The Max Pécas Collection Booklet by Pete Tombs (Mondo Macabro)

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Bluray Cover for I Am a Nymphomaniac

Writer/director/producer Max Edouard Louis Pécas (known professionally as Max Pécas) was born in Lyon in the south of France in 1925 and died in Paris in 2003. He entered the film business as an assistant director on films shot around Nice and Cannes in the 1950s. Moving to Paris, he made his first film as director - Vicious Circle - in 1959. A low budget, Hitchcockian thriller, the film was successful, exported to several territories, dubbed into English, German etc., and with it Pécas began the first phase of his long directorial career.

At around the same time, Pécas had befriended the legendary French producer/director José Benazeraf, later to be dubbed France's "pope of porn", due more to the intellectual content referenced in many of his films, rather than to any religious ambitions. Benazeraf, born in Morocco to a Jewish family, felt himself to be somewhat of an outsider in France. He had studied political sciences and later made money in the textile business but wanted to get involved in cinema. He produced a number of films in the late 1950s (on some of which he was uncredited co-director). But when it came to having his name credited as director on his next project L'Éternité pour nous (US title: Sin on the Beach), he needed an authorization from the French film ministry - the CNC. Pécas, with his CNC authorization card, stood in as a technical adviser on the film - although he was only nominally involved - and his connection allowed Benazeraf to sign the film as its director.

The two men were light years away from each other in their approach both to filming and to the purpose of cinema. It would be a long digression to explore this any further, but whereas Benazeraf was a kind of revolutionary—he was a member of the Communist Party for a while, although they apparently kicked him out—he wanted his films to be provocative and to "upset the French"; whereas Pécas had much more of a "don't rock the boat" kind of approach and the narratives of his films, for the most part, support and reinforce the status quo, even if the visuals sometimes seem to give a different impression.

Benazeraf was making waves with the success of Sin on the Beach, with its sexy girls in (and out) of bikinis, hints of lust and murder on the agenda, so Pécas's producers suggested that he might make a similar film, moving away from his previous two productions that had been more mainstream. The result was his fourth film Cinq filles en furie (US title: Five Wild Girls) which was shot quickly on location in the south west of France in 1963 and features, as the title promised, a strongly female cast, which included actress Denyse Roland - who ten years later would appear, pseudonymously, as "Eva Stroll" in the cast of Club Privé. The film was a big success and created a small budget, sex and violence formula that Pécas reworked many times throughout the 1960s. For some reason, in Italy the film lost one of its "wild girls" and was released as Four Wild Girls (4 belve scatenate).

One of the strengths that runs through all his films is the technical quality of his work, particularly the cinematography. American director/producer Radley Metzger, who worked closely with Pécas and was very much influenced by him on the production level, said in an interview with Richard Corliss in Film Comment, January 1973:

"Even with a small budget, Max gets a beautiful picture on the screen. Her and She and Him is exquisite - with just three or four lights. He always has a rich, rich looking picture."

A large part of the credit for this cinematic gloss must go to cinematographer Robert Le Febvre, one of France's most able and experienced lighting cameramen, whose work is evident in all three of the films in this current set. Le Febvre had been working since the silent days and had made films with some of the world's greatest directors, including Luis Buñuel and René Claire. By the 1960s, following the breakthrough of the iconoclastic nouvelle vague film makers, Le Febvre's rather painterly use of light and shade had fallen from favor. At first embarrassed to ask this great technician to work on low budget "erotic" movies, Pécas soon found that Le Febvre was happy for a chance to work on anything and the two started collaborating in 1966 on the film Espions à l'affût (Heat of Midnight). His deep focus compositions and moody lighting give films like I Am a Nymphomaniac and I Am Frigid... Why? a rich and glossy look that makes them stand out when compared to most other low budget films from the period.

Le Febvre's work is very much in evidence on the 1969 film Claude and Greta, which was something of a transitional film, as it took Pécas away from the crime films he had been making up to that point and moved his work closer to sexploitation. An article about the film in Cinemonde magazine at the time suggests that Pécas was aware of the more explicit films coming from Sweden. Not wanting to be left behind in the race, he avers that with Claude and Greta he intends to take on the Swedes "at their own game" (hence, presumably, one of the main characters being Swedish).

The film performed well at the box office and soon after its release writer/director Claude Mulot approached Pécas with a script he was trying to sell: the story of a girl who, following an accident, had found herself possessed by an uncontrollable libido. She had... shock horror! Become a nymphomaniac. By a strange coincidence, Pécas had read in the newspaper the same story that Mulot was now pitching to him. At the time he wondered why Mulot, who was just starting in his directing career, didn't want to make the film himself. He suggested, in an interview with the current writer, that Mulot was short of money at the time as he was part of the entourage of rock star Johnny Hallyday and, not being as well-heeled as the gang who surrounded the popular singer, he was in need of cash to keep up with them.

