This comment concerns the soft-core version of 'Die Muntere Sexspiele Der Nachtbarn' aka 'Emma's Sexshop' or even 'Scharfe Früchtchen Heisse Nachbarn'. What do you have left when you take a 1970s German adult film and cut out all the hardcore stuff? An aimless farce that's neither funny nor sexy. Adult films are not known for their coherent story lines anyway, but here all that remains is a bunch of unrelated scenes switching to and fro. From what I can deduce, most of the action resolves near or around a local drugstore run by Resi Gutschi (Margot Mahler). A loveless and lonely shop-girl who never gets any action. This is because her husband, a plumber (Claus Tinney), is busy laying pipes with every other woman in town (he only accepts 'payments in pink'). Although Resi has a suitor by the name of Rolfie (Michel Jacot), she insists on staying faithful to her husband Heiner, and, amazingly enough, manages to keep this promise for the entire flick.
In the street adjoining the drugstore are four more houses. One is occupied by a gay artist called 'Salvador Dilla' (Werner Röglin) who hires three girls to pose for him in the nude in various silly settings of his device. There's also an Italian, Franco Fozzato (Vittorio Casagrande), who helps couples and singles with erotic wish-fulfillment. First he has three women over for drinks, only to dress them up and pimps them out to three men. Later on a female customer (Anita Andic) takes her pick from the same three men for 500 mark. Meanwhile, Mrs Fozzato (Karin Lorson) has had enough of her husband being surrounded by willing women and decides to blackmail Rolfie into servicing her needs. Her neighbor Frieda Kunz (Angelika Reschner) becomes a willing accomplice.
Frieda and her own husband Wolfgang (the legendary Sepp Gneissl in an undemanding part) are trying to make sure their daughter Karin (Anne Magle) remains a 'Jungfrau', but Karin simply has her boyfriend dress up as a nurse so he can come over to examine her thoroughly. Later on, Frieda in turn decides to give the boy a physical. Finally there is the Huber family. While father Leopold (Paul Glawion) is selling king-sized beds, his young wife Alice (Karin Hofmann) and daughter from his first marriage Babsi (Barbara Moose) watch each other's backs as they entertain their respective boyfriends in the master bedroom.
All these elements might have made an interesting romp in the vein of the Schulmädchen-Report series, but unfortunately there is a distinct lack of focus: characters appear and disappear from scene to scene with no rhyme or reason (though the fey painter does speak in rhyme all the time). The fact that all this is accompanied by a rather annoying theme tune 'Sexspiele, Sexspiele' doesn't help either. Some of the subplots are stretched out over the entire length of the picture, while others are played out in their own little segments. Several seem to be over before they get a chance to get going, but I suspect that might have to do with the fact that there's that elusive hard-core version still out there somewhere.
5 out of 10
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