Among the species of rare and exotic animal life running loose in the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France are... well, Five Wild Girls. Tough, sexy, and searching for buried treasure, the most dominant of these creatures is Isabelle, a rifle-toting butch lesbian who fires her shotgun as frequently as the average person blinks. With a chip on her shoulder and an ammo belt around her waist, Isabelle is obsessed with finding a cache of gold hidden in a 9-mile area by Allied paratroopers during World War II. Accompanying her is sister Jenny, a sex-crazed sex kitten who’d much rather sunbathe topless, drive her tiny sports convertible to the edge of a nearby cliff, and make out with Blackie, a gypsy hunk from the nearby village, than search for gold. Submissively tagging along with both is Isabelle’s girl-toy Sylvia, a pretty, sexually confused young virgin who may really prefer men but is too afraid to actually let one kiss her. All three “little sluts” have descended upon the sprawling farm of alcoholic old Aunt Martha who, apparently, knows where the “cursed” gold is buried but won’t tell. Things are further complicated when another set of sexy sisters -- knife-wielding Viola and bubble-headed Agnes -- also crash at Aunt Martha’s in an attempt to get to the fortune first. Worse for Isabelle, both Blackie and George (an engineer digging a canal through the mountainside) aggressively pursue Sylvia. In fact, Blackie goes so far as to the poor girl: “I’m so ashamed!” It all goes boom in a violent climax featuring cousin vs. cousin, sister vs. sister, Blackie vs. George, and Aunt Martha vs. them all.... A hot and sweaty little potboiler, Five Wild Girls is less interested in its story than it is in watching its women fight, prowl, manipulate men, and (our favorite) writhe topless on the ground in the moonlight. Though Five Wild Girls almost plays like a Euro-trash version of Russ Meyer’s 1965 classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, it was actually made first and released in France in 1964 (though it didn’t reach the U.S. until STAN BORDEN released it through his American Film Distribution Corp. in 1966). And while we doubt Meyer either saw it or was influenced by it, the similarities are nonetheless striking. In fact, Five Wild Girls often plays like a blueprint for the Meyer film, despite its not being as comically over-the-top. Director MAX PECAS churned out sexploitation films (and even a couple of hardcore ones) for over twenty years. His résumé includes the early Elke Sommers vehicles Daniella by Night (’61) and Sweet Ecstasy (’62), the Cresse-released Heat of Midnight (’65) and The Slave (’67), as well as The Erotic Touch of Hot Skin (’63), Her and She and Him (’69), I Am a Nymphomaniac (’70), and even a surprisingly nasty 1985 police thriller, Brigade des Moeurs. Though Pécas is barely known over here, he’s as “cult” as the rest of them. From the 35mm negative that asks the important question: “How do you expect to do anything serious with your skirts always up in the air?!” #6501 -- Watson Pritchard

SKU: 3829
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1966
Color: B&W
Starring: Jacqueline Wolff
Co-starring: Jeannie Peterson
Directed by: Max Pecas