Pécas took on the young Mulot as co-writer of the film and they worked on the script together. Looking back on it now, with what we know of both men's later careers, we can see that the anti-bourgeois elements of the early part of the film—in particular Carole (Sandra Jullien)'s voice-over narrative about the dull and stultifying nature of her family life—is very much Mulot, whereas the priest character—no doubt included as a sop to the censor—is very much Pécas. However, he redeems himself in a way by casting in the role of the priest the same actor (the white-haired Yves Vincent) who played the cliched character of a predatory older gay man in Claude et Greta.

I Am a Nymphomaniac went into production at the end of November 1970 and was in theatres by August 1971. The crew included several names familiar from previous Pécas films. Production manager Paul Cayatte had first worked with Pécas in 1958 on the film Fille de feu (US title - Fire in the Flesh) as an editor, a role he had filled for another half dozen Pécas films. Cinematography was again by Robert Le Febvre and the music (which includes a number of recycled cues) was by the American Derry Hall, who contributed to many Pécas films. Michel Pécas, the director's son, was the film's editor, a role he would fill on several other Pécas productions. Yves Prigent, an associate of Pécas's first producer René Thévenet, worked as production manager on many Pécas films, while also turning his hand in the late 1970s to directing with a series of pornos and, in 1982, the low budget thriller Le Transfuge.

The cast were mostly newcomers, apart from Michel Vocoret, who had been in a number of Pécas films in the 1960s and eventually co-wrote scripts with him. Michel Lemoine and his wife Janine Reynaud had careers going back many years but had not worked with Pécas before, although Lemoine and he had doubtless made contact on the Benazeraf film Sin on the Beach, in which Lemoine was male lead. The most important new arrival was Sandra Jullien. While not a cinematic virgin (she'd had a small but memorable part in Paul Vecchiali's L'Etrangleur and a lead role in Jean Rollin's Sex and the Vampire), Nymphomaniac was her breakout film. It made her an in-demand star in Japan where she made two features for the Toei company, both directed by Norifumi Suzuki. Such was her fame in Japan that she also released the LP record Sexy Poem, an original copy of which now goes for big bucks on Discogs.

With the success of Nymphomaniac, Pécas went into production very quickly on the follow-up, also to star Sandra Jullien. Perhaps for the first time in his long career he made a mistake. Not with the film, but with the title - Je suis frigide... pourquoi? (English title: I am Frigid... Why?).

The film itself is quite a step-up from Nymphomaniac. It featured many of the same crew as the previous film, with the all-important cinematography of Robert Le Febvre, making for a slick and highly commercial piece of cinema. The story is better than Nymphomaniac, with more of the sexy action that audiences had come to expect and a great performance from Sandra Jullien as Doris, a teenage virgin who is traumatized after being raped by her two "friends", Eric Chambon and his sister. But the film turned out to be one of the biggest flops of his career and all because of the title. As Pécas himself commented many years later - "What's a nymphomaniac? A girl who screws anything that moves... Frigid - that's the opposite. Someone who doesn't do it at all. Not interesting."

When it was obvious the film was not going to perform well at the box office, Pécas decided to retitle it. He came up with "Comment le désir vient aux filles" - loosely translatable as "How Girls Get Horny", but it still failed to draw the crowds that Nymphomaniac had.

Today, comments on the film often touch on the, by contemporary standards, tasteless and even offensive handling of the sexual assault that is a key driver of the film's plot. It's been argued that the film in some way suggests Doris wanted to be raped and that the film's message is 'lie back and enjoy it'. In fact, in a key scene, when Doris confronts Eric's father, Mr. Chambon - who has hired her services as a prostitute unaware who she actually is - she demolishes his assertion that she should get over the incident.

He says: "Rape is such a big word..."

And she responds angrily: "It's a small word! But that doesn't concern you. You'll never know how it damaged me... For me there's no way back... seconds of pleasure for Eric and an endless nightmare for me."

In the US the film was released by Audubon Films, a company run by Radley Metzger who had distributed several of Pécas's previous films. He titled the film Let me Love You. Interestingly, his version, later distributed on VHS, contains some strong scenes not in the French release of the film. This added about 10 minutes of extra footage. All of this footage is included in the present Blu-ray release but unfortunately film material could only be found for two of the scenes.

It's not clear why this footage wasn't in the French release and maybe it was shot at the behest of Metzger to spice up the US print for an audience that was already asking for stronger stuff. After all, it was only a year or so away from hard core porn being legally available in some US cities. The extra footage takes the film's run-time to well over 100 minutes, far too long for such a product, which suggests that there were cuts made to the main feature to bring the extended version down to a more standard 90 minutes.

The sections that we could not find film material for are extensions of the theater scenes. They show considerably more of the onstage action, indicating that Pécas was here referring to some of the more radical theatre shows of the late 60's - such as Hair (with the audience being invited on stage to dance) and Oh! Calcutta! with its revue style of presentation and upfront sexual content. Sharp-eyed viewers may spot a very early appearance from future cult actress Joëlle Coeur in the all female call-girl sequence.

Over the next 5 years, as censorship rules and the public's tastes changed, Pécas's films would move from sexually charged melodramas such as I Am a Nymphomaniac and I Am Frigid... Why? through to hardcore porn such as Felicia (US title: Clockwork Nympho). They still retained the glossy sheen and well-rounded scenarios of his 1960s films, but things were moving in a direction that perhaps the film maker was not entirely happy with.

