Games Girls Play (1974)

 

Jack Arnold is rightly regarded as one of the godfathers of 1950s Sci-Fi, on account of bringing us Creature from the Black Lagoon, Tarantula and The Incredible Shrinking Man...but he is also long overdue recognition for bringing us the gorgeous, melon heavy breasted Jill Damas playing ping-pong in the nude, a sight to be treasured fer'sure.

Arnold might be forever synonymous with the classic films he made in the fifties, but he remained a busy director throughout the 1970s, and judging by his filmography wasn't afraid to move with the times. In 1974 alone Arnold had taken a stab at blaxploitation with Black Eye starring Fred Williamson, and returned to that genre the same year with another Williamson vehicle politely known on UK video as 'The Black Bounty Killer'. Inbetween these blaxploitation gigs, Arnold embraced sexploitation with Games Girls Play (aka Sex Play, aka The Bunny Caper)

Filmed in Britain, but with a very American sensibility behind it. Games Girls Play does tap into the zeitgeist of mid-1970s America. There's scandal in the Whitehouse going on here, as well as the generation gap, sexual liberation, the threat of Russia and Red China, plus the growing cultural influence of Playboy magazine. The latter being in evidence here, thanks to a heroine called Bunny, and well photographed, well scrubbed up young ladies doing full frontal nudity, in scenes that seem right out of Hef's mag.

Having caused a ruckus in the Whitehouse, American sex kitten Bunny O'Hara (Christina Hart) is deported to a British girls school run by puritanical, sex hating lesbians. Bunny's nemesis at the school, Miss Grimm, is played by Eunice Black, perhaps best remembered by British viewers as 'Mavis' Mum' the battleaxe who puts paid to Stan Butler's sex plans in Holiday on the Buses (1973). Black's character proves less of an opponent for Bunny, who is soon encouraging the other repressed girls at the school into a full on, not to mention full frontal, revolution at the school. Mainly by streaking at the school's pool and making out with a team of male basketball players. Now, would a stuffy 1970s British girls school really be holding a basketball game? probably not, but then again more traditional British sports like football and hockey wouldn't have made the girls' breasts bounce as much.

After Bunny and several of her cohorts escape the school, Games Girls Play appears to ape the format of Val Guest's Au Pair Girls, as each of the girls go off on their own individual sexploits in London. Christine (Jill Damas) makes a play for Chien (Kristopher Kum) the star player of Red China's visiting table tennis team. Only to discover his English is limited to "thank you", saying that the sight of Jill Damas in the nude certainly is something to be thankful for. 

Jackie Parker (Jane Anthony) ends up naked and cossack dancing for Russian buffoon Ivor Krashneff (Steve Plytas). Salina Barker-Jones (Drina Pavlovic) wants to lose her cherry to mature American diplomat Dr Wolfgang Meyer (Murray Kash) while Bunny herself seemingly sets her sights on Prince Charles (yes, he was once considered shaggable material). However, presumably in the name of international relations, Prince Charles is never mentioned by name, depicted onscreen and always manages to be one step ahead of Bunny's advances. Given that she is meant to be 17, maybe Bunny would have had more success pursuing Prince Andrew (just saying...).

Sexually inept, comedy foreigners are the main target for the girls, and the filmmakers, here. Although tellingly the only American in the girls' sights, the Kissinger esque Dr Meyer is depicted as an empathetic, charming and appropriate love interest for a girl who is half his age...a bit of a give away that this film was itself made by mature American men.

In light of current events though, the ending of Games Girls Play (in which Bunny and her American ambassador father are shipped off to Afghanistan) isn't aging too well.