72 minutes, you'd think there wouldn't be time to stretch things out, but you would be wrong. Some of the scenes just feel they go on interminably. Director Peter Perry Jr. is well known in the sexploitation genre circles, having directed more than few of them, but this one is an obvious reach. Instead of making things feel sexy, a lot of scenes just seem to linger on beyond their welcome. The one thing I will give it points for, though, is the unexpected bummer ending to what has been a fairly typical, if rather laborious, "nudie cutie" film. Of course, that requires you to sit though a lot of drawn out sexual sequences that, while passable, never really sizzle.
In the end, the film is what it is. And that is a fairly unremarkable sexploitation flick, which tends to annoy more than arouse. I'm sure that the Victorian Age was never quite like this. And, in this case, that's probably a good thing, as it would likely be a lot more stimulating than this outing was.