In an interview with Tony Crawley, Pécas voiced his concerns:

"The majority of porno films, are poor. Because the actors entering this new game aren't actors at all. The technicians aren't technicians. The directors aren't directors. And the producers - well, I don't even like to call them producers... None of them are professional. Amateurs!"

Before making his own brief detour into hard core, Pécas made a kind of valedictory address to a passing era with the 1974 film Club Privé (Private Club). It was an era that was passing even as he filmed this post-1968 world of free love, sex clubs, swingers and the infamous Bois de Boulogne, with scenes of voyeurism and "dogging" taking place in the park.

The cast included a number of faces familiar from earlier Pécas pics. Michel Vocoret plays a more important role than in Max's previous films. He also wrote the dialog and gave himself a number of supposedly "humorous" routines. His presence tends to become tiresome quite early in the picture. Another, more welcome, returnee is Anne Kerylen who, in I Am Frigid had played the bisexual madame behind the upper-class call-girl ring that Doris works for. Here she plays Jacqueline, the hard-faced owner of the film's titular "private club". Among her roster of girls we find Anne Libert (star of a number of Jess Franco pictures) and, later, Gilda Arancio (also a Franco regular). The main female star is the classy looking Denyse Roland, whose film debut had been in Pécas's Five Wild Girls. Here she adopts the pseudonym Eva Stroll.

Also pseudonymous (in fact, not credited at all) is the blonde actress known both as Gordana Nanic (apparently her real name) and Julia Tomas (a pseudonym). She plays a small but memorable part in the Private Club sequence as Kadie, the working girl alongside Anne Libert. It's not known why she was uncredited. It can't have been fear of being found out in a "dirty film" as she was certainly in several similar productions around this time. She was also the model for the film's memorable Italian poster art by Marco Ferreri.

Not pseudonymous, but probably the best known of all the cast is Henri Serre, playing the oleaginous and rather unlikable "king of the swingers", Patrick Lachaume. Serre's breakout role was as Jim in the 1961 film Jules et Jim. In Private Club he is a long way from Truffaut's bittersweet "hymn to life"; but his creepiness was probably intentional, as the polyamorous lifestyle he promotes so eagerly is contrasted in the film by the dramatic volte face experienced by Marcel, the taxi driver, who happily samples the wares on offer in the Private Club until he discovers that the love of his life is one of the working girls. Finally aware of his hypocrisy, he sets off in his cab on a desperate race to find her before it's too late.

Pécas stops just short of giving us the conventional happy ending. The two lovers meet atop the Eiffel Tower at night, but he leaves it open as to what happens next as they stand staring at each other in the semi darkness while the credits roll.

The sight of the Eiffel Tower several times in the film, the hyper-French accordion music on the soundtrack and the itinerary of well-known tourist locations make it seem that the film must have been aimed at an overseas audience. It was exported to the usual foreign markets for a Pécas film – Italy, Germany, Japan etc. In the UK it was distributed on a double bill with the film White Cargo and has perhaps the ugliest poster ever seen.

In these films, the location shooting, on the fly in the streets of Paris, gives fascinating glimpses into the daily life of the early 1970s and you can see the shock on the faces of passersby as they suddenly discover that they have become involuntary extras in someone else's scenario.

These three films show Pécas at his best as a film maker of entertaining and very well-made sexy melodramas. They all (more or less) have "happy ever after" endings and the status quo is left intact in most cases, which was probably one of the reasons Pécas was not taken seriously in France as a filmmaker. Yet all of these films give ample evidence of his qualities as a creator of moving images. Take for example the very long sequence in I Am a Nymphomaniac, beginning at around 58 minutes into the picture, where Carole's car has a flat tire. She wanders into a deserted fairground and is approached by two men working there. She sits on a fairground horse and they set the ride in motion. The dreamlike, nightmarish sequence that follows lasts about ten minutes and includes Carole's attempted suicide, ending finally with her awakening in hospital and recognizing the man from the beginning of the film who rescued her from her fall down the lift shaft. Events have come full circle and there is hope of redemption at last.

The sequence has very little dialogue and progresses to a surreal climax with the speeding-up fairground horses carrying many of the characters of the film dressed as inquisitors laughing at Carole as she loses her mind and tries to kill herself. It's a bravura sequence and a triumph of editing and mise-en-scene. Pure cinema, and the kind of thing you don't expect to find in what is generally written off as dumb sexploitation.

Mannequins, fairgrounds, mirrors, dark and lonely woods, the ever changing sea-scapes remembered from his youth, these elements are often present in his films. Pécas was a commercial filmmaker who relied on the support of a market that knew exactly what they were going to get from him and would pretty much buy the next film sight unseen, deal done with a handshake. He was a safe bet and an audience draw. But, while not wanting to present him as any kind of "auteur" - he would have laughed at the idea - it's too easy to dismiss him and his films and they still remain rich territory for reappraisal and rediscovery.

Pete Tombs, June 2024